The Maze/Long Kesh was set ablaze by Republican inmates 40 years ago, on the night of October 15th, 1974. Above is a picture by Matt Kelly, who was held in Cage 18. The picture is in the Eileen Hickey Republican Museum on Conway Street.
Previously: The Maze Ablaze (includes background information)| Long Kesh At Night | Eileen Hickey | You Know Where
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“Play is the highest form of research – Albert Einstein.” The quote appears to be a common (mis-)attribution.
This is a new board celebrating the play of children, with a UDA/UFF mural in the background. The artist is Ed Reynolds (steadyhanded.com).
Previously by Ed in the lower Shankill: a full-sized Play mural.
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“Says Joe, ‘Those that they forgot to kill went on to organise.'” Words from ‘(The Ballad Of) Joe Hill’ are included in a mural in Conway Street sponsored by the Australian Electrical Trades Union (ETU) in Victoria.
Previous Australian-sponsored murals: Caırde Sınn Féın | Australian Aid
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Above is the second of three 2013 murals sponsored by Australian groups outside the Republican Museum in Conway Street. This one shows members of the main sponsoring group, Caırde Sınn Féın (Fb).
Previously: Australian Aid
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Each Lord Mayor of Belfast has an official portrait which hangs in Belfast City Hall. 2011-2012 Lord Mayor Nıall Ó Donnghaıle’s takes the unusual form of a mini-mural, in the shape of a gable wall and complete with mortar lines. The portrait features a “Short Strand” street-plate (Ó Donnghaıle is from there), images of Titanic, James Connolly – a portrait was mounted at a SIPTU event in the mayor’s chambers in October 2011, after pictures of the royal family had been removed in June, protesters, and an MTV mug. The artist talks about the piece on Slugger (audio) and CultureNI has a good write-up about the process.
Below are a detail from Ó Donnghaıle’s portrait and the more typical portrait of Tom Hartley, Lord Mayor 2008-2009, which includes the bicycle he is famous for riding around town.
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This New Lodge mural shows people on the coast, near abandoned buildings, trying to grow crops during the period of the Great Hunger 1845-1852.
“An tOcras Mór” (a literal translation of “the great hunger/famine”) is usually (in Irish) “An Gorta Mór” or “An Drochshaol”.
The left-most and right-most figures are from Searching For Potatoes In A Stubble Field in the Illustrated London News. ILN images are a staple of Belfast muraling on the Great Hunger: see the Visual History page on the Great Hunger. (Here is a list, with links, of all of the illustrations of Ireland in ILN from the period 1845-1852.)
The two central figures, and the composition of the three women together, come from Millet’s The Gleaners. (Thanks to Jeryn Mayer for this pointer.)
There is a Visual History page on the Hunger in murals.
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“Not as Catholics or Protestants, not as Nationalists or Unionists, but as Belfast workers standing together.” Belfast City Hall has a number of colourful stained-glass windows, one of which is shown here. It features Belfast industry and Jim Larkin who, while more famous for the Dublin lock-out of 1913, also led a strike by the National Union Of Dock Labourers (NUDL) in Belfast in 1907. In 1908 the ITGWU (the One Big Union, OBU) was formed.
Previous posts involving Larkin: Til Labour Knows No Master | We Only Want The Earth | Shed Lockout | John Quinn
Video of the unveiling, in May 2007
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Above is a detail from, and below is the whole of, a stained glass window in Belfast City Hall commemorating emigration and the great hunger, commonly known as “the famine”. The piece is by Stephen Calderwood of GlassMarque. The window shows a sailing vessel and the coast of north America, scenes of destitution, Clifton House (home to the Belfast Charitable Society, on Clifton Street), and a potato harvest.
Friar’s Bush and Clifton Street graveyards both contain the remains of people in died in the famine (and in cholera epidemics).
Previously: One Big Union (stained glass in City Hall) | White Line (stained glass in An Chultúrlann)
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A fake shopfront in The Square in Portaferry. There are doors behind the doors and a window behind the array of sweet jars.
Previously: Fake shopfronts Yes, We Are Closed (Dungiven) | Down The Shops (Newtownards Rd) | Semiotics (Newtownards Rd)
Previously: Closed stores Recession in Fivemiletown | Sew What (Crossmaglen)
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This board on the Cupar Way “peace” line is a project young people in the Impact Training train (part of the Greater Shankill Partnership) concerning murals over the years. Its face has been changed by hundreds of messages and signatures of visitors from all over the world.
“The Changing Faces artwork is a project that has been undertaken by a group of young people from Impact Training . They looked to their surrounding area where they explored and documented how it appears in 2010. What is the Shankill? What does it look like and what does it mean to youth culture now? Murals have been something that has been prevalent in the community for many years. Times change, opinions soften and people can begin to build a changing face.”
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Seosamh Mac Coille Collection 