The pikemen of 1798 go into battle under the flag of the United Irishmen in a detail from a new mural on the Falls Road for the centenary of the 1916 Easter Rising. Below are work-in-progress images showing artists Gerard ‘Mo Chara’ Kelly and Bill Bradley.
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Copyright © 2015 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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Here’s a PUL mural in classic style, though not seen much of late: King William “Billy” III of Orange crosses the Boyne, sword drawn, on a white steed that walks on water. The crests of Scotland and Northern Ireland (labelled as “Ulster”) and the Scottish thistle and orange lily of the Orange Order fill out the quadrants.
The mural to the right was featured in By The Mutton Burn Stream (and in the wide shot, below) and the one in the distance on the left in The Craic Is Mighty.
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This is a new (2015-04-04) tarp on Ardoyne Avenue showing a scene from Grafton Street in the Battle Of Dublin in the civil war (1922) (irishhistory.blogspot.com), with in-sets featuring PIRA volunteers on patrol in 1987 (BelTel), and a home-made rocket-launcher used in a 2014 attack on police (see, e.g. irishmirror.ie).
“There can never be peace in Ireland until the foreign, oppressive British presence is removed leaving all of the Irish people as a unit to control their own affairs and determine their destinies as a sovereign people, free in mind and body, separate and distinct physically, culturally and economically.” Bobby Sands (Prison Diary May 1st)
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This vintage piece of graffiti, “Provisionals”, is on the side of a house in Twinbrook’s Gardenmore Road.
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“Ar aghaıdh linn [Onward]” Silhouetted figures, one carrying a hurley, take inspiration from a dying Cú Chulaınn and gaze across a body of water, perhaps Carlingford Lough towards the mountains of Mourne – Cú Chulaınn’s traditional place of death is in County Louth, outside Dundalk. Tuan the hawk historian, who has seen all of the conquests of Ireland, flies overhead.
Cú Chulaınn has his own Visual History page.
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The mural of Padraig Pearse’s famous quote (“The fools, the fools …”) at the east end of Brompton Park has been replaced by the stencils above and below from the Irish Republican Prisoners Welfare Association (irpwa.com): “Oppose the isolation of Republican prisoners!” and “Stop strip searches!”. The final image is an older but similar stencil from the top of the Whiterock Road.
See also: Scaırt Amach | IRPWA | various Maghaberry murals.
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The 2010 work of Jade, Andi, Katie, Leigh, Ellen, Lyndsay, Shannon, and Hannah on the substation at the top of the Glenfield estate’s Oakfield Road has been replaced this week by a new UDA mural sporting a hooded gunman facing the viewer with a slogan borrowed from Mexican revolutionary Emiliano Zapata: “Better to die on your feet than live on your knees in an Irish republic. Join the UDA.”. The two wide shots below allow you to compare the scene this week with last week.
The mural has been criticized by both DUP and Alliance councillors (Newsletter). The final words – Join the UDA – have drawn particular ire, as in other respects it is similar to other murals in featuring hooded gunmen, such as these two other Carrickfergus murals: Inclusion | Eternal Vigilance.
Nolan Show discussion of the mural on 2015-02-11: Part 1 | Part 2
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The upper flag on the right-hand side of this mural – purple saltire on a blue background with star and red hand – is the proposed flag of Ulster nationalists. The position was espoused by the UDA of the 1970s, under the guise of the political parties the Ulster Loyalist Democratic Party and the Ulster Democratic Party, and for a time by the Red Hand Commandos under the Ulster Loyalist Central Coordinating Committee.
For the previous (identical) version, see UFF Carrickfergus in the Peter Moloney collection.
Previously: Northern Island. For the obscured mural on the right, see Out Of The Trenches.
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A statement from the UDA/UFF in Castlemara (Carrickfergus): “Glenfield UDA will not tolerate anti-social behaviour”.
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“Show no mercy and expect none”. Iron Maiden’s Eddie the trooper, armed with an assault rifle and carrying a UDA flag, leads the grim reaper over the graves of “G. Adams”, “McGuinness” and “A. Maskey”. UDA/UFF mural in Carrickfergus.
For more on Eddie, see his Visual History page.
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Seosamh Mac Coille Collection 