cultural

The Great Hunger

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2014-02-20 AntOcrasMor+

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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Famine Window

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2014-02-19 CityHallEmDetail+

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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Peace And Remembrance Garden

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Four (of five) panels from Main Street, Ballywalter, commemorating the troops who went to France “on October 15th, 1915” and who died in the Great War (“The Last Post” is played by Ballywalter flute band at Ballywalter War Memorial, perhaps at its unveiling in 1922, though no mention of the flute band is made in the report cited at Ulster War Memorials), and the local fishing industry.

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Stadann An Bus Anseo/The Bus Stops Here

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2014-02-16 BusStop+

Gaelic/Gaeılge now appears (since 2011), alongside English/Béarla, on the bus-stop signs and buses in west Belfast. Above is the sign for Saint Comgall’s/Naomh Comhghall (the old school on the Falls) and below is the 10a, headed for Sruthán Na Bantıarna/Ladybrook. According to this BelTel article, there were no immediate plans to add Ulster Scots signage to any routes.

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Our Youth, Our Future

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2014-02-06 AntrimHurlingStraight+

“Our youth, out culture, our community, our future”. Above is a new Ross Road mural celebrating gaelic games (football, hurling, and handball) and in particular Michael Davitt’s (green, white, and gold strip) and Sean MacDermott’s (yellow with green stripe) GAA/CLG clubs. The banner on the low wall is bookended by images of St. Peter’s cathedral and the fountain in Dunville Park, which are detailed below.

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X01669 X01665 X01666 óıge na bhfal Falls youth est. 1932 aontroım

The Throw-In

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2014-02-05 RossRdHurlingDetail+

A seven-year old Setanta become Cú Chulaınn (Culann’s Hound) after killing the beast by driving a sliotar (the ball used in hurling) down its throat. Detail from a mural in Roumania Rise, off Ross Road. Wide shot of the whole below. The lettering reads “Mol na nóıge agus tıocfaıdh sí [sic]” [as written: praise the young and it [sic] will flourish; usually the phrase is “Mol an óıge …” “praise youth …”]

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At Sea

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2014-01-29 StBrendan+

The Stella Maris Hostel (in Garmoyle Street) provides services to homeless alcoholics. Above their door is this mosaic of St. Brendan, off “crossing the Atlantic 600 AD” to discover (what would later become) North America (though perhaps it was only the Faroes or the Canaries or … ) in a boat clad in nothing more than leather.

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White Line

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2014-01-27 CulturlannWindow+

The stained-glass window shown above is on the stairs in An Chultúrlann. It was designed in conjunction with the Windsor Women’s group (Ionad Na mBan Windsor) to commemorate the fact that the place was formerly a Presbyterian church (1896-1982 Eaglaıs Preıspitéıreach, Broadway). The broken white lines which form the cross also stand for road markings. The glass also features the sun, a burning bush, a rainbow, and a Celtic shield. Unveiled June 22nd, 2012.

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Thumbs Up

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2014-01-22 HighfieldLest+

Here are two of the three painted side of a large electrical box in the Highfield estate, adjacent to a new memorial garden. Above is a board commemorating British army service personnel from WWI to the recent/current conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. On the other side of the box, and pictured below, the ‘thumbs up’ soldier is painted. For background on the ‘thumbs up’ image below, see the entry Help For Heroes.

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2014-01-22 ThumbsUp+

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X01637 [X01588] X01591 X01640 [X01592] [X01593] in support of help for heroes aa veterans army benevolent fund the best royal british legion thiepval tower cenotaph