This is the fourth version of the UFF mural on the first gable in “Freedom Corner” along the Newtownards Road but the changes are minor compared with the 2009 version: the jacket and skyline are darker in colour. The mural shows a balaclava’d volunteer with assault rifle and a modified version of the Declaration of Arbroath: “For as long as one hundred of us remain alive we shall never in anyway consent to submit to the Irish for it’s not for glory, honour or riches we fight but for freedom alone which no man loses but with his life – U.D.A./U.F.F”
A UVF mural featuring three masked paramilitaries over the car park of Iceland (a supermarket chain) on the Newtownards Rd. The line “We are the pilgrims, master; we shall go always a little further” comes from a 1913 poem by James Flecker. This mural was painted in May 2011, at a time when, in contrast, paramilitary murals were being replaced (BBC-NI). The in-progress shot below is from 2011-05-28.
A banner and board reminding people of the deaths of Jimmy McCurrie and Bobby Neill, next to their memorial garden (in the right of the shot) on the Newtownards Road, with the cranes Samson and Goliath in the background. The two civilians died in the course of rioting and a gun battle around St. Matthew’s that was “the first major confrontation to occur in east Belfast during the troubles” (McKittrick et al., p. 50). It is not clear at what time each died. McKittrick (Lost Lives, ISBN 978-1840185041, amazon.co.uk, .com) gives the death of both as the 27th, and puts Neill’s death at 2 a.m. (and so strictly on the 28th??). Matt Baggott is the current Northern Ireland chief of police.
On the side wall of the Times Bar in York Road, a mural commemorating Irish and Northern Irish service in the British military.
Robert Blair “Paddy” Mayne is featured on the left (WP).
A plaque in the middle reads: In memory of Pte. F.G. Dolloghan, Parachute Regt. Killed at the Nijmegan Bridges, Holland, Sept. 1944. (WWII’s Operation Market Garden (WP))
Loyalist boards showing a (UVF) hooded gunman and a tiger from the “Mount Vernon Volunteers” wearing a purple beret, on Ross House, the Mount Vernon tower block. On the upper floors are an Ulster Banner and Union Flags.
This is one of the most famous murals in Belfast on account of its position overlooking the entrance of Mount Vernon and the M2 – the central gunman appears to be aiming right at you as you come down the off-ramp to the Shore Road. The original mural (T00138 | D00382) – which dates back to the ceasefire (1995) – was on a gable at the front of the estate but the entire block of houses was knocked down (c. 2000 – BelTel). It was later recreated (though without the words “3rd battalion” above “North Belfast) in the current more elevated position.
A detail from a board in Tower Street (off the Lower Newtownards Road) featuring a young girl carrying a union flag – a famous photograph from VE Day, 1945. For the whole mural, see M04869.
A Post Office box on the Falls Road that’s green, has a Free Marian Price sticker on it, and has a letter-only aperture to prevents parcel-bombs, pipe-bombs, etc. being inserted
Seasonal greeting in support of Republican political prisoners – with candles at base – in Northumberland Street (Visual History). This is the centre part of a wider mural-board composite – left and right shots below.
The “Nollaıg shona” and board in the picture just above together replace the previous “human rights” mural; the area below the “doors” hoarding, where the phoenix now appears, was previously blank.
Seosamh Mac Coille Collection 