“I’m a child. They have the guns. Who is the terrorists? ‘Cherish all the children of our nation equally’? ” The quote is from the 1916 Proclamation (CAIN); it has been used inclusively for various classes (see Cherish | The Children Of The Nation) but here is applied to children.
Anti-Agreement republicans have complained about being searched in the streets and in their homes, sometimes in front of children. (There is a Facebook group on the issue.)
RNU (ig | Fb) board in Divis Street, west Belfast.
“Rotten And Corrupt: Christopher Little (39) entered guilty pleas to nine charges at Belfast Crown Court last month – including attempting to have sex with a child. [Irish Times] 20 officers shared racist, sexist and misogynistic messages including texts and images which mocked Arabic and Islamic people. [Spotlight programme] Six PSNI officers all had hearings for an array of alleged offences. PSNI revealed they themselves had dismissed 11 police officers amid claims of over 130 misconduct cases throughout the force. [Belfast Live]”
It’s not clear who is behind these flyers in north Belfast; the harpist on the electical box is by Kerrie Hanna (ig).
New Lodge Road, Belfast.
Update: the posters have been removed (by the end of July, 2023).
There are dozens of Easter Rising commemorations happening this weekend – see Belfast Media for a full calendar. Above is a board for Saoradh’s (web) Easter parade on Saturday 8th. Below is the Falls/D Company gathering.
“National Republican Commemoration Committee Easter commemoration. Unfinished revolution. 2.30 pm Saturday 8th April. International wall, Divis Street, Belfast. Bands in attendance. Honour Ireland’s patriot dead, wear your Easter lily with pride.”
The gates on Lanark Way are part of the west Belfast “peace” wall. On this site we always put the word in scare-quotes to signify that it has a different meaning than it typically does. Without them, “peace wall” might suggest a place where people can go for a few moments of quiet reflection.
Rather, the wall – and the gates and the cages that surround many buildings on either side of the wall (see above) – is a divider meant to keep the peace by separating warring factions. Indeed the reason for the re-painting of the gates is not just the up-coming 25th anniversary of the Belfast or “Good Friday” Agreement (on April 10th) but the fact that they were damaged in the 2021 rioting (BBC). (This Irish News article surveys 150 years of violence at the site.)
The new art on the gates is inspired by the cover of the booklet sent to every household in advance of the May vote to ratify the Agreement (available at CAIN), which was similar in various ways to the television ad shown at the time (Ads On The Frontline). It showed a family of four in silhouette against a red-and-orange sunset; given the rioting associated with Lanark Way, on the gates this sunset could be mistaken for flames, and the rejoicing silhouetted figures for gesticulating and petrol-bomb-throwing rioters. For the previous art on the gates, see the Visual History page on the west Belfast “peace” line. (For the mural in the background, see Sailortown Dockers.)
“Joseph Plunkett & Grace Gifford – their final embrace & farewell.” May 4th is the anniversary of the execution of Joseph Plunkett, one of the planners of the Easter Rising in 1916. Seven hours before he faced the firing squad, he married Grace Gifford. The photograph is from a re-enactment for a 1966 RTÉ programme Insurrection (RTÉ). The ballad Grace, written by Seán and Frank O’Meara in 1985, is now internationally known (here is Jim McCann’s 1985 performance).
This is one of various recent additions to the many memorials in Ard An Lao, Béal Feırste/Ardilea, Belfast. This replaces the board seen in Continuing Their Legacy.
“CR Gas & The Burning Of Long Kesh, 15th-16th October, 1974 in Long Kesh. Operation Pagoda – the British government authorised and sanctioned the use of a chemical weapon against Irish Republican prisoners. Members of the 22nd S.A.S. carried out the attack from a helicopter.”
Operation Pagoda was the name of the SAS’s counter-terrorism programme (WP). Its role in the ‘Battle Of Long Kesh’ in October 1974 and its alleged use of CR (dibenzoxazepine) powder – the successor to CS powder (and before that, CN or “tear” gas) (New Scientist) – remains a classified matter. CR had been authorised for use in 1973 (Guardian).
“Why did you do it? Have you not the guts to say?” The question is for David Holden, who in 1988 was an 18-year-old Grenadier Guardsman, manning a checkpoint in Aughnacloy, Co. Tyrone. On February 21st, Holden shot Aidan McAnespie as he was walking to the nearby GAA club. Holden was convicted of manslaughter by gross negligence (BBC | Belfast Live) and was sentenced in February to three years, suspended for three years. The family expressed disappointment, saying that Holden did give a clear account of what happened nor express remorse (Sky News | Journal). Holden has now decided to appeal his conviction (BBC | RTÉ).
The lark in barbed wire is used here not as a symbol of political prisoners but of the struggle for justice in the UK system. (See the Visual History page on the lark and the dove.)
These are the boards at the chip shop (formerly a Spar and before that a Mace) in the centre of the Mourneview estate, Lurgan.
Above, in Mourne Road, a gallery of photographs of the Craigavon Protestant Boys (Fb) past and present, with a plaque in memory of Victor Stewart. “Our only crime is loyalty.”
Below are the images from the front of the shop, in Pollock Drive:
First/right: “When injustice becomes law resistance becomes duty.” The same panel was seen in Ballyclare, though for the 1st East Antrim battalion rather than the Mid Ulster brigade.
Next: A company, 1st battalion, Mid Ulster brigade UVF – Lurgan as well as Broxburn (outside Edinburgh) and Thornliebank (near Glasgow).
Next: A tribute to the Ulster Volunteers from the area: the 9th battalion Royal Irish Fusiliers joined the 108th brigade in the 36th (Ulster) Division; the 5th battalion joined the 31st brigade and the 10th (Irish) Division. This board goes back to (at least) 2011.
Next: “Believe, we dare not boast,/Believe, we do not fear/We stand to pay the cost,/In all that men hold dear.//What answer from the North?/One Law, one Land, one Throne/If England drive us forth,/We shall not fall alone!” Kipling’s poem Ulster.
All of the preceding pieces are UVF/PAF, but the last, high up on the left, is a UDU board in the top left of the wall, to 1 company, D battalion, South Belfast.
There are three hooded gunmen on the main panel of this new installation along Conway Street, Belfast, and the side panel is a gallery of 14 photographs of hooded gunmen, flanked on either by two more hooded gunmen.
Please note: the photograph above has been photoshopped for colour. The true colour (orange) can be seen in the wide shot, below.
“No. 5 Platoon, attached to ‘A’ Company, 1st Belfast Battalion, Ulster Volunteer Force, was formed at the onset of the conflict, and was eventually to become one of the most active Units with the Organisation. The Platoon was formed to fulfil one role, the defence of the Protestant community on the Shankill Road, in the wake of increasing, indiscriminate, Republican gun and bomb attacks. To counter these sectarian, murderous incursions, No. 5 Platoon devised a daring strategy, which would see its Volunteers strike at the very heart of the Republican war machine. Such steely determination and gallantry in the face of a deadly enemy, would make the Platoon one of the most deadly military Units within the 1st Belfast Battalion. Throughout the course of the conflict, alongside other UVF Active Service Units, using any and all means at their disposal, No. 5 Platoon Volunteers inflicted massive casualties to those who would seek our demise, and in so doing, brought the Irish Republican Movement to its knees. Today the message remains unchanged. As long as one of us remains, this community will not be shot, bombed, intimidated or coerced, into a United Ireland. Ulster will remain British! Those No. 5 Platoon Volunteers who were imprisoned during the conflict, and those who made the ultimate sacrifice for the Cause they served, will never be forgotten. They will now and forevermore, be honoured by those of us who remain. For God and Ulster.”
A candle-lit vigil (youtube | iTV) took place last Friday (February 3rd) to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the “New Lodge Six Massacre”. Shortly before midnight on the night of February 3rd-4th, 1973, Jim Sloan and James McCann were killed by the UDA outside a bar – or so the authorities alleged; the plaque shown below near the spot where they were shot reads “killed by British Forces”; full details of what is currently known about the killings can be found at Paper Trail.
Four more – Tony ‘TC’ Campbell, Ambrose Hardy, Brendan Maguire, John Loughran – were among those who came to the area of the initial shootings and were killed by British Army snipers from their positions on top of the flats, using night-vision sights.
The memorial mural in Donore Court was repainted for the event. From left to right, it shows Hardy, Maguire, Campbell, Loughran, Sloan, and McCann walking down New Lodge Road with (what was) Duncairn Presbyterian and (what was) the RUC station on the Antrim Road behind them. The previous (2011) version of the mural showed a body being carried whereas this new one shows them smiling as they walk, though still in the sights of a sniper’s rifle. Other changes were made: the six portraits in the medallions are now photographs rather than paintings; the background is green rather than pink.
Seosamh Mac Coille Collection 