“Foremost in my tortured mind is the thought that there can never be peace in Ireland until the foreign, oppressive British presence is removed, leaving all the Irish people as a unit to control their own affairs and determine their own destinies as a sovereign people, free in mind and body, separate and distinct physically, culturally and economically.” The quote is from day one of Bobby Sands’s hunger strike diary (March 1st, 1981) and the photograph is a 2007 image of a cell in the H-4 (Irish Times).
“Maghaberry – Portlaoise – Hydebank. Republican prisoners still exist!” IRPWA (web) board on Divis St, Belfast, replacing the Sands & Hughes mural – see Caırde Agus Comrádaıthe.
Creggan sports centre opened in October 2009 (Leisure Opportunities) and part of the architecture was to cover the brick exterior with five plain-white panels along Central Drive. These have been taken over by Saoradh/IRPWA, this year to protest the extradition, internment, and treatment of republican prisoners, commemorate the 1981 hunger strikers, support Palestine, and threaten drug dealers.
This is the wall at the south end of the Creggan shops that was first muraled in response to the ceasefire (see Time For Peace). This IRPWA (web) board “supporting republican political prisoners” is now in disrepair but it is unclear whether or not it will be replaced, as new construction on Central Drive has greatly reduced its visibility while the new sports centre across the street provides a much more prominent notice-board (see Central Drive).
Here are various IRPWA (tw)/Saoradh (web)/Éıstıgí (Fb) statements in Derry’s Creggan and Bogside.
Above, in Iniscarn Road, “Irish republican prisoners still interned within British Gaols in Ireland”. Below that, two from Central Drive, “Support our hunger strikers in Ireland” (explained in Are You On The Side Of The 2020 Hunger Strikers?) and an aging “Disband the rebranded RUC” (seen previously in 2019).
And at the bottom, two from Westland Street, “Irish republican solidarity with Palestine” (described in a north Belfast appearance) and “Salute the men and women of violence” (for which see Her Old Tradition Of Nationhood) and one from the gaggle of boards next to Free Derry Corner: “Support republican prisoner”.
No Amnesty For British State Forces: “Democide is the murder of any person or people by a government, including genocide, politicide and mass murder. Democide is not necessarily the elimination of entire cultural groups but rather groups within the country that the government feels needs to be eradicated for political reasons and due to claimed future threats. – No amnesty for British state forces”
Bobby Sands/IRPWA: “I’ll wear no convict’s uniform/Nor meekly serve my time/That Britain might brand Ireland’s fight/800 years of crime” [Francie Brolly song] (IRPWA (web))
Free All Political Prisoners! (IRPWA)
1981: 1981: “I am a political prisoner. I am a political prisoner because I am a casualty of a perennial war that is being fought between the oppressed Irish people and an alien, oppressive, unwanted regime that refuses to withdraw from our land.” [Bobby Sands’s diary, day 1] (IRPWA)
Unity Referendum Now!: “British occupation has been a disaster for the people of Ireland. A united Ireland is the way forward for all the people of Ireland.” (IRSP.ie)
40th anniversary of the 1981 hunger strike: described previously in For A Socialist Republic (IRSM/IRSP)
Jason Ceulemans was sentenced to ten years with five years to be served on supervised licence in 2014 for possession of an explosive. He had his licence revoked in June after attending an Easter commemoration which, according to Saoradh, he had permission to attend (Irish News | Saoradh).
The graffiti in support of his release is in Anne Street, Derry. There was also graffiti in Creggan – see Creggan 75 and Central Drive – and the Brandywell.
“No extradition! Don’t play England’s game” – after years of legal wrangling, Liam Campbell was extradited to Lithuania on charges of procuring weapons for the Real IRA (BBC | Saoradh). See previously: Silence Is Complicity. Cıarán Maguire was handed over to the PSNI by Gardaí in April 2021 (Donegal Daily).
The boards shown above and at bottom are in Braemar Street (Falls) and Brompton Park (Ardoyne). The small diamond version (also in Ardoyne) is mounted above one of the “Slow – Go mall” signs from Sınn Féın that were described as “intimidatory” by local DUP Assembly member and are perhaps also illegal under the Roads Order (NI) 1993 (Belfast Live).
Ballykinlar barracks in County Down was originally Abercorn barracks, used by the British to intern IRA prisoners during the War Of Independence, and the use continued under the new Northern Irish government (WP); the camp held about 2,000 prisoners (McGuffin, ch. 5). The prisoners attempted to maintain their military structure and perform drills; they created a currency using cardboard discs (images can be seen at Old Currency Exchange) – and, as a way to keep up morale, worked on “autograph books” in which prisoners would write dedications and verses for one another and occasionally draw pictures. The pages shown here are from books currently exhibited in Monaghan County Museum; Offaly Archives has digitised an autograph book; a few more images from a book in the Kilmainham collection can be seen at the BBC.
A crude engraving about the size of your hand found on the wall of the B-wing yard in Crumlin Road Gaol (now a tourist attraction and conference centre): a Celtic cross with knot-work and “Jim Keenan – Xmas 1942”.
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.
Seosamh Mac Coille Collection 