political

If You Remove The English Army Tomorrow

Extramural ActivityLeave a comment
03353 2016-04-01 England Will Still Rule You+

A line from James Connolly’s 1897 piece “Socialism And Nationalism” is adapted by the IRSP for the current post-partition situation: “England will still rule you, she would rule you through her bankers, landlords and Stormont”.

Connolly’s original thought is that – even in a self-governing republic – nationalism is not enough to establish an authentically Irish state: “If you remove the English army tomorrow and hoist the green flag over Dublin Castle, unless you set about the organization of the Socialist Republic your efforts would be in vain. England would still rule you. She would rule you through her capitalists, through her landlords, through her financiers, through the whole array of commercial and individualist institutions she has planted in this country and watered with the tears of our mothers and the blood of our martyrs.”

Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2016 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X03353 glen rd irish republican socialist party

The Evolution Of Our Revolution

Extramural ActivityLeave a comment
03350 2016-03-31 Evolution Of Revolution+

A history of nationalism/republicanism from left to right: a pair of Easter lilies, four generations of rifles, and then a switch to a ballot paper with a check in favour of “unity” and a road named “Unity Way”: “From bullet to ballot: the evolution of our revolution. 1916 – 2016”

This mural is on the north side of Hugo Street – the south side remains exclusively éırígí.

X06994 2020-02-14 Evol Revol d+

Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2020 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X03350 X06994 harp

Twinbrook Rebuilds

Extramural ActivityLeave a comment
03304 2016-02-29 Twinbrook Rebuild+

The Twinbrook Road shops have been moved out to the edge of the street and the murals that were on the old shops are now gone or obscured, including the long wall of hunger-striker portraits had been updated annually since 2006. That mural has been condensed into a new, printed, image, placed on the side of the shops facing the Stewartstown Road. As before, it shows blanketmen Freddie Toal and Hugh Rooney, Sands, and three volunteers firing a volley of shots, with the portraits of the strikers who died in the 70s and 80s along the bottom.

03303 2016-02-29 Twinbrook Rebuild w+

Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2016 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X03304 X03303 twinbrook rd colin commemoration committee stagg gaughan sands mcdonnell hurson lynch doherty devine mcilwee o’hara hughes mccreesh

Voice Of The North

Extramural ActivityLeave a comment
03300 2016-02-28 Sell Out

“Sell Out” with arrows pointing to three red dots on the wall of the Republican Ex-Prisoners Association (also housing SNAP – Safer Neighbourhood Ardoyne Project – and Glór An Tuaiscirt (Voice Of The North – an Irish-language and cultural organisation)) in Ardyone.

Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2016 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X03300 brompton rd cumann na h-iarchimi poblachtacha

Unbroken Presence

Extramural ActivityLeave a comment
03302 2016-02-28 Ardoyne Wall Curtain+

More “peace” line images today (after yesterday’s repainting of the Cliftonville “peace” line in Blue Sky Thinking): at the end of February work began taking down a section of the 8 foot high wall on the Ardoyne side of the Crumlin Road, separating Ardoyne from the Woodvale area, though the section close to Woodvale and the wall on the Woodvale side remain for now.

The houses on the north side of the road will now be able to see the road and the doors of Holy Cross church (shown above).

The vintage piece of Free Brendan Lillis graffiti shown in the final image survives, just out of picture to the left in the wide shot below.

Here is some BBC-NI footage of the wall being knocked down. Here are Irish Times, NewsLetter and Tele articles on the 2013 NI Executive policy objective of removing the lines by 2023. And here’s an interview with Heather Bellamy, author of Towards A City Without Walls.

03305 2016-03-01 Ardoyne Wall w+

03306 2016-03-01 Ardoyne Wall Cross+

03319 2016-03-07 Brendan Lillis Crumlin Graffiti+

Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2016 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X03302 X03305 X03306 X03319 this cross stands here to mark the unbroken presence of the passionists and the people at holy cross since 1869 and as a sign of hope

Blue Sky Thinking

Extramural ActivityLeave a comment
03269 2016-01-25 Painting Peace Line Over+

The Manor Street “peace” line dividing north Belfast’s Lower Oldpark and Cliftonville areas got a facelift in January — the beige was painted over with a sky blue colour. For the painted gable on the left, see Soccer Stars.

The wide shot, (third image, below,) gives an impression of its height and extent (and this is only the north-south part of the line.) 

The fourth image is of an old European Union “Urban” mural showing the north Belfast skyline, including Cave Hill (and Napoleon’s Nose) and Belfast Lough. (For more info on Urban II and the mural, see minute 17 onward in this NVTv documentary).

03268 2016-01-25 Painting Peace Line Statue+

03265 2016-01-25 Painting Peace Line w+

03266 2016-01-25 Painting Peace Line Urban+

Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2016 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X03269 X03268 X03265 X03266 giving the community the initiative partnership in practice

Derryrhoea

Extramural ActivityLeave a comment
03251 2016-01-14 Derryrhoea+

Here is the latest political comment from TLO (we assume): DUP member and former Minister for Culture, Arts, and Leisure Gregory Campbell – MLA for East Londonderry– is shown suffering from “Derryrhoea”. In the upper posters, his hair is orange and tongue red, while in the lower poster he appears to be seeing and thinking feces. Campbell has been twicebarred from speaking in the Assembly in the last 15 months.

Previously by TLO: Demonizing Paisley, Three Studies Of Ian Paisley, and Ian Jong-un, Wee Angel, Taking The Hump

Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2015 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X03251 hill st

We Must Share The Responsibility

Extramural ActivityLeave a comment
03247 2015-12-20 Common Sense+

UDA commander John McMichael was also secretary of the New Ulster Political Research Group (NUPRG), a think tank of the UDA/UFF. The group argued for an independent Northern Ireland (based in part on beliefs about a separate Ulster ethnic identity – see the Visual History page on Cú Chulaınn) in two documents, 1979’s Beyond the Religious Divide and 1987’s Common Sense (available at CAIN), promoting the philosophy of ‘Ulster nationalism’, depicted here by the free-floating Northern Ireland. McMichael ran unsuccessfully for the Belfast South seat after the murder of Robert Bradford (see To Bathe The Sharp Sword Of My Word In Heaven).

“As John McMichael stated before his untimely death, we must share the responsibility for finding a settlement and share the responsibility of maintaining good government. He left us hope.”

Here’s a link to an image (from @conflictNI on Xitter) of McMichael at the launch of Common Sense in 1987.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2013 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X03247 X01585 [X01583] [X01584] [X01586] [X01587] lemberg st

History Carved In Stone

Extramural ActivityLeave a comment
03227 2015-12-18 Falls Garden 2+

The two images featured today are of carved panels in the Falls Garden Of Remembrance (with the gold-plated surround removed). The garden commemorates fallen members of (IRA) D company but the panels suggest a wider appreciation of lower Falls residents. The same is also true of the mural in the background of the wide shot (third image, below), for which see Cry “Havoc”.

03226 2015-12-18 Falls Garden 1+

03242 2015-12-31 Divis Garden+

Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2015 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X03227 X03226 X03242 falls cultural society  the service and loss of its sons a daughters in the pursuit of irish freedom