#RememberMyNoah

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14 year-old Noah Donohoe went missing on June 21st while cycling in the York Road area en route from his south Belfast home to the Cave Hill. His body was found in a north Belfast storm drain six days later and the postmortem showed death by drowning (Irish News). Many details of his last hours remain unknown, however, including how he came to drown in the drain. His mother, Fiona, started a campaign on August 11th on Facebook and Twitter to press for answers and signatures are being collected for a petition into the PSNI handling of the case. CCTV images of Noah were released on Friday by the BBC. An inquest will be held in January, 2021 (BelTel) with a preliminary hearing on September 30th.

Previously: Gloria Ab Intus

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You Can’t Have Capitalism Without Racism

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“You can’t have capitalism without racism” – Malcolm X, from a speech to the Militant Labor Forum in New York on May 29th, 1964 (youtube). More fully he says “It’s impossible for a white person to believe in capitalism and not believe in racism; you can’t have capitalism without racism.” Sticker by the www.socialistparty.org on the Falls.

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Free Zack Smyth

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“Free Zack Smyth – end internment”. Support from Saoradh and the IRPWA for political prisoner Ciarán ‘Zack’ Smyth, who is in Maghaberry after having his license revoked on suspicion of plotting to attack Sinn Féin leaders (Irish News | Saoradh) and involvement in a New IRA plot to bomb Musgrave PSNI station (BelTel). As an IRA member Smyth served nine years in the 1970s and seven of fourteen years for a 2013 robbery.

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The Workers United Will Never Be Defeated

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Workers’ Party (web | Fb) posters along the Falls, drawing inspiration from Black Lives Matter and James Connolly: “Governments in capitalist society are but committees of the rich to manage the affairs of the capitalist class” (from ‘The War Upon The German Nation’ 1914) and “The cause of labour is the cause of Ireland. The cause of Ireland is the cause of labour.” (‘The Irish Flag’ 1916)

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Ní Saoırse Go Saoırse Na mBan

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Ní saoırse go saoırse na mban [“There is no freedom without the freedom of women”] with images of Countess Markievicz, Colman Doyle’s famous ?1974? image of a (staged) female IRA volunteer with AR-18, Máıre Drumm, and Maıréad Farrell. Lasaır Dhearg (web) sticker in north Belfast.

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Rock Of Ages

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Carrickfergus castle was founded by the Anglo-Norman knight John de Courcy in 1177 and it became the stronghold of power in the north of Ireland, leading to its besiegement over time by a litany of Scots, Irish, English – including under Schomberg in 1689 – and French forces (WP). In the present day, the flag of a Kingdom uniting England, Scotland, and (Northern) Ireland currently flies on Marine Highway next to the sculpture showing three Anglo-Norman knights defending the castle (unsuccessfully) against the forces of Edward Bruce of Scotland in 1315 (info plaque). The sculptor is unknown.

See also The Carrickfergus Knights, a painting of the statues on a shop’s shutters in the town.

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The Burning Bush

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“To commemorate the establishment of Presbyterianism in Ireland through the formation of the first presbytery which met in Carrickfergus on 10th June 1642.” Presbyterianism began in Scotland circa 1560 under John Knox and spread to Ireland with the colonising settlers of the 1600s. (For more on the first presbytery, see Ancestry Ireland.) Although Presbyterians supported the Williamite campaign they were subsequently discriminated against as “dissenters” from Anglicanism.

The sculpture is at Joymount Presbyterian in Carrickfergus.

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The Leper Window

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St Nicholas’s (Anglican) church in Carrickfergus dates back to the 1100s, prior to the castle. The low window shown above is known as the “leper window”. Patients from the leper hospital near the (northern) Spittal Gate to the city would come and listen in (Library Ireland). During the coronavirus pandemic of 2020, services are not even being held.

A virtual tour of the church is available in the church’s web site.

Recently in Carrickfergus: The Plague Grave. Covid-19 church-related posts from Belfast: Rediscover The Power Of The Rosary | Prayer In The Time Of Coronavirus

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The Plague Grave

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Care homes accounted for about 50% of the early coronavirus deaths in both Northern Ireland (WP) and the Republic (Irish Times). This Carrickfergus facility is named “Tamlaght” which comes from the Irish támh = plague and leacht = grave. Ireland suffered various plagues throughout history, including the Yellow Plague Of 644 and the Black Death in 1348 with “unheard of mortality” from recurring waves lasting until 1370. PlaceNamesNI states there 25 townlands bearing the name (and many other places too).

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A Great Feeling Of Love

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“The true revolutionary is guided by a great feeling of love. It is impossible to think of a genuine revolutionary lacking this quality” – Che Guevara Lynch. The INLA’s Kevin Lynch died in the second hunger strike after 71 days. He is buried in Dungiven, where this memorial sits on the main road between Derry and Maghera.

“I ndíl [ndıl] chuımhne ar Óglach Kevin Lynch a fuaır bás ar staılc ocraıs ar son saoırse, 1ú Lúnasa 1981 [who died on a hunger strike for freedom, 1st August 1981]. Erected by the Irish Republican Socialist Ex-Prisoners Memorial Committee.”

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