Snooker player Alex “Hurricane” Higgins died on this day, July 24th, in 2010. He was inducted into the Snooker Hall of Fame in 2011 as (twice) winner of the World Snooker Championship, UK Championship, and (twice) Masters. Upon winning the 1982 World Championship, an emotional Higgins was joined on the floor by his wife Lynn Avison and (shown above) daughter Lauren.
This is one of the panels of the long community mural in Stroud Street, painted in 2012.
19 year-old Sandy Row resident Gary Whittley was killed in a hit-and-run incident in November, 2005 (BBC-NI) with charges being brought in 2008 (Tele). Most of the mural, which showed him in boxing gear, (see below for a 2012 image) is now gone, but the quote from 2nd Timothy remains: “I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith.”
Françoise Duparc‘s Woman Knitting is reproduced and extended with a scarf of multiple panels such as the two shown below, of a baby buggy about to run over a pile of dog doo, and of a girl painting forest sprites, as well as the Sandy Row Falcons (cheerleading) (Fb) and Sandy Row FC (Tw).
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.
IRPWA (Irish Republican Prisoners Welfare Association) stencil. Below is a wide shot showing all three of recent pieces in Beechmount (prior to the destruction of the one on the right): No Steps Backward | Political Dissent Is Not A Crime! | The Butcher’s Apron.
Martin McGuinness waits, with hand outstretched, to greet a smiling Queen Elizabeth who strides towards him carrying a bloodied axe and wearing a Union flag apron spattered with the blood of people from Ireland, Palestine, Afghanistan, and Iraq. Mural in Beechmount reproducing a 2012 Latuff cartoon.
The history-of-republicanism mural now taking up the majority of the International Wall is not without controversy among republicans. One point of contention is the inclusion of Edward Carson’s portrait and the related scene of the Larne gun-running. Carson was leader of the Irish Unionist Alliance, campaigner against Home Rule, and founder of the Ulster Volunteers. 25,000 guns and more than 3 million rounds of ammunition were smuggled ashore at Larne, Donaghadee, and Bangor (see the second image for a sketch and the bottom two images for the completed scene). The formation of the UVF drew a counter-reaction in the formation of the Irish Volunteers, and membership was spurred on by the Larne gun-running. (See the third image.)
Carson’s image was originally paint-bombed in March (BMG | BelTel) and then again in April when “loose talk” posters were also added (Irish News). (For Loose Talk posters over the Otegi mural, see Loose-Talk Costs Lives.) For the launch on August 3rd, the posters were removed but the paint-bombing was not fixed. The image above is from June, 2016.
Grid for the gun-running scene; image from March 2016. It is based on a drawing from the Illustrated London News, which can be seen in this RTÉ article on the gunrunning. About 600 cars were used in the operation, perhaps the first large-scale use of motorised vehicles.
A newsboy carries a paper announcing the burgeoning Irish Volunteers. The headline portrayed was later changed, as can be seen in one of the images below.
The first part of wall at the end of March, before the addition of the ‘loose talk’ posters over Carson’s face.
The panel as it appears in August; the removal of the posters tore away some of the paint around Carson’s face.
A late August repaint makes Carson’s forehead protrude and the fingers of his hand are curled up. A Fáılte Feırste Thıar/Welcome To West Belfast panel has been added. (Presumably this welcome does not extend to the weapons being smuggled in as part of the gun-running.)
A shortage in low-income housing is highlighted in the #buildhomesnow campaign which has put up lots of small boards (such as the one in the image below, on Divis Street) and the mural shown above, which is in the New Lodge. The site of the old Mackie’s factory is one particular location the campaign says could be redeveloped. (See articles from BMG and Participation & Practice Of Rights.)
Local artist Friz teamed up with London painter ARTiSTA* to produce this new mural outside the (recently-saved-from-demolition) Sunflower bar (replacing KVLR’s Pizza Pipe). Artista painted the violin with legs on the left while Friz painted the girl on the right wearing winged headphones. Work-in-progress shots can be seen on the Sunflower’s Fb page.
Two animal pieces: in the second, below, the giraffe and the monkey roam free among the flowers; in the first, the tiger (painted by Friz web) is caged behind some railings along Donegall Street Place.
Seosamh Mac Coille Collection 