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Chuckle Babies/No Walls

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The story of the lead image is told in the images below. First, Paul Doran and Mark Ervine paint a mural of two “Chuckle Babies” (images 2 and 3 – see also Mark’s baby for Hit The East) between Imagine and the Frederick Douglass mural with its recently Xed out Aung San Suu Kyi and obscured by the recently-painted lower gates of the war wall (a.k.a “peace” line) on Northumberland Street (image 4).

Secondly, the mural is covered in French posters from the 1970s – which visitors were encouraged to sign and leave messages on – as “Act 1” of the No Walls project involving KRM (Cherif and Geza, a couple from France and Germany), Paul Doran, and Londoner John Costi, and which also included an exhibition in the Titanic museum (pdf of the full project).

Some of the posters and writing were ripped off (to be used in Act 2) on the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall in 1989 (video at the Irish News) to reveal again the babies (final image).

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Copyright © 2017 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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Lidl On Equality

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The PPR (Participation & The Practice Of Rights) project has called for homes to be built at the Crumlin Road “Hillview” site but the council’s planning council approved a retail park (Belfast Live) by a vote of 7 to 6 (BelTel). The connection to supermarket chain Lidl is unclear, as there is no mention of a supermarket in the plans for the retail park. If you can shed any light, please leave a comment. Their slogan “Lidl: Big on quality, Lidl on price” has been rephrased as “Lidl: Big on quality, Lidl on equality”.

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I Owe My Allegiance To The Working Class

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Seamus Costello fought for the IRA during the Border Campaign and was interned in the Curragh for two years. He stayed with the Officials during the split, but was driven out in 1974 and formed the Irish Republican Socialist Party (IRSP) and the INLA. He was shot in 1977. (WP)

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Copyright © 2017 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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Dead End

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A good deal of attention was recently paid to the removal of a “peace” wall at the top of Springhill Avenue (e.g. Guardian | Irish Times). As can be seen from the image above, however, a high fence has been put in its place and the dense shrubbery left intact, so that it is impossible to enter or exit the area this way. The new “transparency” is similar to the see-through gate in Workman Avenue in 2015 and in Howard Street in 2013. The immediate impact has been to remove a large wall used for muraling: Palestine Abú | Man Against Machine | Apache Hellfire.

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Copyright © 2017 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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U’ll Do Nottin!

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A drugs-related dialogue on the walls of Berwick Road in Ardoyne. “AAD” is “Action Against Drugs” who threaten that “Drug dealers will be shot” (in June, they claimed responsibility for two killings – Irish News). But the respondent – perhaps with the power of the resurrection in mind – is unimpressed.

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Civilisation Has Its Roots In The Soil

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“Civilisation has its roots in the soil & without soil there will be no future life – Tá an duıne fréamhaıthe san ıthır, gan í ní hann dó” by Ed Reynolds (web) and Tancredi Caruso. Together they put on an exhibition and painted a mural for the Belowground Visions Of Life project (Soil Security Programme). The mural is outside Bunscoıl Mhıc Reachtaın (hence the Irish translation) in the old ‘Little Italy’ area of Belfast. Sand or soil has been added to the mural to give it texture.

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