City/Town

It Is Better For Men To Fight And Die

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03723 2016-08-06 Casement1+

Shown above is the first of three new boards at Casement Park in west Belfast, named for Roger Casement. Working for the British Colonial Services, Roger Casement wrote extensive reports on the abuse of indigenous people in Congo Free State (1904) and in Peru (1910).

In Congo Free State, King Leopold II of Belgium was using a private force to suppress the locals while extracting rubber; Casement’s report (archive.org) led to the Belgian government taking over Leopold’s operation and creating the Belgian Congo.

In Peru, Casement investigated abuses against the Putumayo indians at the hands of the Peruvian Amazon Company. As a result of his report, the PAC gradually lost business and folded. (WP) Casement was knighted in 1911 for his human-rights work, though this title would be stripped shortly before his execution.

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X03723 Andersonstown Rd

We Are One

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03719 2016-08-04 LoveWins H_W+

In addition to the ‘Love Wins’ paste-up (recorded separately), Joe Caslin and photographer Matthew Thompson (web) took photos of members of the LGBTQ community for an installation on Hill Street just below the mural. “We are one” is the theme of the festival this year, “which looks to celebrate the concept of family and the wider support network of those in the LGBTQ community.”

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03720 2016-08-04 LoveWins info+

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X03719 X03718 X03720 Hill Street diversity inclusivity smirnoff

Love Wins

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03716 2016-08-04 Caslin Kiss d+

Same-sex marriages took place for the first time in England, Wales, and Scotland in 2014 (and last month on the Isle of Man (BBC-NI)) but they remain illegal in Northern Ireland. Shown here are two images of Roscommon artist Joe Caslin’s massive paste-up in Hill Street, showing a Northern Ireland couple “Charlene & Sharon” (Tw) who went to the U.S. in order to marry, and a companion piece to his piece in George’s Street South in Dublin, showing two men. The parade of Belfast’s Pride festival takes place today.

03715 2016-08-04 Caslin Kiss+

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Willowbank Huts

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X03714 2016-08-04 IntWall2016 Willowbank Huts+

The old military huts at Willow Bank (or: Willowbank; the modern-day La Salle/Iveagh area on the Falls) – which were still in use in 1896 – provided a training ground for Cumann Na mBan and the Irish Volunteers in the run-up to the Easter Rising.

The small figures between the huts and the trainees in the foreground are Charlie Monahan (born in Ballymacarrett, raised in the Markets, who died in a car accident on the way to meet Casement’s arms on board the Aud (findagrave | An Phoblacht)), Manus O’Boyle (BMH witness statement), Jack White (who fought for Britain in the second Boer War and was later captain in the Irish Citizen Army (WP)), and Volunteer Sean O’Neill.

03738 2016-08-09 IntWall2016 Vols Willowbank+

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X03714 X03738 Divis St

Pearse Surrenders To The Developers

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03704 2016-08-03 Seany+

In January (2016) a stencil like the one above appeared in Moore Street, Dublin. Moore Street was the place of the last stand of the Easter Rising after the GPO caught fire and campaigners were thus fighting to save it from redevelopment (Irish Times). (Moore Street’s future is still uncertain at this time, late summer 2016.)

The stencil is based on a photograph of Padraig Pearse and Elizabeth O’Farrell surrendering to the British General Lowe. The piece was ‘signed’ by Banksy, though it was immediately suspected to be not by Banksy, as he had not signed any pieces for some years, and indeed, Banksy denied that it was his (e.g. Irish Times) and Will St Ledger wished that the artist had had the confidence to claim it as their own (RTÉ).

The artist was in fact Short Strand man Séan “Seany” McVeigh, who then died in June. In honour of his life, a fellow Short Strand resident (see second image, below) produced this version of McVeigh’s piece, with the name “Seany” proudly attached. (For his other “Banksy” see a Belfast version of Banksy’s Palestinian “peace” wall stencil.)

03705 2016-08-03 Seany DD+

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X03794 X03705

Shared Space

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03706 2016-08-03 IntWall2016 Public Meeting+

In addition to the defacing of Carson (see We Won’t Have Carson), a 32 County Sovereignty Movement mural remains about a quarter of the way along the newly repainted International Wall on Divis Street. (And as is covered in a separate entry, an IRPWA POW mural was in progress at the far right end of the wall.)

We understand that the painters offered to repaint the 32CSM mural after the historical mural had been in place for six months, but that this offer was turned down. For the purposes of the launch, then, a cloth sign, was hung over the 32CSM mural (as seen in the image above). It reproduces a poster (see the original) advertising “a public meeting for the formation of Irish Volunteers”; Eoin MacNeill, author in November 1913 of ‘The North Began’, presided at the meeting – here is the text of The North Began – and the newspaper carried by the hawker on the left reads “MacNeill successful in call for Irish Volunteers” (whereas it originally read “Rotunda rally – Irish volunteers now exceed 180,000” as can be seen in the Carson post). However, this cloth was removed immediately after the launch, meaning that the wall appears as in the image below.

03693 2016-08-01 IntWall2016 32CSM GunRunning+

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HMS Hawke

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03700 2016-08-02 HMS Hawke+

HMS Hawke was a Royal navy WWI cruiser sunk by German U-boat on October 1st, 1914. It was a training ship, which meant that among the 542 sailors who lost their lives on the Hawke, 75 of them were 16 year-old boys.

Five of the deceased were from the Donegall Road area. This is the first mural in south Belfast’s “Poppy Trail”; in addition to the Hawke, there will be a board for each year of the first world war, and perhaps others for WWII, on the streets off Donegall Road, from Barrington Gardens westward across into the Village.

03698 2016-08-02 HMS Hawke info+

03699 2016-08-02 HMS Hawke l+

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X03700 X03698 X03699 Barrington Gardens crawford dawson mills molloy thompson

Raising The Flag

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03694 2016-08-01 IntWall2016 1916+

For the centenary of the 1916 Easter Rising, the whole of the International Wall on Divis Street (or, almost the whole wall, as will be explained in a subsequent post) has been repainted to depict a history of Irish republicanism, with special attention given to connections to Belfast.

As might be expected, a panel of the new mural depicts the GPO of 1916. A Tricolour is thought to have been raised over the Henry Street corner of the GPO by Liverpudlian Joe Gleeson – he sports a Liver bird badge on his bandolier – though he does not mention this in his statement to the Bureau of Military History: “We started out from Kimmage about 60 strong at about ten o’clock that Easter Monday morning …”. (A flag of the Irish Republic was raised by Harry Walpole (Irish Times) or Eamon Bulfin (Collins 22 Society, which states that Gearóıd O’Sullivan raised the Tricolour; Bulfin’s statement to the BMH says Gleeson did so).) Gleeson was one of 50 fighters from the Liverpool Irish Volunteers. (Caırde Liverpool has the names of 38 volunteers from Merseyside; this BBC article contains photographic portraits of a number.) The image here is a modified version of the 1941 stamp designed by Victor Brown showing an armed volunteer outside the GPO (stampboards).

The Belfast connection in this panel is supplied by Winifred Carney, member of Cumann Na mBan, assistant to James Connolly from 1912 until the Rising, and part of the occupying forces in the GPO during the rising, “armed with a typewriter and a Webley” (according to her WP page). She is seen here (on the right, beneath the flag) typing up communications by candlelight in the GPO.

03675 2016-07-23 IntWall2016 1916 prog+

03667 2016-07-20 IntWall2016 1916 cartoon+

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Take The Hint

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03695 2016-08-01 Take The Hint+

A deal to end the standoff at Twaddell Avenue, where an Orange Order parade was stopped in 2013, fell though a few days before the proposed July 1st march date (BelTel). The GARC (Greater Ardoyne Residents Collective) tarp shown above maps out an alternative route that would bypass the Ardoyne shops.

Replaces Putting The Boot In.

03696 2016-08-01 Take The Hint Map+

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X03695 X03696 Ardoyne Avenue

The Poppy Trail 1914

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03692 2016-07-31 The Poppy Trail+

 “The first Belfast men in action were not those who volunteered after the war’s outbreak. Instead, they were the regular soldiers already in the army, or reservists who were called up as war began. A battalion which contained a large number of Belfast regulars and reservists was the 2nd Royal Irish Rifles. Since it was not part of the 16th or 36th divisions, the battalion drew men from across Belfast’s communities.” Thus begins the 1914 board on south Belfast’s “Poppy Trail” launched on February 29th. The 1914 board, in Egeria Street, features the stories of Lance Corporal Samuel Spratt (from Lecale Street, off the Donegall Road) who died at Neuve Chappelle in August 1914 and Corporal Michael McGivern (from Merrion Street, off the Falls Road) who died at Kemmel in December.

See also: interviews from the launch on NVTv (starting at 13m44s)

03691 2016-07-31 Poppy Trail 1914+

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