physical force

An Unrepentant Republican

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Continuity IRA or Irish Republican National Congress (IRNC – see Join The IRNC and Maid Of Erin) member Niall Lehd was initially arrested on explosives charges in 2014 (BBC-NI) and given early release in 2016 (An Phoblacht) but returned to jail a year ago, in March of 2018 (Irish News). In December he was charged on several counts relating to terrorism and explosives (Belfast Live). Lehd professes his innocence and says his license was revoked simply because he is “an unrepentant republican” (Free Niall Lehd campaign). His cause has been added to the IRPC (Irish Republican Prisoners Committee | Fb) board on Northumberland Street.

See previously: a White Line Picket in support of Lehd.

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Brian Stewart

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13 year-old Brian Stewart died on October 10th, 1976 – 42 years ago today – six days after being hit by a plastic bullet fired by the King’s Own Scottish Borders near his Turf Lodge Home. He was buried three days later, on October 13th – what would have been his fourteenth birthday. (For the long search for justice, see sister Marie Stewart | sceptic peg | saoirse32).

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South Belfast Volunteers

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The main panel (shown below) is a tribute to soldiers in the Great War (1914-1918), with a border of poppies and silhouetted soldiers reflecting over helmets on crosses. To the side, however, is the modern UVF volunteer (shown above), with balaclava and assault rifle.

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Decolonisation

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“In memory of our fallen INLA volunteers, upper Springfield area: Hugh Ferguson, Ronnie Bunting, Noel Little, Hugh O’Neill, Micky Kearney, John McColgan, Paddy “Paddybo” Campbell. Comrades: Barry “Baz” McMullan, Sean “Shanto” fleming, Harry O’Hara, Paul Collins, Bernado Brownlee, Emmanuel Kelly, Michael Conlon, Billy Lynch, James “Harpo” Murray, John Kennaway. Saoırse go deo [freedom forever].” Ferguson was the first member of the INLA to die, in 1975 in the feud with the OIRA. Bunting and Little/Lyttle (both Protestants) were shot dead in 1980 in Bunting’s Andersonstown home by masked gunmen from the UDA or SAS with RUC complicity.

Whiterock Road, Belfast, next to the Kevin Lynch – Marian Price – Kevin Lynch wall.

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Dee Street Remembers

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A new series of UDA “memorial” murals has been painted along Island Street, in east Belfast. Poppies are featured throughout, as we have increasingly seen over the last few years. New to this series, however, are the use of Lawrence Binyon’s poem For The Fallen in the third panel (see below) and in the image above – the left-most of the four – modern UDA volunteers stand in reflection upon an above-ground grave, also symbolic of the fallen of World War I.

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Boom

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Three members of the Miami Showband were killed in 1975 at a fake check-point set by members of the UVF’s Glennane Gang. The explosion during the incident did not kill the musicians (as the graffiti on the poster above in loyalist east Belfast suggests); they were shot. Rather, a bomb exploded prematurely as it was being planted on their van, killing two of the attackers – see Boyle & Somerville – prompting the shooting spree (WP) that left three of the five band-members dead.

For the mural in the background, see Please Pay Here.

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Ruling By Fooling

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The line “Yes, ruling by fooling, is a great British art – with great Irish fools to practice on” comes from a piece by a James Connolly article in The Irish Worker in 1914. It is used here in the context of what the “Good Friday [Agreement] has delivered: the copper fastened partition through the consent principle & triple locking border poll provision; gerrymandering using peace walls for population control; 70% Protestant, 100% unionist police force; internment by remand; revoking of licences; and miscarriages of justice; sectarianism; total polarisation of mindset; 18 peace walls in 1998 59 peace walls in 2018; sectarian allocation of social housing; almost 500 lives lost to suicide.” In contrast, 32CSM declares that the Declaration Of Independence (in English | as Gaeilge | it was also translated into French) by the Dáil in 1919 is “the only mandate the Irish people need”.

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The Proclamation

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Robert Ballagh’s 1916 Proclamation was first painted as a mural by Mo Chara Kelly and Rısteard Ó Mhurchú in 1991 for the 75th anniversary of the Easter Rising (see Cáısc 1916 which also contains the Ballagh piece). That version stood for ten years on the Whiterock Road. It has reproduced again in Ard An Lao above the hunger strikers, after the removal of several plaques (see All Our Dead). “With special thanks to Hugo Óg Wilkinson”.

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Marrowbone Company, Belfast Brigade

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The Marrowbone (or simply “the Bone”, perhaps from the Irish “Machaıre Bothán”) is an area of north Belfast between Ardoyne and Cliftonville. Ardilea Close is home to four memorials to local republicans: on this wall, the plaque on the left is to “men and women from this and past generations who died from natural causes having dedicated their lives to the cause of Irish freedom” while the one on the right is to “those who showed courage in the face of adversity by giving aid, shelter and support in defence of the area.” Only one of the original walls mentioned the IRA (see Bone Memorial), as well as the 2014 addition of a Fıanna memorial – Hark To The Tramp Of The Young Guards of Éıreann. The new mural commemorating F company of the 3rd battalion – as well as the associated Cumann Na mBan, Cumann Na gCaılíní and Fıanna – can be added to these.

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