Another selection of distressed posters, torn to reveal … more posters. The electrical box in the third image was included in last year’s collection: We Had Our Distresses.
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Copyright © 2017 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X03821 X03816 X03815 X03940 fight for 15 QUB socialist society keely mullen the people’s parade unfinished business sábháil roinn na gaeilge
Lıú Lúnasa is an Irish language festival, held this year on 24-28 August. The mural above shows rocks taken from the wall separating Palestine and Israel being used to build a gaelscoıl (an Irish-language school). The mural was painted by Jımí Mac Fhlannchadha.
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Copyright © 2016 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X03817 Nansen St na habaır é, dean é. troıdımís. dearg le fearg.
More ‘people should not inform’ PSNI posters (and a large board in Thames Street, shown below) from the IRPWA (Irish Republican Prisoners Welfare Association) including the arrest of Padraig McShane, along with one demanding “Political status now” with a raised fist grasping barbed wire.
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Copyright © 2016 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X03820 X03828 X03933 X03936 Divis St Thames St Divis St
The town of Armoy, County Antrim, hosts an annual motorcycling road race, the Race Of Legends. The windows of the (closed) Victory Bar is filled with images of motorcyclists. Robert Dunlop is shown above and brother Joey is two windows to the left. Both brothers died as a result of racing accidents. Sons William and Michael are also featured.
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Copyright © 2016 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X03812 X03813 hillside rd mervyn robinson frank kennedy
Towards the end of July, the IRPWA began painting a POW mural for the right end of the wall, space that the historical painters hoped to use for a gallery of international figures inspired by Irish resistance — Leonard Peltier, Marcus Garvey, V.I. Lenin,W.E.B. DuBois, Mahatma Gandhi, Ho Chi Minh, Che Guevara, Nelson Mandela, Angela Davis, Muammar Gaddafi, Yassar Arafat, General Giap, and Sukhdev Thapar (see the final image, below) — under the title “And the world did gaze with deep amaze” (a line from the song The Foggy Dew).
This would have provided a book-end to the mural similar to the gallery of early nationalist figures at the left-hand end. The IRPWA whitewashed the end of the wall (see the third image, below) and commenced work on a POW mural (leading to two sets of painters working at the wall in late July (second image)). In the end, only Leonard Peltier was painted, in the same style as Wolfe Tone. And later, Seany McVeigh’s Pearse Surrenders To The Developers was added (see the fourth image).
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Copyright © 2016 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X03802 X03689 X03688 X03803 Divis St
Next to the bonfire site at the southern (Drumadoon Drive) entrance to Ballybeen, the banner on the building above proclaims the area’s paramilitary allegiance: East Belfast Ulster Volunteer Force.
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Copyright © 2015 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X02875 for god and ulster
The covenant was signed in September 1912 (as captured in another famous image from Belfast’s City Hall — see Betting Office). The mural above uses the text of the Covenant as a backdrop to a composite of Edward Carson speaking and a row of Ulster Volunteers, formed in January 1913 (see the similar mural First World War).
Alain Miossec/Murals Irlande Du Nord has a post comparing this painted version with the previous plastic version, which is almost identical, apart from Stormont as a backdrop rather than the text of the Covenant.
Carnhill Walk, Castlemara, Carrickfergus
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Copyright © 2016 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X03806
Above and below are images from a new UFF/UDA/UYM mural in Ballyclare, featuring the Ulster banner and Union flag, and a quartet of hooded gunmen.
A very similar slogan is used in an Eddie The Trooper mural in Carrickfergus.
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Copyright © 2016 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X3808 X03807 Erskine Pk south east antrim SEA quis separabit UYM terrae filius
This small plaque is on Northumberland Way, on the ‘Dignity’ panel of the Amnesty mural and to the right of La Historia Es Nuestra. It is presumably a reference to the killing of Robert McCartney (WP) though by the time of this photograph, Jock Davison – whom the family believed had given the order for Robert’s stabbing – had already been shot dead (Bel Tel).
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Copyright © 2016 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X03799
The first few pages of Commandant Michael Sheer’s testimony to the Bureau of Military History describe the activities of the elite squad called the “Ten Foot Pikers”, including how postal officer Dan McGandy stole election ballots sent by mail during the general election of 1918. As described in the plaque above, McGandy went missing in January 1919 and was found in the Foyle six weeks later. This article suggests that he fell in after a struggle with British soldiers who had intercepted him while stealing grenades; this Derry Now article suggests he was thrown in by the soldiers, who then arranged his things to make it appear a suicide.
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Copyright © 2016 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X03801 strabane old road óglach oglagh IRA IRB to die locally on active service war of independence
Seosamh Mac Coille Collection 