We have featured this ‘bookmark’-dimensioned mural on the so-called “International Wall” before (in 2018) but today include an image (the third one, below) of the replica cell inside the museum itself; a sharper image (and the source for the painting) can be seen on the home page of the Museum’s web site.
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A D Company “dogs” (Belfast Brigage IRA) emblem has been added to the Falls Commemoration Committee mural on Divis Street’s “International” wall, below the quote from Bobby Sands, March 17th, 1981. (Compare to the image from August of 2021: The Desire For Freedom.)
“They won’t break me because the desire for freedom of the Irish people is in my heart. The day will dawn when all the people of Ireland will have the desire for freedom to show. It is then that we will see the rising of the moon.” – Bobby Sands. Originally in Irish: “Ní bhrısfıdh sıad mé mar tá an fonn saoırse, agus saoırse mhuıntır na hÉıreann, ı mo chroí. Tıocfaıdh lá éıgın nuaır a bheıdh an fonn saoırse seo le taıspeáınt ag daoıne go léır na hÉıreann. Ansın tchífıdh [chífıdh] muıd éırí na gealaí.”
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Here is a selection of graffiti art/wild-style writing from Belfast, including (above) “Racism is small dick energy” on the Cupar Way “peace” line.
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Here are two IRSP pieces commemorating the 40th anniversary of the 1981 hunger strike. The first, above and immediately below, is from Ard Eoın/Ardoyne (Béal Feırste/Belfast) with colour (or at least, colour-ised) portraits of the ten who died on either side of an image from Keven Lynch’s funeral cortège. It is the same as the board seen on the lower Falls in For A Socialist Republic. At the bottom is a poster from Strabane calling people to gather in remembrance in Derry.
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Here are five images from Duncairn Gardens, along the “peace” lines separating the New Lodge and Tigers Bay, in particular of a Noah Donohoe mural (below) and a pallet hut erected on the pavement (above) at the old Adam Street and site of the bonfire that was removed in 2021 – see Move At Your Own Risk.
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“South Belfast – time for truth – exposing collusion – Ormeau Road – ‘Bullets do not only travel distance but also through time'” [Based on a quote by James Kennedy’s father: “The bullets that killed James didn’t just travel in distance, they travelled in time. Some of those bullets never stop travelling.” (Irish Times)]
Police Ombudsman Marie Andersons’s report into various murders and attempted murders in south Belfast was released yesterday (February 7th, 2022) and presented a list of “collusive behaviours” between the RUC and loyalist paramilitaries. Among the incidents investigated was the killing of five people “murdered for their faith” at the Sean Graham bookies’ office on the Ormeau Road in February 5th, 1992; the report found that one of the two UDA gunmen was a Special Branch informant and that a Browning pistol used in the attack had been supplied by the RUC (as had previously been revealed in the 2010 HET Inquiry report) and that records relating to the weapon had been withheld from investigators (Irish Times | Belfast Live). For the 30th anniversary, relatives of the five men killed and of five more who were injured displayed their portraits next to the small memorial garden, which itself was updated to mark the third decade since their deaths: “1992-2022” (Belfast Live).
The plaque on the far left is to Charles Joseph McGrillen, shot by the UDA/UFF in 1988 at his work in Dunne’s on the Annadale embankment (Sutton). Next to the bookies’ parlour is a plaque to Fian Jim Templeton.
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Derry’s Bogside is at odds with everyone, it seems: above, the English Queen and her platinum jubilee, below, NATO, and … Creggan!
Lasair Dhearg’s take on the jubilee is entitled 70 Years A Parasite.
The anti-NATO placard has a small hammer-and-sickle at the bottom.
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The trial has begun, before Londonderry Crown Court, of three men accused of the murder of Eddie Meenan, who was stabbed 40-50 times in November, 2018 (Derry Journal | BBC). The graffiti above is on the electrical box at the bottom of Fahan Street, next to a Lasaır Dhearg (web) ‘Don’t join the PSNI’ poster (shown below), with the Che Guevara Lynch mural visible on the left.
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Copyright © 2021 Andy McDonagh/Eclipso Pictures (ig | Fb)
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“Don’t let me body lie here – get me back to the green hill by Murlough, by the McCarry’s house, looking down on the Moyle. That’s where I’d like to be now, that’s where I’d like to lie. … Death is not dark but only deeper blue.” [Letter to Elizabeth “Eilis” Bannister, July 25th, 1916] Roger Casement was executed in Pentonville prison, in England, in 1916, for his role in gunrunning for the Rising, and his corpse was buried in the prison cemetery. Despite repeated requests for repatriation, it wasn’t until 1965 that the corpse was returned to Ireland – but to his home town of Dublin rather than to his beloved Murlough, where his cousins Eilis and Gertrude lived (in what was by then Northern Ireland): the corpse was released on condition that it not enter Northern Ireland, for fear of stoking political tensions between the sects (WP).
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The cult of the Great Pumpkin seems to be spreading from the US but it’s not clear that in fact the Great Pumpkin loves unconditionally: in the Peanuts universe, Linus believes that on Halloween night the Great Pumpkin rises from the pumpkin patch and delivers toys to good and believing children (Peanuts wiki). Paste-up in Belfast city centre.
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Seosamh Mac Coille Collection 