Attendez: Je Suis Charlie

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Charlie Hedbo, the satirical Parisian weekly which became internationally known after a gun attack in January in which 12 were killed, is named after Charlie Brown (from Charles Schultz’s Peanuts) but the Charlie Chaplin above (as seen in The Kid) uses French to try to claim the name for himself. Chaplin and his family settled in French-speaking Switzerland after he was denied entry to the US as part of Joseph McCarthy’s witch-hunt of artists with alleged communist sympathies (WP). Stencil by Patrick Devlin in the city centre.

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Copyright © 2015 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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Glenfield Community Association

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The 2010 work of Jade, Andi, Katie, Leigh, Ellen, Lyndsay, Shannon, and Hannah on the substation at the top of the Glenfield estate’s Oakfield Road has been replaced this week by a new UDA mural sporting a hooded gunman facing the viewer with a slogan borrowed from Mexican revolutionary Emiliano Zapata: “Better to die on your feet than live on your knees in an Irish republic. Join the UDA.”. The two wide shots below allow you to compare the scene this week with last week.

The mural has been criticized by both DUP and Alliance councillors (Newsletter). The final words – Join the UDA – have drawn particular ire, as in other respects it is similar to other murals in featuring hooded gunmen, such as these two other Carrickfergus murals: InclusionEternal Vigilance.

Nolan Show discussion of the mural on 2015-02-11: Part 1Part 2

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Copyright © 2015 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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Fifty Shades Of Belfast

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Jamie Dornan (from Holywood) and Gillian Anderson are stars of the BBC series The Fall. He plays a serial-killer terrorizing Belfast and she the detective leading the investigation. Anderson is not shown here as she appears in The Fall, but in the style of Fifty Shades OfGrey, the BDSM-explicit novel by E. L. James, which has now been made into a movie, starring Dornan. It goes on general release tomorrow, Valentine’s Day, February 14th.

The panel above is one of a dozen from the new “upstairs” part of the Belfast Windows piece by Ciaran Gallagher (web) in the courtyard of the Dark Horse/Duke Of York. As Ciaran himself warns on his Facebook page, the “upstairs” material is adult and “not for the faint-hearted”. Below you can see the middle quartet: in the attic, a semi-nude woman behind bars with a menacing face in the background; on the left, Romper Room is on the TV and the skinhead sports a Mr. Do-Bee tattoo, but this is a UDA romper room, not kids’ playtime: two hoods take baseball bats to a victim; and in the middle, a pot-smoking policeman (in RUC/early-PSNI uniform) stands under the grow-lights of a cannabis factory.

For the “downstairs” part of the work, see Belfast, You’re Melting My Head | Belfast Stripped Bare.

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Copyright © 2015 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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Teenage Dreams

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Here are the three right-most panels from Ciaran Gallagher’s (web) “Upstairs” in the Dark Horse/Duke Of York courtyard:

On the left, a young (and left-handed) Gary Lightbody of Snow Patrol images himself as a future rock star as he plays the broom, beneath an Undertones sign, “Teenage dreams, so hard to beat”, reflected in the mirror. (Drummer Jonny Quinn worked at Good Vibrations as a youth.)

In the middle, a mature Rory McIlroy relives a moment from age nine, when he appeared on the Gerry Kelly show on UTv and chipped balls into a washing machine.

And finally, Carl “The Jackal” Frampton lets out a roar after beating Spaniard Kiko Martinez to become IBF world super-bantamweight champion in September 2014. He defends his title this Saturday (2015-02-28).

In the attic: Deep Throat, not the Watergate scandal but the porno, both 1972.

See previously: Fifty Shades Of Belfast, featuring The Fall (from television) and Romper Room (not from television).

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Copyright © 2015 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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The Bar Is Called Heaven

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Here is the full width of the “upstairs” of Ciaran Gallgher’s Belfast Exposed, and with it the full expanse of the Klondyke Bar mural above it (featured previously in Nixon Resigns, Best Quits). For close shots of the ‘upstairs’, see Fifty Shades Of Belfast | Teenage Dreams.

To get some sense of the scale of these works, you should (get yourself a large monitor and) …

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Copyright © 2015 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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Alternative Ulster

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The upper flag on the right-hand side of this mural – purple saltire on a blue background with star and red hand – is the proposed flag of Ulster nationalists. The position was espoused by the UDA of the 1970s, under the guise of the political parties the Ulster Loyalist Democratic Party and the Ulster Democratic Party, and for a time by the Red Hand Commandos under the Ulster Loyalist Central Coordinating Committee.

For the previous (identical) version, see UFF Carrickfergus in the Peter Moloney collection.

Previously: Northern Island. For the obscured mural on the right, see Out Of The Trenches.

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Copyright © 2015 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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Between The Crosses

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This mural in Carrick has a 3D element: 312 wood poppies were hand-painted and attached to the wall, one for each local man who did not return. By artist Gary Orr. Full shot below.

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Copyright © 2015 Extramural Activity
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Spray-On Culture

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Spray painting is an approved type of youth activity in this Glenfield/Castlemara community mural on a low wall on Oakfield Drive. You can see the ‘coat of arms’ (from the wide shot, below) of the Glenfield Community Association more clearly via their Facebook page.

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Ian Jong-un

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Here are two shots of the mash-up which has appeared in various city-centre locations, of Ian Paisley Jr’s visage superimposed on the bust of Kim Jong-Un. The first (above) is at the junction of Corporation St and Dunbar Link; the second (below) is in Hill Street, and is pasted over the torn remains of the previous generation of Paisley paste-up: Ian senior with a face filled in with the harp-side of pre-Euro Irish coins (see TLO’s “Doctored Paisley” web-site). For other versions of last year’s Paisley posters, see: Three Studies Of Ian Paisley | Demonizing Paisley

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