Three more pieces from this summer’s Chalk Art And Community Festival in east Belfast.
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A Long Chalk
Belfast
Fife And Drum
Here is one of the pieces from the East Belfast Chalk Art and Community Festival that took place on July 9th: a parade of five, with fife and drum.
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Alternative Ulster
“Where is our Alternative Ulster?” Alternative Ulster was a fanzine (Fb | Musical Revolutions) and later a magazine (Issuu) and radio show covering the Belfast music and arts scene until March 2012; the name was then used for the Stiff Little Fingers’ song (youtube) in 1978.
By Verz (Fb) and Belfast One (web) in Fountain Street, Belfast.
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Republican Prisoners Still Exist!
“Foremost in my tortured mind is the thought that there can never be peace in Ireland until the foreign, oppressive British presence is removed, leaving all the Irish people as a unit to control their own affairs and determine their own destinies as a sovereign people, free in mind and body, separate and distinct physically, culturally and economically.” The quote is from day one of Bobby Sands’s hunger strike diary (March 1st, 1981) and the photograph is a 2007 image of a cell in the H-4 (Irish Times).
“Maghaberry – Portlaoise – Hydebank. Republican prisoners still exist!” IRPWA (web) board on Divis St, Belfast, replacing the Sands & Hughes mural – see Caırde Agus Comrádaıthe.
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Our Day Will Come
“Either ballot or gun, our day will come – PIRA.” This graffiti dates back to at least 1998 (see C01268) and probably to the breakdown of the ceasefire in 1996; the same slogan was present in Wall St (Carrick Hill) in 1996. It is still visible on the Falls Road in 2022.
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The Cost Of Surviving
“Cost of living? Cost of surviving! It’s not a ‘cost of living crisis’, it’s capitalism. Join the fight for a socialist republic – LasairDhearg“. The inflation hit 9.4% in June (ONS), including higher costs for energy, while BP last week reported profits of 6.9 billion pounds (iNews).
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Mıse Éıre
Mıse Éıre (short for ‘Is mıse Éıre’ [I am Ireland]) is a short poem by Patrick Pearse in which Mother Ireland speaks of her glories and sufferings. The un-partitioned Ireland (though with the flags of the four provinces in the corners) is used here by Sınn Féın Poblachtach (web) to call for unification of “the whole people of Ireland … Protestant, Catholic, and Dissenter” [Wolfe Tone, from his autobiography].
The poem also appears in a Derry mural from the 1980s and a current New Lodge GAA mural.
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Warning – Déjà Vu Zone
One row of street art around a construction site might look much like another, but do not be alarmed – this is your first time in Kent Street, Belfast.
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Big Babes
This Wee Nuls piece is a commercial piece for Rapyd (tw). The tattoos on the bodies represent local independent businesses Seedhead Arts, Fresh Garbage, the Sunflower bar, PaperxClips, and Bullhouse East.
The middle image shows Wee Nuls being interviewed for a Rapyd short.
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Stigma Breakers & Law Makers
This is Wee Nuls’s (web | ig) street art celebrating the success of the ‘menstruation matters’ (ig) campaign for free period products and the passage of the Period Products Bill.
The piece is perhaps a “gremlin” self-portrait in the style of Mr Blonde/Vic Vega. It was painted for HTN22 in the spot below Transport House where her original version of Free Period Items was painted and blacked out. (It was then repainted at Artcetra.) To the left is Claire Prouvost’s tribute to women workers of the world and to left is a Unity (union) hoarding: Workers Of The World Unite.
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Seosamh Mac Coille Collection 