On the side of the hair salon on the lower Shankill: an array of flags and a board “in glorious memory” to the 36th (XXVI) Ulster division: Somme, Messines, ypres, Cambrai, Thiepval, Somme (1918), St Quentin, Lys, Courtrai
Here are two more images related to The Muddlers’ Club (see previously God Approves Our Undertakings), featuring an ouroboros (snake eating its own tail) in the shape of the symbol for infinity, on an eight-pointed star/compass, by VisualWaste.
“Members of the Muddler’s Club included leading United Irishmen such as Thomas Russell, Thomas Neilson & Henry Joy McCracken. Secret meetings held at Peggy Barclay’s inn would allow the Belfast United Irishmen to welcome messengers & visitors to coordinate the wider conspiracy.” For more information on the history of the location, see this BBC-NI article on the (canvas) paintings in Warehouse Lane.
In the second image: an unknown (FGB?) piece of tangled arms and legs, and, Lost Duppy by TLO.
Two pieces by TLO. Above, “Have you seen Duppy?” Ian Paisley Jnr gets a strange mouse make-over, with a pink nose and Irish harp ears. Below, a sprung skull.
Work by Veronica Wallis as part of the Royal Ulster Academy Of Art’s Art In The City exhibition of work on walls around Belfast city centre. This one is in Hill Street.
For the anniversary of the Battle Of Albert and the start of the Battle Of The Somme, Tower Street in east Belfast became Ulster Tower Street and residents reproduced the Western Front, with huts of sandbags, canvas coverings for all the front walls, and headlines from the News Letter (“Ulster’s Sacrifice”) and Times (“Britain At War”) of the period. Images of the new murals can be found in A Thought Is Not A Lot.
Complementing the images from Ulster Tower Street, here are images of the new commemorative boards and their blue backgrounds. The main board features Ulster Tower at Thiepval with a list of battles that the 36th (Ulster) Division was involved in.
The smaller board on the side-wall features a poem from local children: “The Great War took a lot of Pray/It’s hard to say w[h]ere all these brave men lay/A lot of souls still waiting to be found/Buried deep below the ground.//In the fields w[h]ere the bright red poppies grow/Stood men so brave of fight and foe/Some men so young they just didn’t know/A journey with friends they all wanted to go.// When they got there what a different tail [tale] they did tell/Many letters home describing it as hell/Young men put to front to fight/We can only imagine the awful sight.//Fighting beside their mate to keep Britain great/And we still remember them till this date/Nearly one hundred years on/A lot of these great men have gone/Forget them we will not as a thought is not a lot.”
The Martin Meehan tarp in Ardoyne Avenue has been removed and the wall whitewashed. At the moment, all there is to be seen is the plaque shown above – Show Me The Man, Martin Meehan 1945 – 2007 – and a Cogús board – “End strip searching in Maghaberry now”.