There are eyes everywhere in west Belfast.
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Copyright © 2014 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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Lookout
Belfast
The Belle Of Belfast
This Lesley Cherry mural in the Village area of Donegall Road shows a female figure sitting on a drum and holding one of the Harland & Wolff cranes in her hand.
Previously by Lesley Cherry: In The Crowd Of Thousands | Nothing About Us | I Am Not Resilient | Women’s Voices Matter | Only In The Movies | Coming Of Age In The Lower Shankill
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Copyright © 2015 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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We Need A Bonfire
A suggested cure for the winter-time blues, in waste ground off Milner Street: We need a bonfire. The pink plastic Barbie-mobile is not the best fuel.
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Copyright © 2015 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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The F-Bomb
Three F-bombs today in a concentrated package. Above we have the PSNI and the IRA combined into one (and next to a swastika, not shown) in Maladon Street, south Belfast. Below, we have “Fuck the TV man, part 3” in Roulston Street in Londonderry’s Waterside. And finally, there is is “Fuck DAAD fags” on the New Lodge Road in north Belfast. “DAAD” stands for “direct action against drugs”, a group which counted Kevin McGuigan and Jock Davison as members (both of whom were killed in a feud this summer) and now goes by “AAD”. (For AAD and the murders of Davison and McGuigan see Irish News | Belfast Telegraph | Guardian.)
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Copyright © 2015 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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Save The Shankill
Here is the second of two boards outside the Ulster Rangers Supporters Club (see also Doing Her Duty). The painting features a tram going under an Orange arch between the public baths on one side an Spin-A-Disc records on the other, surrounded by notable figures from the Shankill area.
Many thanks to Johnny Dougan of Shankill Area Social History (Fb) for the information below! Please e-mail or add a comment with additions or corrections.
Front, from left to right: Manchester United and Northern Ireland Soccer player Norman Whiteside (WP) and behind him boxer Davy Larmour and community worker Saidie Patterson (see WRDA), boxer Sammy (Cisco) Cosgrove, Senator Charlie McCullough (WP), Tommy Henderson, boxer Jimmy Warnock (original photograph here), Hugh Smyth (see previously Third Class Citizens), artist William Conor (see previously Conor’s Corner, Jack Henning (running), musician Belter Bell, writer Albert Haslett (Northern Visions interview).
Atop the tram: on the left is Jackie Redpath of the Save the Shankill Campaign (note other members of the group with placard on right; Northern Visions has a documentary about the Save The Shankill campaign) and Jack Higgins holding his book The Eagle Has Landed (WP). Up there too is Miss Sands, the music teacher in the Girls Model School, and historian Bobby Foster (Northern Visions interview). On the stairs are May Blood MBE and above her D.I. Nixon.
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Copyright © 2015 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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Doing Her Duty
Here is a board from outside the Ulster Rangers Supporters Club (Fb) on the Shankill Road. It highlights the roles played by women during WWI as nurses and welders and in the Land Army. “She hasn’t a sword and she hasn’t a gun. But she’s doing her duty now fighting’s begun.”
The forces are shown gathered outside the West Belfast Orange Hall, on the Shankill at Brookmount Street.
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Copyright © 2015 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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The Monster Mash
More Halloween-themed art today, this time by Rich T and 45RPM (ig), two artists from Bristol who were over in Belfast for CNB15. They have mashed together a wide variety of spooky and frightening imagery, from bats, chains, and a bloody axe to webs, skeletons, and claws! Two close-ups are included and a full shot, below.
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Stop Wars Not People
The bombs of the US, NATO, and the EU drive fleeing refugees into a circle of barbed wire in this new mural on Beechmount Avenue: “Capitalism & imperialism created refugees! Syria • Iraq • Afghanistan • Libya … Stop wars not people!!!” A report in Saturday’s New York Times on the migrant crisis cites a June UN report when it asserts that “There are more displaced people and refugees now than at any other time in recorded history — 60 million in all”.
Previously: Refugees Welcome
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Hopewell Razed
The lower Shankill gable with the infamous UDU mural, with the gunman pointing at the viewer, has been razed. (Irish News article on what it calls the ‘Belfast Mona Lisa’.)
Compare this image with the one in Hopewell Gallery.
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Copyright © 2015 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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Duality
Here’s “Duality” by emic (Eoin McGinn Fb | web |Tw) in Belfast city centre – a young child with nose-ring and accompanying bird, mirrored in a prism of yellow light. For another emic bird, see We Borrow The Earth From Our Children.
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Copyright © 2015 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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Seosamh Mac Coille Collection 