This mural of a skateboarder emerging from a girl’s reading replaced a Red Hand Commando mural (see D01242) at the Brooklands Road entrance to the Ballybeen estate in the mid 2000s. The lettering from the former mural is beginning to bleed through – above the window can be seen “Ballybeen [C Company]” and below it, “Ulster’s Elite”.
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Copyright © 2015 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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This 2015 mural in the Bogside in support of a Twitter campaign shows a brain giving birth to the idea of love, smiley faces giving the ‘V for victory’ salute and other cheery images and colours.
Update: Here’s Sinn Féin’s Martina Anderson being interviewed in August 2016 in front of the mural after a bonfire was erected and set alight at the bottom of the flyover (Derry Journal).
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Copyright © 2016 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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Old graffiti doesn’t go away. It persists, witness to the aspirations and angers of years past.
Above, “Disband the RUC” in Bóthar Chaıtríona/St. Katharine’s, republican west Belfast. Below, “If the leaders are impotent… only the people can rise” – anarchist graffiti in Melrose Street and “B-Men not cowards” in Agnes St, Loyalist west Belfast. These are all late-2014 pictures of graffiti that are at least three years old.
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Copyright © 2014 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X02072 X02405 X02406 p.s. stakeknife how many grows have ya ni?? tout
The People Before Profit Alliance is an all-Ireland political party closely related to the Socialist Workers Party. In the north, candidate Gerry Carroll was elected to Belfast City Council in 2014, representing Black Mountain. Gay rights does not seem to form an explicit part of the platform, but the mural above, featuring a heart with the rainbow colours, appeared on Divis St in time for the Pride parade on August 1st.
See also: Cherish from Sınn Féın
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Copyright © 2015 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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The board above, on Derry’s Racecourse Road, commemorates two hunger-strikers from Derry, Patsy O’Hara and Michael Devine, both members of the INLA; the third INLA hunger-striker was Kevin Lynch, from nearby Dungiven. The seven others who died were members of the IRA, whose political wing was Sınn Féın, while the Irish Republican Socialist Party, who sponsored this board, serves as the political face of the INLA.
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Copyright © 2015 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X02757 irish republican army IRSP páırtí poblachtach sóısıalach na héıreann plough stars red star raised Armalite vol bobby sands francis hughes ray mccreesh joe mcdonnell martin hurson kieran doherty tom mcelwee belfast armagh tyrone
Work by artist Hugh Clawson (whose web presence is extremely modest) inside Conway Mill showing life in the mill and the lower Falls/Clonard area from years gone by. Painted directly onto an interior wall.
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Copyright © 2015 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X02756 st peter’s pro-cathedral divis mill worker window washer
A can of spray paint acts as bait in this bear trap meant for street artists and writers.
Previously from Red Ant: Up In Flames | Cat & Mouse | New Graffiti Loading
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Copyright © 2015 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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A robin sits atop the skull of a cat. Work by Glaswegian street artists Spore, Ejek, Rogue-One, and Vues Oner for the Release The Pressure festival in London/-Derry/Doire back on July 25-26th. See below for a shot of the whole thing and a video of the piece in production.
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Copyright © 2015 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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Above is a local interpretation of Robert Ballagh’s 1970 rendering of Goya’s The Third Of May 1808 in Glenfada Park, Derry/Doıre, site of four deaths on Bloody Sunday, 1972.
The original commemorates Spanish resistance to the forces of Napoleon (WP). For this Derry version, features from the city’s skyline – the Guildhall, St. Columb’s Cathedral, and an intact Governor Walker column – have replaced the original’s outline of Madrid, as well as an insignia of the Paras on the arm of a soldier.
For Ballagh’s original (“1970”) version and a description and video of the launch see bloodysundaymarch.org. Here is an Eamonn McCann lecture on the political history of the Goya painting. Until recently, the piece above was adjacent to a version of Picasso’s Guernica.
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Copyright © 2015 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X02720 Jim Wray, William McKinney, Gerard McKinney, Gerard Donaghy paratroop regiment
Here’s Space Lizard by Mark Bodé and (Dave) Bonzai, part of the Release The Pressure street art festival in London-/Derry on July 25th and 26th.
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Copyright © 2015 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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Seosamh Mac Coille Collection 