Following on from the crannóg excavations, we might say that we walk around on top of the past, layer upon layer. Here, however, the living people walk around below those that are frozen in time.
There was more news (Belfast Telegraph) last week (September 6, 2012) related to the on-going series of trials involving supergrass witnesses. A FAST banner is here seen in Spier’s Place. Last year there were banners in Donegall Pass, Mount Vernon, and Newtownards Road. For background and the collapse of the original trials, see Families Against Supergrass Trials.
Families Against Supergrass Trials was formed to protest the first supergrass trial in 26 years (after the system collapsed during the trial), to begin on September 8th, related to the killing of Tommy English (Belfast Telegraph | BBC | BBC). The banner above is in Donegall Pass, the one below is on the Mount Vernon flats. There was another in Newtownards Road (Irish News). (And in 2012, one in Spier’s Place/Shankill Rd.)
The troops in question are British forces in Afghanistan and Iraq, though the withdrawal of troops from Iraq had just taken place (on May 22) prior to the photographing of the image above (June 26).
“2009: Welcome To Loyalist Linfield Road. Celebrating Our Culture 1690.” The central panel is a combination Union Flag, Ulster Banner, and free-floating Northern Ireland.
The banner hung on the railings in Linfield Road from 2009 until it was stolen and placed on a 2013 republican bonfire (see Bonfire Flags) which then elicited a comment on the wall just east of this location (see They May Have Stole Our Banner).
Above and below are images from the August 15th (feast of the assumption) march of the Ancient Order Of Hibernians, taken at Milltown Cemetery where AOH leader Joe Devlin is buried. The first two show banners of the Gortrighey division (387) – the first includes an image of a priest celebrating the nativity on Christmas morning at a mass rock in the penal days which is also reproduced in an Ardoyne mural. The Glassdrummand banner shown next includes a very similar image.
We then have two showing the assumption of our lady, the first from the first Derry division and the second from Rosnashane.
The final banner, from Randalstown, shows ‘Our Lady Queen Of Ireland”.
The final two images are of the lapels of a well-traveled Newry member, with badges from Michigan and Pennsylvania alongside a pike (1798), an easter lily (1916) and commemorations of Bloody Sunday and the hunger strikers, and of the side entrance to the local Clonard AOH lodge, division 58, which hosted the gathering.
Sean Savage, Maıréad Farrell, and Dan McCann were “Executed by the British SAS 6th March 1988.”
“Oh! Cold March winds that pierce the dark/You cry in aged tones/For souls of folk you’ve brought to God/But still you bear the moans//Oh! Weeping winds, this lonely night/My mother’s heart is sore/Oh! Lord of all, breathe freedom’s breath/That she may weep no more! – Bobby Sands Weeping Winds“
Here are some images of the exposed interior of the (old) Michael Dwyer’s GAA club on Grosvenor Road, Belfast, along with two (earlier) images of banners inside the club. The mural and first banner are of Ireland personified as a female with harp and wolfhound (and wearing green, white, and orange). The second banner is entitled “Who fears to speak of [17]98” (from the 1843 song) – Dwyer was also known as “The Wicklow Chieftain” for his exploits in the rebellion and the years following.
Seosamh Mac Coille Collection 