INLA member Mickey Devine was the tenth and final hunger-striker to die in 1981, on August 20th. The mural above, in the familiar style of the IRSP/INLA (see Patsy O’Hara), is in Chemical Street, in the Short Strand, across from the set of five murals on Mountpottinger Road (Visual History) – see the wide shot below.
Here are four shots of a late 2011 UVF mural, with memorial wall, on Ballymacarrett Road in east Belfast. The four members named are Robert Seymour, shot dead by the PIRA; James Cordner and Joseph Long, who were killed in a premature explosion, and Robert Bennett, killed by the British Army during a riot. These same four are commemorated in the controversial 2013 mural featured in Years Of Sacrifice.
The nearby memorial (through the railings of which the third image, below, was taken) was constructed in 2003.
2013 saw the 25th anniversary of Seymour’s death; the final image, below, is of a flyer announcing a commemorative parade.
A boy — Dylan Wilson from east Belfast, grandson of loyalist community worker Jim Wilson —shakes hands with a girl – Dearbhla Ward, granddaughter of Short Strand Sınn Féın councillor Joe O’Donnell (sources: Al Jazeera | NewsLetter | The Scotsman). The centre was left for locals to make their mark on.
A gable-wall version of this image — without the word “síocháın” (peace), with the girl in green, and with Wilson’s poem ‘No More’ — can be found about half a mile away in Wolfe Close, just across the Newtownards Road. See No More, Again. This mural was part of the re-imaging effort of 2010.
No more bombing, no more murder No more killing of our sons No more standing at the grave side Having to bury our loved ones
No more waking up every hour Hoping our children, they come home No more maimed or wounded people Who have suffered all alone
No more minutes to leave a building No more fear of just parked cars No more looking over our shoulders No more killing in our bars
No more hatred from our children No more. No more. No more!
London-based Greek street artist ‘The Krah’ is in Belfast at the moment and has just (December 15th and 16th) produced these two new pieces in Garfield Street. Above is ‘Make art not bombs’ and below is a yellow head. ‘Make art not bombs’ was perhaps inspired by witnessing a bomb scare in the city centre this week (Fb | Web).
This piece – a small figure in white made grotesque by a gas mask, with the This Means Nothing hand in the background – is in North Street, originally next to Praise’s ‘Dot‘ (and the ‘Get Paid’ crosses, which are still on the electrical box) from Culture Night 2012, and now between DMC’s Long Runs The Fox and Visual Waste’s ‘bird snatching boy’ (Carried Away).
Above is a detail (wide shot below) of a new (June, 2013) mural in Newtonards’s Westwinds estate presenting a familiar UVF theme, that the Ulster Volunteers are an independent body, armed and ready to fight against whatever enemy is present, whether it be London’s decision to grant Home Rule (see Carson in the apex of the building and the figures in militia-style clothing) or the Germans in WWI (as represented by the uniformed figures and Thiepval tower) or any threat to Northern Ireland as a political entity (the Northern Irish flag flies in the top right).
The text has now faded from this Westwinds mural in Newtownards (which can be seen in this 2007 image). “The Union Jack – its construction and how to use it. ” The text describes the composition of the Union Flag from the St George’s Cross, St Andrew’s Saltire, and St Patrick’s Cross, and how to fly it properly: “In flying the flag, the broad white stripe of the cross of St Andrew should be next to the mast.” Also shown are Britannia astride the globe, a king and queen, a lion, naval boats and a sub, the flowers of the “home nations”, Titanic, and Belfast city hall with a H&W crane in the background.
A metal banner (attached to the two barrels) outside the Bowtown Youth Club in Newtownards shows the classic image of the signing of the Ulster Covenant against the background of a Union flag, and also a rocket taking off, in the children’s mural painted on one side of the club.
“NVF” in the left-hand insignia stands for “Newtownards Volunteer Flute [Band]” (Fb). On the right is the insignia of another flute band, the North Down Defenders (Fb).
The caption below the image of the covenant signing lists a good number of those in the picture:
Sir Edward Carson (later Lord Duncairn) signing the Ulster Covenant in the Belfast City Hall, September 28, 1912.
Left to right, 1st row: Mr. R.J. McMordie, Lord Mayor of Belfast, Lord Charles Beresford, Marquess of Londonderry, Sir Edward Carson, Captain James Craig (later Lord Craigavon), Mr. J.H. Campbell, K.C. (later Lord Glenavy), and Dr. W. Gibson.
2nd row: present Lord Londonderry, and Col. R.H. Wallace, C.B., D.L. Behind the latter, Ronald McNeill, M.P. (later Lord Cushendun).
Scrabo tower (or possibly Helen’s Tower/Thiepval tower) and the Union flag appear alongside a football, a heart, a bird and the handprints of local children in this board in the Bowtown estate in Newtownards. The wide shot, below, shows a Bowtown Youth Club board higher up and in the background the Somme mural featured separately.
Seosamh Mac Coille Collection 