In quick succession to the Easter Rising centenary mural in the same spot, there comes this 32 County Sovereignty Movement mural, with the island of Ireland in green, white, and orange, and (representing prisoners) barbed wire and a candle.
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Tony Taylor, an RNU leader and former IRA man in Derry, remains in Maghaberry prison after having his license revoked in March of this year. (See Free Tony Taylor.) Sinn Féin last week again called for Taylor’s immediate release of Tony Taylor (youtube). The Cogús mural above is in Beechmount Avenue.
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“Richard Mussen joined the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers (27th foot) at the age of 15. At the outbreak of the Zulu wars he volunteered for active service and was transferred to the Second Battalion The South Wales Borderers (24th foot). At the outbreak of the Great War he joined the 9th Battalion Royal Ulster Rifles and with him went his 4 sons and 2 sons-in-law. His son Richard (junior) was killed at the Somme on Thursday 21st March, 1918 and is remembered at Pozieres Memorial. Richard Mussen was buried from 22 Dundee Street [which was just above Agnes Street] on 29/12/1936 and was accorded full Military Honours. He was laid to rest in Belfast City Cemetery.” (From the plaque shown in image #3, below.)
Here is a short NVTv documentary about Mussen, including (at 12m25s) the image on which the mural shown here is based. The mural was done with spray paint by artist Sam Bates a.k.a. SMUG. It was unveiled on June 24th, 2011.
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This is a new Somme centenary mural in Carnmoney/Ballyduff, in memorial of the First World War and 1916 in particular. It also serves as a memorial to members of the Pride of the Hill flute band, David Lee and Kris Muckle. (It’s not clear what “Vivete in somnio” means – neither “vivete” nor “somnio” are Latin; “vivete” is Italian but “somnio” is not. Get in touch/leave a comment if you know what is intended.)
For images of Saturday’s launch, see the POTH Facebook page.
For a little information about Lee and Muckle, see the post on the previous mural in this location: Absent Friends.
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As can be seen above and in the two detail shots, below, the words “hope” and “life” are painted into the two sides of the waterfall that runs down the gable wall in the Clandeboye Street community garden in east Belfast beneath swallows and cherry trees. Painted by Friz (Web | Fb | Tw) in 2015. The final shot shows the similar palette of colours in the railings along the Newtownards Road.
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The main part of a Red Hand Commando mural was replaced recently with a board commemorating the action and deaths of the British Army’s 36th (Ulster) Division in World War I’s Battle Of The Somme, of which Captain Wilfrid Spender wrote, “I am not an Ulsterman but yesterday, the 1st July, as I followed their amazing attack, I felt that I would rather be an Ulsterman than anything else in the world. My pen cannot describe adequately the hundreds of heroic acts that I witnessed … The Ulster Volunteer Force, from which the division was made, has won a name which equals any in history.”
As shown in the three additional images, part of the old mural (and its plaques) remains on the right, “In memory of all loyalists who gave their lives in defence of Ulster – Lest we forget.”
For images of the launch (on 2016-03-08) see Belfast Live.
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X03431 X03430 X03429 X03428 newtownards rd your king and country need you enlist now HQ staff supreme sacrifice UVF C company john shakey wallace glen whispering shaw sam ferguson noel baker george taggart jim jonty johnstone billy bingham darren sessions
Nell (l) and Elizabeth (r) Corr from 107 Ormeau Road joined Cumann Na mBan in 1915 and travelled to Dublin in 1916 (with Nora Connolly, Ina Connolly, Bridie Farrell, Lizie Allen, Kathleen Murphy, and another girl called O’Neill (Treason Felony)) to serve as messengers in the preparations for April’s Easter Rising. They were in Liberty Hall (shown in the detail above) on the morning of the rising before heading north. Brother George, on the other hand, died at the Somme as a soldier in the Australian infantry, while another brother, Charles, fought in WWI with the Canadian Expeditionary Force. They are pictured on the left-hand side of the mural. (BBC | BBC video) There are two images of the work in-progress at the bottom of the post.
Elizabeth’s account of Easter Sunday and Monday is available at the Bureau Of Military History.
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X03424 X03468 X03469 X03422 X03423 X03425 Essex Grove Mickey Doherty the irishwomen’s council 206 great brunswick st. join the volunteer movement and become members of the above organisation first aid and ambulance classes reserve corps of trained nurses drill and rifle practices contribute to our equipment fund which has already bought rifles for the volunteers oglaigh na heireann public meeting large concert hall we serve neither king nor kaiser but ireland canadian armed forces
After a larger version of the poster on boards (Belfast Live | Belfast Telegraph) was taken down, the wall beneath — a mural to (now-released) Basque activist Arnaldo Otegi, featured previously in Free Otegi — has been plastered with these flyer-sized versions of an old (possibly 1970s) Provisional IRA poster warning the republican community about information-gathering by the security forces: “Loose-talk costs lives. In taxis, on the phone, at footbal[l] matches, at home with friends, anywhere! Whatever you say – say nothing.”
For a link to the 1975 Seamus Heaney poem “Whatever you say, say nothing” and a video of Colum Sands singing his song of the same name, see You Know Where.
Update: the flyers were removed on Wednesday 27th around lunchtime.
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The flyers above (on an electrical box in east Belfast) have been damaged not by time and the weather but by deliberate human efforts to remove them, one by scoring and the other by peeling. The sentiment expressed – that adapting oneself and the community to the influx of foreign nationals — or at least its public expression, is thus controversial in the area.
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Prince Rogers Nelson, better to the world as “Prince” and from 1993 to 2000 as the “love symbol” shown above, died last Thursday (April 21) in his home town of Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Previously: Belfast street artists pay tribute to David Bowie, who died in January: Stardust | Oh You Pretty Thing
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