Belfast

Mountain Stage

Extramural ActivityLeave a comment
2014-05-09 FineDominioBrit+

The Giro d’Italia (Tour Of Italy) got off to a rainy start in Belfast yesterday (Friday May 9th, 2014) with a team time-trial. While there was talk in February of removing not just election posters (BBC) but also flags and murals (BBC), and the tourist board and Department of Enterprise hopes that spectacular scenes (through the rain) from the north Antrim coast will recoup the cost of hosting the event (4.2M in total), republicans took to the slopes of Slıabh Dubh to greet Italian visitors and perhaps viewers with “Fine Dominio Britannico” (“End British Rule”), and loyalists held what the Tele describes as a “protest march”, setting off this morning at the same time as the second stage – around the Antrim coast – got under way (Parades Commission on the Ligoniel Combine).

Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2014 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X01865 black mountain cycling

In-Former Republicans

Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

“In-Former Republicans – Boston College touts – McIntyre”. The graffiti refers to the Boston College oral history project, directed by Ed Moloney and involving former IRA volunteer Anthony McIntyre (who now writes at The Pensive Quill), a collection of interviews of former members of paramilitary groups (on both sides) between 2001-2006, some of which the PSNI gained access to after legal action and which are reported to have formed the basis of Gerry Adams’s interrogation (see Get The Real Story). More background from the BBC.

For legal commentary, see Folkman Law.

Wall Street, Carrick Hill, west Belfast. The same graffiti appeared on Divis Street.

Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2014 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X02461 X05317

Romanian Housebreakers Beware

Extramural Activity4 Comments
2014-05-08 Romanian+

Graffiti in The Village area (south Belfast). The precise reason for the graffiti is unknown (leave a comment/e-mail if you know). Romanians were in the first wave of European immigration to Northern Ireland and came under attack especially in 2009.  More recently, a Romanian had faeces thrown at him last week (BelTel) and attacks against immigrants, Poles in particular, have been on the rise in recent months. The latest is this attack (Tele) on a family in Templemore Avenue and an attack by a gang of fifteen people (Guardian). Last week saw “Locals only/Get out!” graffiti in east Belfast (U.tv – includes video| The Journal) and south Belfast (NewsLetter). Last year, “No blacks” graffiti was directed at two Nigerians, also in east Belfast (BBC). The Polish envoy has expressed his concerns to the PSNI (Guardian | IrishNews).

Previously: Never Actually Existed

Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2014 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X01861

Their Name Liveth For Evermore

Extramural ActivityLeave a comment
2014-05-08 No4Platoon+

Four generations of headgear and rifles, from 1912 to the present, are featured in this new UVF board in Glenwood Street. A portion of the previous No. 4 Platoon ‘graveyard scene’ mural it replaces can be seen in the top right, with black figures superimposed. The title of the post, which comes from Ecclesiasticus 44, appears on the accompanying info panel along with a verse from Laurence Binyon’s poem For The Fallen. The fourth verse of Binyon’s poem is more often quoted, as in What Do We Forget When We Remember and At The Going Down Of The Sun.

2014-05-08 No4Info+

Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2014 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X01860 X01859 for god and ulster dedicated to the memory of fall officers NCOs volunteers number 4 platoon a company 1st belfast battalion ulster volunteer force names and deeds are eternally venerated by their comrades in arms who continue to serve humbly in their honour they went with songs to battle they were young straight of limb true of eyes steady and aglow they remained staunch to the end against odds uncounted they fell with their faces to the foe their name liveth for

Welcome To Our Park

Extramural ActivityLeave a comment
2014-05-07 WhitewellMid+

“Welcome to our park – Whitewell says “no” to racism.” Above is a detail from a new mural by Lucas Quigley showing children of different ethnicities playing together. The children are also cross-community: the two central figures are wearing Cliftonville and Crusaders kits – two rival north Belfast teams.

Previously: Cliftonville: The Red Army | Crusaders: The Hatchet Men, All Ireland Champions

2014-05-07 WhitewellRight+

2014-05-07 WhitewellWide+

Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2014 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X01858 X01856 X01857 coıste na nıarchımí/Tar Isteach

Roads Through Life

Extramural ActivityLeave a comment
14 05 06 North7Children+

“Pathways through childhood – Sweet childish that were as long as twenty days are now.” The good old days in south Belfast and its streets are remembered in these three panels from the Donegall Road railway bridge.

“Sam Boyd, 1907-1984 – the man with poetry in his soul.” “South Belfast folk poet.”

The “Streets of dreams”, some of them no longer in existence, are: Coolderry, Coolbeg, Coolfin, Fortuna, Egeria, Daphine, Pandora, Euterpe, Thalia, Coolmore, Abingdon, Colchester, Barrington, Empire, Maldon, Utility, Rydalmere, Rockland, Kitchener, Nubia, Soudan, Kilburn, Benburb, Ebor, Lecale, Moltke, Roden, Tavanagh, Rockview, Monarch Parade, Donegall Avenue.

These are seventh, eighth, and tenth panels on the north side of the bridge; for the other panels on this (north) side of the road, see also:

The Harvest of Love (1 & 9)
Those Days Are Over (2)
A Woman’s Place Is Everywhere (3)
The Thread Of History (4)
For Me There Will Be No More War (5)
In The Wars (6)
Roads Through Life (7, 8, 10)

X01842 2014-05-06 North8SamBoyd+

14 05 06 North10Streets+

Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2014 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X01841 X01834 X01842

Surviving The Titanic

Extramural ActivityLeave a comment
2014-05-06 South5Titanic+

Here are two final images from the south side of the Donegall Road bridge over the Victoria Street line, one about Titanic and the other about locals awarded the MBE.

“I was in Lifeboat 13. I always remember that. My father was waving to us and talking to a clergyman, the Rev. Carter. The Titanic went in the ice and I heard three bangs. Before we hit, there had been terrific vibrations from the engines during the night as the ship was really racing over the sea. As the lifeboat pulled away we heard cries from the people left on the Titanic and in the water and explosions in the ship. There were lots of bodies floating … We were in the lifeboat nine hours. I kept looking in the water for my father and when we reached New York we went to the hospitals to see if he had been picked up.” Mrs. Charlotte Collier

How many people survived the Titanic is one of the most frequently asked questions regarding the history of this legendary ship. Of the 2,228 passengers and crew members who set sail, only 705 survived the Titanic.

See previously: Titanic Lifeboat | The Titanic Story and various other Titanic murals

1. Belfast Blitz #2
2 & 10. The Thread Of History (weavers)
3 & 9. Work Organises Life
4. In The Wars (Korea)
5  & 8. Surviving The Titanic
6. The Door Opens And Lets The Future In (Carnegie Library)
7. The Beautiful Blues (Linfield football)

2014-05-06 South8Choice+

2014-05-06 South+

Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2014 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X01850 X01853 X01844 disaster great loss of life buckingham palace “Being a man or a women is a matter of birth. Being a man or women who makes a different is a matter of choice.” Tommy Wilson, MBE – for service to the community; Rita Mills MBE – for service to the civil service

A Woman’s Place Is Everywhere

Extramural ActivityLeave a comment
2014-05-06 North3Women+

“The test for whether or not you can hold a job should not be the arrangement of your chromosomes. A women is the full circle. Within her is the power to create, nurture and transform. Women who seek to be equal with men lack ambition.” This past Saturday (2015-03-08) was International Women’s Day. The board above (on one of the Donegall Road bridges) features the Westinghouse ‘We Can Do It!’ poster (often mistaken for Rosie The Riveter) (WP) though here with a women’s liberation badge on her collar (shown in large size on the right). She is between images of women at work. See also: The Home Front.

X06623 2019-06-11 We Can Do It+

Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2014/2019 Extramural Activity
X01837 X06623 funded by the northern ireland executive delivered through the department of social development neighbourhood partnership

Those Days Are Over

Extramural ActivityLeave a comment
2014-05-06 Suffragettes+

“Women have been trained to speak softly and carry a lipstick. Those days are over.” (Bella Abzug).

Above is a board on the Donegall Road bridge showing women drumming up an audience for a suffragette meeting in the Ulster Hall in November 1912. The image in the bottom right is of Emmeline Pankhurst being arrested in London in 1914; the top image is of Pankhurst on tour in the US in 1913 (LoC; see Pieces Of History for a description of the tour; she gave a speech entitled ‘Freedom Or Death’). Pankhurst spoke in Belfast at the 1912 meeting, though the speakers advertised on the placards are “Mrs Charlotte Despard, Miss Irene Miller, Mrs Edith How-Martyn, Miss Alison Neilans“.

The first suffrage group in Ireland was the North Of Ireland Women’s Suffrage Society, founded in Belfast in 1872 by Isabella Tod.

See also Belfast’s Infamous Prison for information about suffragettes held in Crumlin Road Gaol.

Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2014 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X01836 ulster hall meeting monday nov 25