Next to the bonfire site at the southern (Drumadoon Drive) entrance to Ballybeen, the banner on the building above proclaims the area’s paramilitary allegiance: East Belfast Ulster Volunteer Force.
Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2015 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X02875 for god and ulster
The tarp says féıle is “a year round cultural experience” but the main event is still the Gasyard Féıle in August. This year’s féıle included a screening of the film 66 Days (Derry Now). The festival ends on the 18th. (Final night write-up from Derry Journal.)
On the rear of Free Derry Corner.
Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2016 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X05362
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.
Replaces Putting The Boot In.
Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2016 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X03695 X03696 Ardoyne Avenue
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).
Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2016 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X03640 X03639 let me tell you a story of honour and glory helen’s tower conlig thiepval ulster tower
The night before he was executed for his part in the Easter Rising, republican leader James Connolly (5.6.1888-12.5.1916) penned a brief statement calling the British presence in Ireland “a usurpation and a crime against human progress” and declaring “The British government has no right in Ireland, never had any right in Ireland, never can have any right in Ireland”. Here are two images of Free Derry corner with Connolly’s quote, including The Petrol Bomber by the Bogside Artists and and “SFRY” (Sinn Féin Republican Youth) banner on the railings.
Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2016 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X03602 X03601 lecky rd
Two views of an IRPWA banner where Divis Street intersects with the motorway. It proclaims “Political dissent is not a crime – End internment now.”
Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2016 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X03503 X03458 divis st
Connolly House – Belfast headquarters of Sınn Féın – for the centenary of the Easter Rising bears the same banner as flew on the ITGWU’s Liberty Hall (in Dublin) during the first world war (see image below) until the building was destroyed during the Rising: We serve neither king nor kaiser, but Ireland! The house was purchased by Sınn Féın in 1983 and brought to its current condition in 2007 (Irish Times).
For a previous appearance of the slogan, on the shirts of a Glasgow flute band, see Business As Usual.
Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2016 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X03361 andersonstown road
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.
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
Sinn Féin have been over-run by money and lost touch with the community, according to this Ardoyne banner: a boot arrayed with Euro and Sterling signs tramples on the Sinn Féin symbol. “Say No to budget cuts! Say No to welfare reform. Community.”
Replaces: Resistance
Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2016 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X03299 ardoyne ave
Anti-Óglaıgh Na hÉıreann graffiti in Beechmount Street beneath a Sınn Féın banner using Martin Luther King to advocate for non-violent protest (shown previously in Always Avoid Violence).
See also: The F-Bomb.
Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2016 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X03296 FTONH
Seosamh Mac Coille Collection 