A poster of ‘the sacred heart of Jesus’ is blackened and scored out in Cliftonville Avenue, north Belfast.
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Copyright © 2023 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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The Shroud
poster/paste-up/sticker
The Rangers That I Love
Here are images of murals from the interior and the outside patio of the Rangers Supporters Club (Fb) in Carrickfergus. January 2nd, 1971 – included in the panel above – is the date of the Ibrox disaster, in which 66 people died (WP). “Fleshers’ Haugh” [Butchers’ Low-Lying Meadow] – included in the panel below – is the part of Glasgow Green where Rangers played their games in the first three years of the club’s existence (Scotland Guide). Edmiston Drive (above) and Copland Road (third image) are streets adjacent to the stadium.
Also from the Club: a gallery of Rangers’ Managers in We Welcome The Chase | commemorative murals to the 36th Division in A Name That Equals Any In History, the three Scottish soldiers in Highland Fusiliers, and to the UDR in Some Gave All | various others from the laneway and courtyard in We Don’t Do Walking Away.
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we are the people follow follow our lads had a dream the blue blue sea of ibrox absent friends we will remember them all taigs are targets our club will never die
As You Lived You Must Die
“”As you lived you must die/An’ your last gasp or cry/Will be heard very likely by none/Not one/You unfortunate devil, Maglone.” – Barney Maglone Robert A. Wilson.”
Wilson was a Donegal man who, after some time in America, worked for newspapers in Enniskillen and Belfast. He was most famous under the pen-name “Barney Maglone” as the author of ‘To My Cousin In Amerikay’ and ‘Barney Maglone’s Notions Of Things’ (DIB).
The poem from which these lines come can be found in the [Belfast] Morning News obituary reprinted in the Portland Guardian And Normanby Advertiser (Victoria, Australia) for November 2nd, 1875 (though it gives “misfortunate divil” in the final line).
The paste-up is by Peter Strain (web) in Wilson’s Court, one of the Belfast Entries.
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The Farset Voice
These two fake newspapers allude to the fact that the river Farset, after which Belfast is named, still runs below the city, invisible since it was covered over in 1804. (You can read George Benn’s A History Of The Town Of Belfast at archive.org.)
Wilson’s Court; presumably by Leo Boyd (compare with New Weird Order).
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Life In The Entries
Here are two of Ruth Crothers’s (“Ruth Prints” on ig) pieces on the theme of the Belfast entries in years gone by, teeming with life.
They were produced for the first wave of the Belfast Entries project – see the project’s Visual History page.
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Jimmy Steele Will Lead Us
Over the course of a long career as a Fian, IRA volunteer, and Northern Command adjudtant, Jimmy Steele saw action in the S-Plan (see Joe Malone’s gravestone in Far Dearer The Grave Or The Prison) and the border campaign, went on hunger strike and “strip strike” (blanket), escaped from Crumlin Road gaol, and was the first editor of Republican News. (Treason Felony | WP) This poster (from the Irish Republican Martyrs’ Commemorative Committee – Fb) calls people to a commemoration of Steele on the anniversary of his death, August 9th, 1970.
“Óglach Jimmy Steele Commemoration. Assemble at Milltown Cemetery gates 3:00pm Wednesday 9th August. Irish Republican Martyrs Commemorative Committee wreath laying ceremony 53rd anniversary. All welcome/fáılte roımh chách.” “Jimmy Steele will lead us … Éıre abú. An Phoblacht abú.”
Northumberland Street, west Belfast
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Copyright © 2023 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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Billy Was Wright
“Billy was Wright – no Irish Sea border.” Billy Wright broke with the UVF in 1996 over loyalist concessions made during the peace-process that ultimately led to the Agreement in 1998. He soon formed the LVF but was killed in prison in 1997 by members of the INLA, which, like the LVF, had not joined the ceasefire.
These posters are in Cambrai Street and Conway Street; attempts to remove them have proven unsuccessful. The Sunday World reports that a similar banner has appeared in Ballymena (Sunday World) and that the same poster was also spotted in the lower Shankill (Sunday World).
Wright is shown standing in front of a small mural in Old Rectory Park, Portadown – see D01068.
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Copyright © 2021 Pat Dorrian
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The Forbidden Emoji
In Raimondi’s Adam And Eve, an engraving from c. 1512, Adam offers Eve two small apples while a human-headed serpent looks on (Met). (The town in the background is from Raimondi, but the car in the middle is Boyd’s.)
In Leo Boyd’s reworking, all the heads have been turned into surveillance cameras – including the snake in the tree, the private parts have been covered by “Fig. 1” and “Fig. 2”, and the forbidden fruit is now a heart emoji, which in this instance has literally been cut out of the print. Our surveillance culture (inlcuding “social” media) perhaps makes emotional connection more difficult and more dangerous than ever – we are ashamed to appear naked.
The paste-up is on the hoarding in Donegall Quay, below a ring of surveillance cameras. Belfast is the 100th-most surveilled city in the world, per capita (CEOWorld).
For information about the production of the piece, and images that include the heart that has been torn out, see Leo Boyd Prints.
Previous posts featuring Boyd’s work.
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The Vault Is Empty
The Vault artists have cleared out of the old Met building in Tower Street and have been preparing their two new digs, in the Shankill Mission (Vault ig | FGB ig) and Marlbourough House in Victoria Street. The vestiges of their time in east Belfast linger on.
For the final image in better days, see Do You Own A Giant Building?
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Peeling In The Sun
A couple of Leo Boyd (ig) paste-ups of his PSNIce-Cream land-rover (previously a mural in Kent St) are peeling off the pole in North Street, perhaps in part because of the recent warm temperatures.
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Copyright © 2023 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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Seosamh Mac Coille Collection 