Here are two boards from outside the Spectrum Centre on the Shankill Road. “The baby survived, his mummy and daddy didn’t. Joyriding: Where’s the joy?”. (A similar board is at the junction of Whiterock and Springfield Roads and another in Duncairn Avenue). The board below features youth activities such as painting, martial arts, and DJing.
Previously: Death Driving
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“Take It Down From The Mast” is a song accusing pro-treaty forces (at the time of the Irish Civil War) of being unworthy to fly the Irish tricolour (WP). Someone in west Belfast feels the same way about “Flash”, Sınn Féın councillor Jim McVeigh, who tried asked for a Tricolour flying at a Springfield Road Council dump to be removed in October (2014), and calls him an “Irish traitor”.
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X02356 Malcolmson Street Sráıd Mhıc Mhaolcholaım Jim McVeigh Sınn Féın
Above is an RNU board from Lenadoon, protesting against the police system and an alleged identity of the PSNI, the Orange Order and loyal paramilitaries. (See previously: Trinity)
“No political policing. No special powers. No daily armed raids. No daily harassment. No PSNI in our schools. No MI5. No £10 tours. No interment [sic].”
The board dates from 2012 (eleven years after the PSNI’s creation and five years after Sınn Féın’s acceptance of the PSNI) but is no longer present.
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The Disney princesses (Snow White and Princess Anna, the younger sister from Frozen) are being watched, not just by the wicked witch, but by the communications tower on the Springfield Road barracks. There are two close-ups below, one of Ariel and Snow White, the second of Anna. The mural is new work by a local artist and local children in the Slıabh Dubh estate.
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This republican mural in Glenwood shows a funeral party firing a volley of shots over a tricolour-draped coffin containing one of the ten hunger-strikers of 1981: Bobby Sands, Francis Hughes, Raymond McCreesh, Patsy O’Hara, Joe McDonnell, Martin Hurson, Kevin Lynch, Kieran Doherty, Tom McElwee, Mickey Devine. The H-blocks of Long Kesh are in the background.
2015 repainting of a 2001 mural.
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X02336 lark fuiseog barbed wire thomas
Last Saturday (2014-11-08) saw the launch of a new mural in Ballymurphy Crescent, celebrating local IRA volunteers and community workers.
The doves at the top of the mural are in the style of Robert Ballagh’s “Legacy Of The Hunger Strikes” though there are 12 doves here rather than 10. Marty Lyons holds a copy of Ballagh’s piece in an image below, along with an image on which the halberd and pistol around the beret and gloves in the bottom of the mural are based – the rifles of the original are absent. (Possibly by Patrick Magee, the Brighton bomber (WP) – please confirm by e-mail or comment.)
Left-hand portraits (counter-clockwise from top): Eileen Gray, Margaret Campbell, Annie Adams, Kathleen Moore, Lizzie McGivern, Joe Reid, Rosaleen Russell, Mary Armstrong, Agnes Robinson, Eileen Reid.
Standing (l-r): Fra Toner, Gerry Campbell, Liam Mulholland, Paddy Tier, Sean Connolly, Michael Kane, Liam McParland, Sean Doyle, Cllr. Sean Keenan, Pat McGeown.
Squatting/Kneeling (l-r): Jim McGrillen, Francis Toner, Jr., Jimmy Duffy, Tony McAlister, Billy Carson, Cormac McArt.
The main figure is (and remains from the previous mural) Tommy “Toddler” Tolan, who escaped from the Maidstone in 1972 and served time in the cages at Long Kesh. (See Lost Lives entry #1956 and An Phoblacht.) In the original (2001) version of the ‘Safe House’ mural, he was dressed in fatigues (image at CAIN), but this was changed within 18 months to a brown suit (Safe House | CAIN), similar to the way he is portrayed here.
The mural took some time to complete — the fifth image, below, shows one of the artists on a scaffold with #stoptorycuts on Slıabh Dubh in mid-October — partly because more and more figures were added.
Update 2014-11-26: In an unusual move, the launch of the mural was advertised by a board (rather than flyers), in this case at Dorothy Maguire Corner on the Whiterock Road – see the final image, below.
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Copyright © 2014 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X02348 X02401 X02349 X02290 X02287 X02288 X02289 X02403 the mural was unveiled by johnny doc 8th november 2014 remember our volunteers committee an trá ghearr abú
Approximately 10 million military personnel and 7 million civilians died in WWI, with massive losses coming in August-September-October of 1914, as German forces invaded Belgium and northern France, before being stopped at the Marne and entrenching at the Aisne; both sides then attempted to out-flank one another in a “race to the sea” (WP – Invasion | WP – Casualties). The dead of those first months – including German forces (see third image, below) – are commemorated in a new monument, a granite stone with six sides, like a rock from the Giant’s Causeway, in Woodvale Park (BelTel | NewsLetter). A searchable database of 10,000 Irish soldiers who died in Belgium is now available at the In Flanders Fields Project.
Video of the launch on 2014-10-17
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X02337 X02338 X02339 the great war we shall not see them lit again in our time sir edward grey british expeditionary force 1914 lost generation armée française generation perdue mons 23 august le cateau 26 august marne 5 september aisne 13 spetember yser 17 october ypres 19 october kaiserliche deutsche armee gott mit uns verlorene generation belgish leger verloren generatie angel of mons belfast city coat of arms
Yesterday’s symbolic vote on Catalonian independence (for more background see Votes About Votes) showed 81% in favour of separation from Spain. Here are three shots of the encouragement on Slıabh Dubh (Black Mountain), the second with the Ballymurphy Easter Rising mural in the foreground, the third with the wall of superheroes in Slıabh Dubh estate (see Wallbusters | The Walls, Unbroken | Red-Eye | Cartoon World).
Previous messages on the mountain can be seen on its Visual History page.
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This new piece in Tiger’s Bay illustrates various kinds of ‘Wartime Work’.
The central image of soldiers at the battle of the Somme is surrounded by images of various occupations: shipyard workers and miners perhaps, along with women welding, carrying coke and nursing. It’s not clear what the “fair wartime wage” refers to: there was a general strike at the shipyards in 1919 (The Great Unrest | Workers’ Liberty). The original Somme photograph is widely known – it was also reproduced in the Bangor mural to Sir Edward Bingham; the nurse is apparently the Grand Duchess Olga Nikolaevna of Russia – WP. The woman carrying a sack of coke is from the Imperial War Museum’s collection.
The image above is from after the main wall was completed; the second image, below, shows the lower wall also. The lower wall is intended to be full, but painting has ceased indefinitely. The third image below shows the red, white, and blue kerb-stones, with the H&W cranes in the distance. The artist Jonny McKerr is shown at work. Another in-progress shot can be found at Arts For All. Last year McKerr did a similarly-styled piece on The Belfast Blitz.
Update: The low wall was completed and an information-board added for the official launched on 2015-06-25 – see Aftermath.
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1912 1914 1916 strike shipyard H&W bugle bugler JMK Piece officially launched 2015-06-25
November 11th is Remembrance Day or Armistice day, the anniversary of the cease-fire of the first world war, while 2014 is the centenary year of the beginning of the war in 1914. As part of this year’s commemoration, a very striking giant poppy has sprouted in the middle of the Manse Road roundabout. A close-up is included below: “We will remember them 1914-2014”.
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Seosamh Mac Coille Collection 