painted wall

Up On The Roof

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2014-09-17 TowerMcCreesh+

Six of the seven New Lodge tower blocks each feature two hunger strikers, on the narrow sides of the building. Those featured are the ten who died in 1981 along with Frank Stagg and Michael Gaughan. Here are images of five of them. Above is Raymond McCreesh, below is Kieran Doherty with a tricolour and ‘Justice for the Craigavon 2’, third is Martin Hurson and a Palestinian flag, fourth is Francis Hughes, and fifth is Frank Stagg.

An annotated Google map and a table give the Irish, English and former names of the flats (“houses”) as well as their locations and the hunger strikers on each.

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Comrades In Resistance

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2014-09-15 NLodgeComradesLeft+

A Che Guevara quote – “I don’t care if I fall as long as someone else picks up my gun and keeps on shooting” – unifies two panels bearing masked men firing funeral volleys, Irish and Palestinian shields, and “Our day will come” in both Irish and Arabic.

Previously: Someone Else

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Unbowed, Unbroken

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2014-09-12 NLodgeUnbowedFull+

Above is a recent mural by Damian Walker in the New Lodge, in support of republican prisoners in Maghaberry, showing a single shirtless prisoner with a flower (? – see the close-up below) surrounded by three baton-wielding officers. Sponsored the 32-County Sovereignty Movement (web).

Replaces: Damn Your Concessions, England

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C. Coy Street

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2014-09-10 CCoyFive+

UVF volunteers (l-r) Thomas Chapman, James McGregor, Robert McIntyre, William Hannah, and Robert Wadsworth, who were killed between 1973 and 1978, are commemorated in a new mural in Carnan (or “C. Coy”) Street. The mural is unusual in that it shows bare-faced full figures; loyalist murals sometimes include head-shots (at the top of the mural, in the apex of a gable wall, e.g. Standing Guard) but only masked men appear as full figures. There is a similarity in composition and style (and perhaps even palette) to existing Republican murals such as this one of five B. Coy IRA volunteers in Ballymurphy.

The wide shot (below) is taken from the main road: the fish-and-chip shop on the Shankill is called “A Salt And Battered”. For a straight-on image of the red-and-black mural to the left, see We Were Young. Still shots of the mural in progress are included in this video of the bands parading at the launch.

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We Were Young

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2014-09-10 CCoyPoppies+

A. E. Housman’s 1919 short poem “Here dead we lie” is featured, together with the poppies that grew on the Western Front in WWI, in this UVF commemorative mural. The 36th (Ulster) Division is not mentioned specifically; the plaque on the right-hand side (which pre-dates the mural) lists the names of five UVF members killed in the 70s who are depicted in the mural just out of picture but seen below in a wide shot of both murals (and by itself in C Coy Street). For a similar connecting of the two Ulster Volunteer Forces, see 100 Years Apart, Armed & Ready, Years Of Sacrifice, and others. Another wide shot is given in C Coy Street, taken from the main road and shows that the fish-and-chip shop on the Shankill is called “A Salt And Battered”.

“Here dead we lie, because we did not choose,
to live and shame the land, from which we sprung.
Life, to be sure, is nothing much to lose,
but young men think it is, and we were young.”

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X02177 X02178 recognition appreciation remembrance  for god and ulster 1st battalion belfast brigade “c” company ulster volunteer force killed in action mcintyre 19-5-73 wadsworth 11-4-75 chapman 12-6-75 mcgregor 12-6-75 hannah 21-6-78 they shall not grow old as we that are left grow old age shall not weary them nor the years condemn at the going down of the sun and in the morning we will remember them in our hearts forever

Loyalist Prisoners & Widow’s Welfare

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2014-09-10 PeoplesArmyNew+

A second plaque has been added to “The People’s Army” wall on the Shankill Road (at Moscow Street) by the LPWWA Scotland: “In everlasting memory of Volunteer Alastair Von (Ziff) 19th October 2009”. It joins a plaque to “A true soldier – Big Bill Campbell”, leader of the UVF’s 1st Scottich battalion. Campbell and Von were imprisoned for bombing Glasgow pubs in 1979 and Campbell is suspected of involvement of the McGurk’s Bar bombing in 1971. (See also: The Economist gives a brief history of Glasgow sectarianism.) 

Below are a close-up of the plaques and a shot of the wall last year. There is a song in honour of Bill Campbell. The Campbell plaque was originally on the Northland St mural of the Shankill West Belfast 1st Batt A Coy 5th Plat before it was re-imaged as a Thiepval memorial mural.

See previously: Shankill Reflections

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Oh, Paddy Boy

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2014-09-06 BarnesDetail+

Paddy Barnes fights India’s Devendro Singh Laishram in the light flyweight gold-medal bout at the 2014 Commonwealth games in Glasgow. Barnes won gold, successfully defending his title and adding to his collection, shown in the second image (below) and listed at the bottom of the mural (third image, below). Barnes sparked controversy when he remarked, as the Londonderry Air/Danny Boy was played as the Northern Irish “anthem”, “That’s not my national anthem.”. The mural is in Barnes’s home area of Ardoyne/Ard Eoın and was painted by Lucas Quigley and Mickey Doherty.

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Hat Trick

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2014-09-06 BarnesDonnelly+

Rory Donnelly is a former Cliftonville player, from Belfast, currently signed to Welsh club Swansea and playing internationally (U-21) for Northern Ireland. As shown here, Donnelly’s hands (like the rest of him – he is 6′ 2″) are long and slender; the problem with the depiction is rather that it appears to show a thumb where his little finger should be – the photograph on which the mural is based (see the last image in this BBC gallery) shows that in fact he is holding down his little finger (with his thumb behind his palm), thus leaving three digits raised in celebration of a hat trick against Dungannon Swifts.

The Paddy Barnes mural to the left was featured previously in Oh! Paddy Boy.

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Bytes

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2014-09-06 Bytes+

The final spot on Northumberland Street (see previously: Reserved) was taken in September by this mural for Youth In Motion’s ‘Bytes’ project, which seeks to build basic skills and assist job-seekers (Fb | web (YIM) | web (Bytes)).

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