political

Celebrating 400 Years

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County Londonderry was formed just over 400 years ago, in 1613, comprising the previous County Coleraine (itself formerly O’Cahan’s Country) with parts of Tyrone and the west bank of the Foyle in Donegal (WP). Unlike the city, there has never been a “County Derry” but that has not stopped the graffitist of this Northern Ireland centenary mural in south Belfast from blacking out the “London” in “Londonderry” on the map – in the list of the six counties it remains unscathed. The graffitist presumably came from the Lisburn Road direction rather than the Village.

The “100 years” mural replaces the ‘UDA Lisburn Road’ mural which dated back to at least 2003.

For the dispute over Derry/Londonderry as the name of the city and the council, see Stoop Down Low Party | Do You Live In Londonderry? | Derry Not Londonderry | Vote SDLP For A Better Londonderry | It’s Derry Not Londonderry.

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The Loyalty Of Northern Ireland

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Two final pieces from Lower Waterloo Road, Larne: above, Winston Churchill, and below, Rangers. The Churchill quote comes from a letter to NI Prime Minister John Andrews when he stepped down in 1943. In full it reads “But for the loyalty of Northern Ireland [and its devotion to what has now become the cause of thirty Governments or nations,] we should have been confronted with slavery and death, and the light which now shines so strongly throughout the world would have been quenched.” Had the board been been erected more recently, it might have quoted another line from the letter: “During your Premiership the bonds of affection between Great Britain and the people of Northern Ireland have been tempered by fire, and are now, I firmly believe, unbreakable.”

Below is Walter Smith, two-time manager of Rangers, who died in 2021. See The Gaffer.

This post completes the set from Lower Waterloo Road in Larne – the wide shot shows Mephedrone to the far left; then Rangers, Duke Of Edinburgh, NI Centenary, and Churchill; Women Are A Whole Community is out of shot to the right.


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The Flax And The Lily

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The orange lily and the (pale blue) flax flower take their place around the Ulster Banner alongside the English rose and Scottish thistle, and the Irish shamrock is retained even in the presence of the lily. The flax is perhaps included because we are in the Factory area of Larne, near the site of a (former) linen mill. The Welsh daffodil is excluded. The detail above is part of a wider board “Boyne Square celebrates 100 years of Northern Ireland”; the flanking emblems of the Boyne Defenders (LOL 1297), Rangers Supporters club (Larne Branch) – which also uses the shamrock – Boyne Square Bonfire Forum, and Larne & District Great War Society and included below; the emblems of three flute bands can be seen in Norman Anderson and The Gunrunners.

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Let Us Shout Joyfully

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“O come, let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before the Lord our maker. For He is our God and we are the people of his pasture, the sheep under his care.” In Psalms 95, the current generation of Hebrews is exhorted to declare Yahweh as their god, or suffer the fate of the previous generation who did not believe and were left to die in the wilderness during the exodus: a wrathful Yahweh declares, “They shall not enter My rest” (Enduring Word). After ten years in the wilderness of the Scottish league minor divisions, Glasgow Rangers are again champions and the Rangers faithful are shouting joyfully – here is Sandy Row on the hoarding around the site of the old Gilpin’s shoe shop and the UFF funeral volley mural.

See previously Order Restored (which will link to even more posts).

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X09087 X09090 X09091 [X09086] [X09088] [X09089] the battles we refuse to fight today become the hardships our children must endure tomorrow

The Orange State

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The orange lily began appearing in murals with some frequency in the mid-2000s (with one earlier appearance in Londonderry; compare this to posts with orange lilies at Peter Moloney – Murals and in this collection).

It became part of the logo of the Orange Order in 2007 – see Design Research Group – and there was an attempt to re-brand the Twelfth as “Orangefest” (Irish Times). It is used in this centenary celebration board to make it clear that Northern Ireland was created as a Protestant and unionist state.

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Remember The Hunger Strikers

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Here are two IRSP pieces commemorating the 40th anniversary of the 1981 hunger strike. The first, above and immediately below, is from Ard Eoın/Ardoyne (Béal Feırste/Belfast) with colour (or at least, colour-ised) portraits of the ten who died on either side of an image from Keven Lynch’s funeral cortège. It is the same as the board seen on the lower Falls in For A Socialist Republic. At the bottom is a poster from Strabane calling people to gather in remembrance in Derry.

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Four F*cks Given

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Derry’s Bogside is at odds with everyone, it seems: above, the English Queen and her platinum jubilee, below, NATO, and … Creggan!

Lasair Dhearg’s take on the jubilee is entitled 70 Years A Parasite.

The anti-NATO placard has a small hammer-and-sickle at the bottom.

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Justice For Eddie Meenan

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The trial has begun, before Londonderry Crown Court, of three men accused of the murder of Eddie Meenan, who was stabbed 40-50 times in November, 2018 (Derry Journal | BBC). The graffiti above is on the electrical box at the bottom of Fahan Street, next to a Lasaır Dhearg (web) ‘Don’t join the PSNI’ poster (shown below), with the Che Guevara Lynch mural visible on the left.

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The Rising Of The Moon

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The moon rises over Thompson’s feed on York Road while the sun sets over the New Lodge tower blocks, most of which have the portraits of two deceased hunger strikers from the 70s and 80s on them, including Francis Hughes on Teach Mhéabha. (See New Lodge Flats for a full list.)

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Those Who Endure The Most

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Kieran Doherty’s memorial stone (below) is recreated at the back of the mural of his funeral cortège. “I gcuımhne ar Vol. Kieran Doherty T.D. Brıogáıd Bhéal Feırste [Óglaıgh Na hÉıreann], of 54 Commedagh Drive. Rugadh 16ú Deıreadh Fómhaır 1955, elected T.D. for Cavan/Monaghan 11th June 1981, a fuaır bás 2ú Lúnasa 1981, after 73 days on hunger strike in the H-Blocks of Long Kesh. ‘It is not those who can inflict the most, but those who endure the most, who will conquer in the end’.” (The Terence MacSwiney quote is not included on the painted stone.)

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