There are large-size photographs of former residents posted on the closed-up doors and windows of Stratheden Street in the New Lodge, as the JCBs move in to begin demolition.
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Copyright © 2016 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X03270 X03272 X03271 I love the New Lodge Road sráid shraith éadain
Positive thinking in a suicide-prevention poster from the Republican Network for Unity (RNU) in Ardoyne: Place your hand over your heart, can you feel it? This is called purpose! Your’re [sic] alive for a reason! … Don’t ever give up
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X03273 berwick rd
The Manor Street “peace” line dividing north Belfast’s Lower Oldpark and Cliftonville areas got a facelift in January — the beige was painted over with a sky blue colour. For the painted gable on the left, see Soccer Stars.
The wide shot, (third image, below,) gives an impression of its height and extent (and this is only the north-south part of the line.)
The fourth image is of an old European Union “Urban” mural showing the north Belfast skyline, including Cave Hill (and Napoleon’s Nose) and Belfast Lough. (For more info on Urban II and the mural, see minute 17 onward in this NVTv documentary).
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Copyright © 2016 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X03269 X03268 X03265 X03266 giving the community the initiative partnership in practice
The All-Seeing Eye Of Providence joins the Eye Of Horus in a conspiracy-minded mural by Visual Waste at the Muddlers’ Club in Belfast. The eye is familiar from Freemasons and the 1 dollar bill in US currency (and the Illuminati!). Also included – against a background consisting of a secret handshake, a skull, and a floating skeleton – are the Square & Compasses of the Freemasons (with a “G” for “God” or “geometry”) a set of scales weighing money, a crown, the word “FATE” tattooed across the knuckles, a keyhole, a gem, the dollar sign, a drop of water, and the Chi-Rho of Catholic and Coptic faiths.
To the left is another, smaller, piece – see The Wider Conspiracy.
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Copyright © 2015 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X03255 annuit coeptis Warehouse Lane
The HBO show Game Of Thrones wrapped up its sixth season recently in its customary fashion, which is to say, with intrigue and murder.
Interior scenes for the show are shot at the old Harland & Wolff ‘Paint Hall’ in the Titanic Quarter. The filming is parodied in the image above — the boom operator is wearing a Northern Ireland football top and has a tattoo saying “Is grá liom uisce” (“I love water”) on his bicep.
The popularity of the show has proven a bonanza for tourism: Wilderness Ireland provides a list of filming locations and Discover Northern Ireland has a page listing many tours. The most famous is the Dark Hedges near Ballymoney.
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Copyright © 2016 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X03256 dark horse courtyard
Black taxi tours of the murals from both sides of the political divide in west Belfast are a well-established part of the tourist industry. (There are also tours of east Belfast.) The various gates in the “peace” line — shown here as closing nightly at 19:69 — are generally open during daylight hours.
Previous ‘gates’ news: See-Through Sectarianism | Belfast Lock-Up.
Bonus image below: benches from the courtyard.
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Copyright © 2015 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X02790 dark horse courtyard
More David Bowie commemoration in Belfast’s city centre: Visual Waste (Web | Fb) reproduces Bowie as Aladdin Sane, successor to Ziggy Stardust. Here’s an Independent article on the iconic image of Bowie with blue and red lightning bolt across his face. On the make-up artist for both Aladdin Sane and Ziggy Stardust, Pierre LaRoche, see this article.
Previously: Bowie by Boyd – Oh! You Pretty Thing
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Copyright © 2015 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X03263 gresham st
As Peggy Lee said in the song, “If that’s all there is my friends/Then let’s keep dancing,
Let’s break out the booze and have a ball/If that’s all there is”.
These carefree dancers in Belfast’s city centre are by FGB (Francois Got Buffed – web | twitter).
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Copyright © 2016 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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A Belfast Love Story by Leo Boyd (Tumblr | Belfast Print Workshop and see previously: Big Men Wail Hammers | Oh You Pretty Thing): “I love this city but doesn’t love me back”, says our heroine, standing in front of Belfast City Hall!
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Copyright © 2015 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X03254 garfield st
“I’d rather trust a dealer on a badly lit street corner than an MLA in a three piece suit” — a hoarding over a street containing a Saracen, a DeLorean, and a heavily fortified British Army base: The original slogan (from a Maser piece of street art in Dublin) seems to have been “… than a criminal in a three piece suit” — the substitution with “MLA” suggesting criminality in the Assembly: there’s an Isle Of Man Bank check for seven million two hundred thousand pounds, made out to “ANMLA”, drawn on the account of “Northern and Southern Ireland tax payers” in the bottom left-hand corner.
And in three bubbles in the centre: “Do you think our 18 MPs came up the Bann in a bubble? Do you think out 108 MLAs came up the Lagan in a bubble? Do you think our 3 MEPs came up the Foyle in a bubble?” — meaning that none of these people were born yesterday — along with a fishbowl of bowler-hatted fish swimming around a Stormont flying the jolly roger/skull and cross-bones with a sign saying “Westminster 370 km”.
In the right-hand corner, Marguerite’s “traditional sweet shop” is “Closed For Ever!” The shop used to be on Waring Street at the junction with Hill Street (according to Frankie Quinn of the Red Barn Gallery).
Four faces watch from the window. Do you recognize any of them?
Here is video of artist Ciaran Gallagher talking about his work in the Dark Horse/Duke Of York courtyard.
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Copyright © 2015 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X03258 X02791 park drive tobacconist confectioner NAMA brown rudnick
Seosamh Mac Coille Collection 