Belfast west

New Language Loading

Extramural ActivityLeave a comment
03403 2016-04-21 Whiterock Biodh Gaeilge+

Above is a pro-Gaelic (Irish-language) mural on the Whiterock Road, with signs in Irish being held by young people protesting cuts to social services (on the left) and (on the right) a short poem: “Tá Fraıncıs ag na Francaıgh/Tá Gréıgıs ann sa Ghréıg/Tá Iodáıl[ı]s ag na hIodálaıgh/Bíodh Gaeılge ag na Gaeıl.” That is: the French have French, the Greeks Greek, the Italians Italian; let there be Irish for the Irish.

The mural has been in this (unfinished?) state since October, 2015. Loading? The third line in fact has initial “L”s rather than “I”, which suggests — if a fada is added over the “o”s and the final “s” removed from “Lodáıls” — “the loaders have loading“

Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2016 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X03403 irish language we love our services is grá lınn ár seırbhısí ní neart go cur le chéıle

St. Comgall’s

Extramural ActivityLeave a comment
03388-2016-04-08-st-comgalls-1

St. Comgall’s Primary school on Divis Street opened in 1932 and closed in 1988. Here are two of the boards which currently decorate its boarded-up front windows. Above, St. Malachy’s Scout Pipe Band parades its way through the school yard. (If you know anything about the pipe band or the competition it is going to, please leave a comment.) Below, a céılí mór from 1969 is taking place. The school’s location at the bottom of Percy Street put it at the centre of events in 1969 as west Belfast tore itself apart.

03389-2016-04-08-st-comgalls-2

Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2016 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X03388 X03389

The Seven Signatories

Extramural ActivityLeave a comment
03371 2016-04-07 Cead Bliain Signatories+

The seven signatories of the 1916 Proclamation of the provisional government of the Irish Republic. From left to right: Joseph Plunkett, Sean MacDiarmada, Thomas Clarke, James Connolly, Padraig Pearse, Éamonn Ceannt, Thomas MacDonagh.

The wide shot below shows all three new Andersonstown murals featured this week. For the main mural, see The Undauntable Thought; for the lily, see Ag Fíorú Na Poblachta.

03375 2016-04-07 Cead Bliain w+

Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2016 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X03371 X03375 south link

The Undauntable Thought

Extramural ActivityLeave a comment
03374 2016-04-07 Cead Bliain+

A succession of Irish rebels is shown in this new mural in Andersonstown, west Belfast. It begins (top left) with the rebellion of 1798 and then to the Easter Rising of 1916 at the GPO in Dublin. In the lower left, a pious Padraıg Pearse awaits his execution with rosary beads in hand. There are then shown female figures from Cumann Na mBán and the IRA (see previously: United Irishwomen, Do You Care? and Mothering Sunday In Beechmount), and then Maıréad Farrell in Armagh Women’s Prison (for the original, see Prison Walls). In the bottom right corner there is a blanketman. The busts of Bobby Sands and Joe McDonnell float above the GPO and the last verse of Sands’s The Rhythm Of Time form the epigraph: “It lights the dark of this prison cell, it thunders forth its might, it is the undauntable thought, my friend, the thought that says, “I’m right”.

03373 2016-04-07 Cead Bliain Pearse+

Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2016 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X03374 X03373 south link 1916 2016 centenary irish republic unbowed unbroken

Neither King Nor Kaiser

Extramural ActivityLeave a comment
03361 2016-04-04 Connolly House 2016+

Connolly House – Belfast headquarters of Sınn Féın – for the centenary of the Easter Rising bears the same banner as flew on the ITGWU’s Liberty Hall (in Dublin) during the first world war (see image below) until the building was destroyed during the Rising: We serve neither king nor kaiser, but Ireland! The house was purchased by Sınn Féın in 1983 and brought to its current condition in 2007 (Irish Times).

For a previous appearance of the slogan, on the shirts of a Glasgow flute band, see Business As Usual.

Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2016 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X03361 andersonstown road

National Liberation And Socialism

Extramural ActivityLeave a comment
03352 2016-04-01 IRSP INLA 1916-2016+

A 1916 centenary mural on Divis Street with the red star of socialism and the Easter lily of Irish nationalism: “Republican Socialist movement — IRSP INLA — remembers and salutes all those who gave their lives and liberty in the struggle for national liberation and socialism in Ireland.”

Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2016 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X03352

The Evolution Of Our Revolution

Extramural ActivityLeave a comment
03350 2016-03-31 Evolution Of Revolution+

A history of nationalism/republicanism from left to right: a pair of Easter lilies, four generations of rifles, and then a switch to a ballot paper with a check in favour of “unity” and a road named “Unity Way”: “From bullet to ballot: the evolution of our revolution. 1916 – 2016”

This mural is on the north side of Hugo Street – the south side remains exclusively éırígí.

X06994 2020-02-14 Evol Revol d+

Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2020 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X03350 X06994 harp

Business As Usual

Extramural ActivityLeave a comment
03351 Easter Rising Centenary Parade Shirt crop+

While taking part in the Easter Rising centenary parade, members of the James Connolly 1st Republican Flute Band from Glasgow (tw) pause on the Falls Road during a squall. Embroidered on the rear of their shirts are the words “We serve neither king nor kaiser, but Ireland”, the slogan which hung outside the ITGWU’s Liberty Hall during the first world war. Image courtesy of Bronagh Bowerman.

Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2016 Bronagh Bowerman
03351 tricolour plough stars