Here is a final image from the new wall of Disney characters in the Slıabh Dubh estate. (See previously: Look Behind You | If The Shoe Fits.) On Aladdin‘s magic carpet we have Princess Jasmine, Abu the monkey, and Iago the parrot, while on the stairs is Esmerelda (from The Hunchback of Notre Dame) and between them is The Owl from Sleeping Beauty. At the bottom we have Minnie Mouse, Figaro (from Pinocchio and also Minnie’s pet cat), and Daisy Duck.
Two wide shots can be found below. The first shows the entirety of the wall, the second shows (some of) the adjacent wall of superheroes. All 11 current Disney princesses are included, as well as the sisters Elsa and Anna from Frozen.
Disney’s The Jungle Book is featured in this new kids mural in New Barnsley/Moyard, with Flunkey the langur (above), with from right to left, Kaa the python, (Dumbo), Shere Khan the Bengal tiger, Buzzie & Dizzie two of the four vultures (based on that other Fab Four, the Beatles (Disney Wiki)), Hathi and Junior the elephants,(Bambi) and the three wolf pups who grow up with Mowgli.
As the wide shot (last image, below) shows, politics is never very far away: there is pro-Hamas graffiti on the pavement. Write-up of the launch.
“End partition” was the message on the mountain (Black Mountain/Slıabh Dubh) last week, shown here between Clonard Monastery on the left (where the Hume-Adams talks took place in 1988 and 1993) and the Cupar Way “peace” line on the right.
“This poppy cross is in memory of the two men murdered at this spot by a no warning sectarian IRA bomb attack on the Four Step Inn public house on 29th September 1971.” The two men were Alexander Andrews (60) and Ernest Bates (38) (CAIN). A similar cross was also erected further down the Shankill, at the former site of Frizzell’s Fishmongers, bombed in 1993. Both attacks are among the five Shankill bombings commemorated in Where Is Our Truth?
Milltown Cemetery contains what appear to be three large, unused, spaces (see the second and third images, below). They are in fact the Poor Grounds, mass graves of those unable to afford an individual grave. The plaque shown above puts their number at 65,000; WP puts it at 80,000. (The total number buried is about 200,000.) They include victims of typhus in the 1870s, and of the great influenza pandemic of 1918-1919. There is more information at CultureNI and Milltown Cemetery.Tom Hartley’s book on Milltown was released by Blackstaff Press last year (2014).
“Public Sections 24, 27 & 33, opened November 1869, closed January 1937, hold the remains of 65,000 men, women and children. Rannóga pobıl 24, 27 & 33 fosclaíodh é Samhaın 1869, druıdeadh é Eanáır 1937. Istıgh tá 65,000 corp d’fhır, mhná agus de pháıstí. Requiescant in pace.”
Above is an RNU board from Lenadoon, protesting against the police system and an alleged identity of the PSNI, the Orange Order and loyal paramilitaries. (See previously: Trinity)
“No political policing. No special powers. No daily armed raids. No daily harassment. No PSNI in our schools. No MI5. No £10 tours. No interment [sic].”
The board dates from 2012 (eleven years after the PSNI’s creation and five years after Sınn Féın’s acceptance of the PSNI) but is no longer present.
“Take It Down From The Mast” is a song accusing pro-treaty forces (at the time of the Irish Civil War) of being unworthy to fly the Irish tricolour (WP). Someone in west Belfast feels the same way about “Flash”, Sınn Féın councillor Jim McVeigh, who tried asked for a Tricolour flying at a Springfield Road Council dump to be removed in October (2014), and calls him an “Irish traitor”.
Here are two boards from outside the Spectrum Centre on the Shankill Road. “The baby survived, his mummy and daddy didn’t. Joyriding: Where’s the joy?”. (A similar board is at the junction of Whiterock and Springfield Roads and another in Duncairn Avenue). The board below features youth activities such as painting, martial arts, and DJing.
The Disney princesses (Snow White and Princess Anna, the younger sister from Frozen) are being watched, not just by the wicked witch, but by the communications tower on the Springfield Road barracks. There are two close-ups below, one of Ariel and Snow White, the second of Anna. The mural is new work by a local artist and local children in the Slıabh Dubh estate.
Last Saturday (2014-11-08) saw the launch of a new mural in Ballymurphy Crescent, celebrating local IRA volunteers and community workers.
The doves at the top of the mural are in the style of Robert Ballagh’s “Legacy Of The Hunger Strikes” though there are 12 doves here rather than 10. Marty Lyons holds a copy of Ballagh’s piece in an image below, along with an image on which the halberd and pistol around the beret and gloves in the bottom of the mural are based – the rifles of the original are absent. (Possibly by Patrick Magee, the Brighton bomber (WP) – please confirm by e-mail or comment.)
Left-hand portraits (counter-clockwise from top): Eileen Gray, Margaret Campbell, Annie Adams, Kathleen Moore, Lizzie McGivern, Joe Reid, Rosaleen Russell, Mary Armstrong, Agnes Robinson, Eileen Reid.
Standing (l-r): Fra Toner, Gerry Campbell, Liam Mulholland, Paddy Tier, Sean Connolly, Michael Kane, Liam McParland, Sean Doyle, Cllr. Sean Keenan, Pat McGeown.
Squatting/Kneeling (l-r): Jim McGrillen, Francis Toner, Jr., Jimmy Duffy, Tony McAlister, Billy Carson, Cormac McArt.
The main figure is (and remains from the previous mural) Tommy “Toddler” Tolan, who escaped from the Maidstone in 1972 and served time in the cages at Long Kesh. (See Lost Lives entry #1956 and An Phoblacht.) In the original (2001) version of the ‘Safe House’ mural, he was dressed in fatigues (image at CAIN), but this was changed within 18 months to a brown suit (Safe House | CAIN), similar to the way he is portrayed here.
The mural took some time to complete — the fifth image, below, shows one of the artists on a scaffold with #stoptorycuts on Slıabh Dubh in mid-October — partly because more and more figures were added.
Update 2014-11-26: In an unusual move, the launch of the mural was advertised by a board (rather than flyers), in this case at Dorothy Maguire Corner on the Whiterock Road – see the final image, below.
Seosamh Mac Coille Collection 