Like a phoenix. This is part of a new (as yet incomplete) RNU (Republican Network For Unity) mural at the corner of Northumberland Street and Divis Street.
Previously: Just As Good As Others
Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2014 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X01765
Electioneering is under way in Northern Ireland, ahead of the local and European parliament elections on May 22nd. Above is a stencil in Hugo Street drumming up support for independent (socialist) Ciarán Mulholland. “Think independently, vote independent. Neamhspleách/Independent candidate for the black mountain ward. The political parties have failed the people of west Belfast. Have your say and change things.”
Replaces the Bleeding Poppy
Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2014 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X01760
Mothering Sunday 2014 was yesterday, Sunday March 30th. On Saturday, when this image was taken, menfolk were out and about tracking down flowers and chocolates. This week also happens to be the one-hundredth anniversary (“céad blıaın”) of the founding of Cumann Na mBan on April 2nd, 1914, and it is being commemorated in various ways, including a new mural on Ascaıll Ard na bhFeá/Beechmount Avenue.
Cumann Na mBan was the women’s division of the Irish Volunteers and is best remembered for its role in the Easter Rising of 1916. Its members were involved in the occupation of many locations. Some, including (non-combatant) Winifred Carney, were in the GPO, while Countess Markievicz, the main figure of the mural, was in St. Stephen’s Green. (Here is an RTÉ gallery of vintage photographs, including one of Markievicz surrendering.)
The letters “Cnamb” on a rifle formed the badge of Cumann Na mBan. The Irish “Ní saoırse go saoırse na mban” means “No freedom until the freedom of women”. Below are an ‘in-progress’ shot from last week; and a close-up of the finished mural. Below these is a plain shot of the full mural.
Replaces the Fıanna Éıreann centenary, 1909-2009, in which Countess Markievicz was also featured.
Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2014 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X01752 X01754 X01751 X01753 lizzy cleary
April 24th, 1916 is the date of the commencement of the Easter Rising. The left-hand side of the building on the eastern corner of the Falls Road and Ascaıll Ard Na bhFeá (Beechmount Avenue) is a memorial to Republicans from County Antrim from 1798 to 1966 – when the ‘County Antrim Memorial’ was raised in Milltown on the 50th anniversary of the Easter Rising – and beyond; it is pictured in the lower right, a large cross-shaped monument. Tom Williams (WP), an IRA volunteer who was executed during the Northern Campaign (during the second world war) and is buried in the plot, is mentioned specifically on the headstone in the lower left.
The right-hand side – the Cumman Na mBan centenary – was recorded previously.
Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2012 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X01755 X05191
A pig on a scooter. A disembodied head of Jesus of Nazareth (seen previously in One Love). And (below) the Springfield Road “peace” line.
Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2014 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X01749 X01750
Martin O’Neill takes Neil Lennon home after his haircut at Hoops Barbers on the Falls Road. Both are from Northern Ireland – Lennon is originally from Lurgan, O’Neill from Kilrea. O’Neill was manager of Glasgow Celtic when Lennon was a player. O’Neill now manages the Republic of Ireland squad and Lennon is now (since 2010) manager of Celtic.
Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2014 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X01746
The Rebel’s Rest /Scíth An Reıbılúnaıgh pub on the Falls at Cupar Street Lower has closed and been sold.
Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2014 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X01744 X01743
This printed tarp on the side of the Falls Road commemorates the ten 1981 hunger strikers (along with Frank Stagg, Michael Gaughan, Nora Connolly, and Maıréad Farrell, paired with international figures Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Leonard Peltier, and Nelson Mandela) and features a verse from a Bobby Sands poem The Crime Of Castlereagh: “All things must come to pass as one/So hope should never die/There is no height or bloody might/That a freeman can’t defy./There is no source or foreign force/Can break one man who knows,/That his free will no thing can kill/And from that freedom grows.”
This tarp, which is 20′ x 20′, was printed from Mo Chara’s original 8′ x 8′ painting; it was also printed on a 30′ x 30′ tarp in New York. For all three, see the Chronological Catalogue of Mo Chara’s works.
Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2014 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X01742 freedom saoırse easter lily an róısín roısín dubh mahatma gandhi MLK martin luther king nelson mandela fuıseog barbed wire their cause is ours dedicated brave irish sacrificed
The Falls Road library is a ‘Carnegie Library’ (WP) – built with almost 4,000 pounds donated by Scotland-born American Andrew Carnegie. It opened on January 2nd, 1908, the second of three such libraries in Belfast, alongside Oldpark and Donegall Road. Its doors feature these two pieces by Holywood artist Rosamund Praeger: Art, seen here holding an artist’s palette – and Literature, seen below reading a folio. Art and Literature also take the form of angels, along with a third muse, Science, in the stonework above the doors.
Video history of the library from Northern Visions.
Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2014 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X01740 X01741
This mural in the Glen Colin estate, just off the Glen Road, shows The Roddy’s club (in white) with the hunger striker memorial in the shape of a harp in front (shown in the image below) and the St. Oliver Plunkett church, which is in fact on the other (southern) side of the Glen Road, with the twin peaks of Divis and Black Mountain in the background. The Bobby Sands quote “Our revenge will be the laughter of our children” is at the bottom.
Previously featured: The Battle Of Antrim in the grounds of The Roddy’s.
Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2014 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X01739 X01758 volunteers irish freedom hughes mccreesh o’hara mcdonnell doherty lynch hurson mcelwee devine mccorley
Seosamh Mac Coille Collection 