Defenders Of The Pass

Extramural ActivityLeave a comment
2014-08-09 DonPassPhoto+

Here are close-ups of the two boards to either side of the new Young Conquerors piece (featured recently in Veni, Vidi, Vici). The first shows a photograph of the original Donegall Pass Defenders Flute Band, which lasted a short time in the 1970s before the formation of the Conquerors in 1977 (Fb). The second shows the patch of the band.

Update (2015-01): Nikki has kindly sent us an image of the band parading, taken sometime in the 1970s. Her grandfather, Thomas Lorimer, recently passed away and she found the picture in his roof space. He was a member of the Defenders and is at the far left of the picture, on the bass drum. She was also able to identify him in the posed picture from the board – shown in detail below; he is the tall gent in the back.

2014-08-09 DonPassPatch+

Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2014 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X02066 X02065

DonPassDefendParade
Copyright © Family of Thomas Lorimer. Used with permission.

DonPassDefendersDetail

Veni, Vidi, Vici

Extramural ActivityLeave a comment
2014-08-09 DonPassFluteBand2+

New Young Conquerors Flute Band mural in Pine Street, south Belfast, connecting the band to local soldiers who died in WWI.

Video of the launch at the Young Conquerors Fb page.

2014-08-09 DonPassWide+

Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2014 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X02064 X02067 est. 1976 2014 somme ypres beaumont-hamel messines thiepval st. quentin grandcourt fricourt beaucourt albert rosieres cambrai langmark bailleul courtrai flanders schwaben-redoubt passchendaele

Changing Hands

Extramural ActivityLeave a comment
2014-08-09 AllDayParty+

An ad for an “All Day Loyalist Party” on the 11th of July is pasted on top of an anti-drugs board showing two pairs of hands making a drug deal. The flags and bunting on Woodvale Road are reflected in the plastic surface.

Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2014 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X02061 famous the blues crimea street 2014 young conway vol. flute band shankill road ally dunn tommy mckeown ricky dean

Scaırt Amach

Extramural ActivityLeave a comment
2014-08-09 ScairtAmach+

Scaırt Amach (“Shout Out”) is a magazine containing articles by republican prisoners in Portlaoise, Maghaberry, and Hydebank prisons. The cover is reproduced in the mural above on the International Wall.

Replaces the black-and-white ‘End Internment’ mural and between Where Is The World? and The Sagart.

2014-08-09 ScairtAmachStencil+

Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2014 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X02069 X02070 Voice Irish Welfare Association

First Movement

Extramural ActivityLeave a comment
2014-08-08 MarketsFiacc+

Patrick O’Connor was born on this day in 1924 on the lower Falls but after his father emigrated he spent his early years – until age 5 – with his grandparents in East Street in the Markets. It was as a high-schooler in New York that he adopted the name Pádraıc Fıacc (“fıach dubh” is “raven”) and began writing poetry. He settled in Glengormley upon his second and final return; it is not clear that he ever saw East Street lined with British Army soldiers, as shown in the mural above. He wrote of his early life in ‘First Movement’:

Low clouds, yellow in a mist wind
Sift on far-off Ards
Drift hazily …
I was born on such a morning
Smelling of the bone yards
The smoking chimneys over the slate top roofs
The wayward storm birds
And to the east where morning is, the sea
And to the west where evening is, the sea
Threatening with danger
And it would always darken suddenly

Some of Fıacc’s poems are in the TroublesArchive. There are two videos below. The first is an interview with NVTv’s Bernard Conlon; the second is of a reception in Belfast City Hall.

X09071 2022-02-14 Fiacc d

Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2022 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X02057 [X09070] X09071 1929

End The Siege On Gaza

Extramural ActivityLeave a comment
2014-08-08 MarketsGazaDetail+

Tears of blood flow from a boy’s face, shrouded by a Palestinian flag and behind barbed wire. The shot below of the full mural (launched 2014-07-29) includes a quote from Malcolm X: “If you’re not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the oppressed and loving the oppressor.”

2014-08-08 MarketsGazaFull+

Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2014 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X02058 X02059 free The Market community supports Palestine.

End Maghaberry Torture

Extramural ActivityLeave a comment
2014-08-07 EndTorture+

“End British Internment – End Maghaberry Torture – Strip searches, isolation, controlled movement”. The board above at the top of Havana Street, Ardoyne, shows a a prison guard in Union colours beating a prisoner in the Tricolour’s green, white, and orange. On the left is the barbed wire symbol of the Irish Republican Prisoners Welfare Association (IRPWA) and on the right the emblems of the PSNI, the RUC, and MI5 are crossed out under a swastika. A wide shot, showing the CLG/GAA mural in the background, is below.

Previous IRPWA posts: Scaırt Amach | IRPWA | Maghaberry Prisoners. Another view of the Ard Eoın Kickhams mural.

2014-08-07 EndTortureWide+

Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2014 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X02052 X02053

Stad An Slad/Stop The Slaughter

Extramural Activity2 Comments
2014-08-07 StadAnSlad+

This is a new board at the Crumlin end of Brompton Park – launched on August 6th by Gerry Kelly and members of the Cliftonville football team – in support of Palestine and Gaza, and in particular protesting the deaths of the four Bakr children on the beach at the port of Gaza on July 16th (see Child Killers). The image of the man carrying the boy is from Reuters. The wide shot, below, shows the “peace” line and union jacks flying at the camp at the Crumlin-Woodvale-Twaddell roundabout.

See also: a Where Is The World? mural on the International Wall.

Painted by Mickey Doherty and mounted in Brompton Park, Ardoyne, north Belfast.

2014-08-07 StadAnSladWide+

Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2014 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X02054 X02055