Here’s a patronising slogan from the Cupar Way “peace” line, complete with peace/anti-nuclear symbol. Also visible: “Be kind; don’t hurt”, “United, all win”, “Praying for peace in Belfast”, “Love one another”, “Trust and compromise” and so on.
The road to equality is long and winding and goes through Andersonstown’s Derrin Pass. The junction is full of small board depicting Gaelic games, Irish culture, and landscape drawings, as well as exhortations towards equality — see the corresponding entry in the Peter Moloney Collection.
Three F-bombs today in a concentrated package. Above we have the PSNI and the IRA combined into one (and next to a swastika, not shown) in Maladon Street, south Belfast. Below, we have “Fuck the TV man, part 3” in Roulston Street in Londonderry’s Waterside. And finally, there is is “Fuck DAAD fags” on the New Lodge Road in north Belfast. “DAAD” stands for “direct action against drugs”, a group which counted Kevin McGuigan and Jock Davison as members (both of whom were killed in a feud this summer) and now goes by “AAD”. (For AAD and the murders of Davison and McGuigan see Irish News | Belfast Telegraph | Guardian.)
Here is a board from outside the Ulster Rangers Supporters Club (Fb) on the Shankill Road. It highlights the roles played by women during WWI as nurses and welders and in the Land Army. “She hasn’t a sword and she hasn’t a gun. But she’s doing her duty now fighting’s begun.”
The forces are shown gathered outside the West Belfast Orange Hall, on the Shankill at Brookmount Street.
The quote on this new board in the Lower Shankill estate – “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, concerned citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has” – is attributed to “Margaret Mead, American Author 1901-1978”. Mead in fact was best known as an anthropologist and in particular for her study of adolescent coming-of-age in the islands of Samoa which concluded that adolescence there was not at all the stressful and confused period that it was Western teens.
Today’s image is of the final new mural in the recent re-imaging of the Lower Shankill estate. It shows a patchwork quilt of word related to women and the roles they play in families and communities, such as “aunt”, “mother”, “sister”, “granny”, and “caring”, “diverse”, “strong”, and “unheard voices”.
Among the sweepings at the site of the former RUC barracks are placards from Sinn Féin Youth (Fb), one bearing a (never-before-seen) Red Power flag (WP). “End social injustice”.
The wave of people seeking asylum from political strife in Europe continues.”Fáılte romhaıbh a chaırde” is Irish for “Welcome, friends” while “Qaxootiga soo Dhaweyn” is Somali for “Refugees welcome”. Somalis make up about 9% of the current wave of migrants from Africa and Syrians 33%. (Irish Times) 2,000 refugees are to be settled in Northern Ireland. (belfastlive) The yellow-on-black outline of parents and daughter running originates in the United States, used on ‘caution’ signs along highways near the US-Mexico border. For images of the mural’s launch on September 12th, see the WARN twitter feed.