A deal to end the standoff at Twaddell Avenue, where an Orange Order parade was stopped in 2013, fell though a few days before the proposed July 1st march date (BelTel). The GARC (Greater Ardoyne Residents Collective) tarp shown above maps out an alternative route that would bypass the Ardoyne shops.
These two murals of five women and five babies at the rear of the Maureen Sheehan health care centre are entering (at least) their eighth year of existence and are showing their wear due to both the natural and human causes, such as graffiti and burning (see previously: A Philosophy of Liberation). For the murals in better condition (in 2010) see M05732 and M05733.
“Please “support” our bra appeal: the ladies in Ghana spend long hours working in the fields unsupported. Please donate your unwanted bras & help give them a lift. Many thanks.”
emic (Eoin McGinn Fb | web) has been at work on the Falls Road painting a mural for the Suicide Awareness & Support Group. Two figures face each other, seated on the index fingers of hands tattooed with “hope” and “love”. Wide shot below.
A 2012 Belfast Telegraph opinion piece asked “Is it Orangefest or vodka and Orangefest?” This year sees a campaign to curb alcohol consumption during marching season (including both the centenary of the Somme on July 1st and the traditional Twelfth celebration of the Battle of the Boyne) using the slogan “It’s about the battle not the bottle” and the hashtag #battlenotbottle. Here is a NewsLetter article on the campaign, which includes 25,000 beermats bearing the message.
It also contains (as shown in the wide shot, below) figures for both the number of casualties suffered by the 36th (Ulster) Division on July 1 at the Battle of the Somme (5,500) and the number of Irishmen who served in the Great War (200,000).
Two pieces relating to abortion rights. The first is a piece of Irish-language graffiti in North Street, below Andy Council’s CNB14 Phoenix, signed by “Mısneach” (“courage”). The second is a stencil in Garfield Street below Leo Boyd’s Bowie tribute Oh You Pretty Thing: “Need an abortion? Womenhelp.org.”
“From Warsaw to Berlin” — Polish airmen in England, in the 300 Mazovian bomber squadron, write a “dedication” on a bomb headed for Germany in August 1941. The plane added as a background is perhaps an Avro Lancaster, while the one in the middle ground (in the wide shot, below) is a Vickers Wellington. According to the information board (shown last, below) “many Polish servicemen remained in Great Britain and Ireland after the [Second World] war, laying the foundations for a large Polish community that now (in Northern Ireland) numbers over 30,000.”
The Belfast Pride festival runs from July 29th to August 7th this year, with a parade on the 6th. 8 weeks ago today (on June 12th) 49 people were shot to death in a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida. The images below are from Ardoyne Avenue and Northumberland Street.
“Education is our passport to the future. Tomorrow belongs to the people who prepare for it today.” This ‘parachute cloth’ mural, which promotes education over gangs, joins three UVF murals in Pine Street, Donegall Pass, south Belfast. (For two of those murals, see Defenders Of The Pass | South Belfast UVF 2nd Batt.)
Two worlds spring from the mind of the youth in the centre of this new mural by Nozzle & Brush (web | Fb) in south Belfast just off Donegall Pass: on the left, the darkness of drugs, drink, and demons; on the right, the light of sport, music, and spray-painting.