The image above is of a small (4′ x 3′) plaque in the memorial garden in City Way, off Sandy Row. It reproduces a mural (2005 M02408) from nearby Rowland Way (which was itself a repaint of an earlier mural from 1995 M01183 and 2001 M01518). The same thirteen names also appear on the “roll of honour” plaque in the garden, shown second.
The thirteen are: John McMichael, Jim Kenna, Frankie Smyth, Ernie Dowds, Sammy Hunt, Steven Audley, William Kingsberry, Harry Black, Joe Bratty, Raymie Elder, Tommy Morgan, William Hamilton, Samuel Curry
Françoise Duparc‘s Woman Knitting is reproduced and extended with a scarf of multiple panels such as the two shown below, of a baby buggy about to run over a pile of dog doo, and of a girl painting forest sprites, as well as the Sandy Row Falcons (cheerleading) (Fb) and Sandy Row FC (Tw).
“Education is our passport to the future. Tomorrow belongs to the people who prepare for it today.” This ‘parachute cloth’ mural, which promotes education over gangs, joins three UVF murals in Pine Street, Donegall Pass, south Belfast. (For two of those murals, see Defenders Of The Pass | South Belfast UVF 2nd Batt.)
Sınn Féın candidate Pat Sheehan attempted to shore up support among republicans by using the image shown above and below for his campaign propaganda in the recent Assembly elections, hearkening back to the 1981 hunger strike, in which a 23-year-old Sheehan went 55 days without food, until the strike was called off. The tactic was successful and Sheehan was re-elected from his Belfast West constituency.
Two worlds spring from the mind of the youth in the centre of this new mural by Nozzle & Brush (web | Fb) in south Belfast just off Donegall Pass: on the left, the darkness of drugs, drink, and demons; on the right, the light of sport, music, and spray-painting.
IRPWA (Irish Republican Prisoners Welfare Association) stencil. Below is a wide shot showing all three of recent pieces in Beechmount (prior to the destruction of the one on the right): No Steps Backward | Political Dissent Is Not A Crime! | The Butcher’s Apron.
The history-of-republicanism mural now taking up the majority of the International Wall is not without controversy among republicans. One point of contention is the inclusion of Edward Carson’s portrait and the related scene of the Larne gun-running. Carson was leader of the Irish Unionist Alliance, campaigner against Home Rule, and founder of the Ulster Volunteers. 25,000 guns and more than 3 million rounds of ammunition were smuggled ashore at Larne, Donaghadee, and Bangor (see the second image for a sketch and the bottom two images for the completed scene). The formation of the UVF drew a counter-reaction in the formation of the Irish Volunteers, and membership was spurred on by the Larne gun-running. (See the third image.)
Carson’s image was originally paint-bombed in March (BMG | BelTel) and then again in April when “loose talk” posters were also added (Irish News). (For Loose Talk posters over the Otegi mural, see Loose-Talk Costs Lives.) For the launch on August 3rd, the posters were removed but the paint-bombing was not fixed. The image above is from June, 2016.
Grid for the gun-running scene; image from March 2016. It is based on a drawing from the Illustrated London News, which can be seen in this RTÉ article on the gunrunning. About 600 cars were used in the operation, perhaps the first large-scale use of motorised vehicles.
A newsboy carries a paper announcing the burgeoning Irish Volunteers. The headline portrayed was later changed, as can be seen in one of the images below.
The first part of wall at the end of March, before the addition of the ‘loose talk’ posters over Carson’s face.
The panel as it appears in August; the removal of the posters tore away some of the paint around Carson’s face.
A late August repaint makes Carson’s forehead protrude and the fingers of his hand are curled up. A Fáılte Feırste Thıar/Welcome To West Belfast panel has been added. (Presumably this welcome does not extend to the weapons being smuggled in as part of the gun-running.)
“We must take no steps backward, our steps must be onward. If we don’t, the martyrs that died for you, for me, for this country … will haunt us forever” — the words of Máıre Drumm from an anti-internment rally in Dunville Park on 10th August, 1975 (RN) are featured against a backdrop of female volunteers in Cumann Na mBan wearing berets and holding rifles.
Martin McGuinness waits, with hand outstretched, to greet a smiling Queen Elizabeth who strides towards him carrying a bloodied axe and wearing a Union flag apron spattered with the blood of people from Ireland, Palestine, Afghanistan, and Iraq. Mural in Beechmount reproducing a 2012 Latuff cartoon.
Anti-touting posters on the Whiterock and Falls roads: “People Should Not Inform” to the Police Service of Northern Ireland and Mi5. The Falls example also has a “End the internment of Tony Taylor” sticker from “Irish Republican Tims [Fb?]”.
Seosamh Mac Coille Collection 