This recent, biblically-themed, mural is in Bank Square, the open space outside Kelly’s Cellars. Included in the panels are various Bible stories such as Noah’s Ark, the burning bush, and the loaves and fishes. (Mary-Ann McCracken is also included?) Watching over them from both left and right are the pike-men of 1798.
Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2012 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X00800
If you’re willing to pay the piper, he will perhaps summon a taxi that will take you and yours out of town. This is the centre segment of a large board adorning the front of the West Belfast Taxi Terminal (next to Castle Court), copying The Limerick Piper by John Patrick Haverty (1794-1854) and this Ardoyne mural, which placed the piper under Cave Hill. In this version, the attending girl is smiling. In all three versions, the piper has no visible means of support. On each side are Jim-Fitzpatrick-style Celtic heroes – Nuada on the left (though perhaps meant to be Fıonn Mac Cumhaıll and the salmon of knowledge) and Sadb on the right, though a fawn blocks the view of her shorter-than-short skirt.
Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2012 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X00798 X00542 X00799 [X00541] ML’s sister Lucy provided the face for the Sadb figure?
This is one of the most famous murals in Belfast on account of its position overlooking the entrance of Mount Vernon and the M2 – the central gunman appears to be aiming right at you as you come down the off-ramp to the Shore Road. The original mural (T00138 | D00382) – which dates back to the ceasefire (1995) – was on a gable at the front of the estate but the entire block of houses was knocked down (c. 2000 – BelTel). It was later recreated (though without the words “3rd battalion” above “North Belfast) in the current more elevated position.
Another gunman-aiming-right-at-you mural is the UDU mural in the lower Shankill estate.
Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2012 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X05216
Loyalist boards showing a (UVF) hooded gunman and a tiger from the “Mount Vernon Volunteers” wearing a purple beret, on Ross House, the Mount Vernon tower block. On the upper floors are an Ulster Banner and Union Flags.
See also: Families Against Supergrass Trials.
Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2012 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X00797
On the side wall of the Times Bar in York Road, a mural commemorating Irish and Northern Irish service in the British military.
Robert Blair “Paddy” Mayne is featured on the left (WP).
A plaque in the middle reads: In memory of Pte. F.G. Dolloghan, Parachute Regt. Killed at the Nijmegan Bridges, Holland, Sept. 1944. (WWII’s Operation Market Garden (WP))
Click image to enlarge
Copyright© 2012 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X00795
Lt. Col. Robert Blair Mayne D.S.O. Middle East 1st bar Sicily 2nd bar Normandy 3rd bar N.W. Europe 1939-45 stat africa italy france germany defence medal war legion d’honneur croix de guerre 36th ulster division royal irish rifles ulster leinsters guards inniskilling dragoon UDR fusiliers queens hassars north horse south rangers munster dublin connaught martinique 1762 havannah st. lucia 1778-1792 india cape of good hope 1806 maida monte video nourbon busaco fuentes d’onor java tarifa talavera badajoz salamance vittoria pyrennes ciudad rodrico niagara orthes toulouse ava south africa 1935, 1846047 sevastopol central india tel-el-kebir egypt 1882, 1884 relief of ladysmith 1899-1902 mons le cateau marne 1914 messine 1914 17 18 ypres 1914-15 neuuve chapelle loos albert 1917 arras 1917 cambrai 1917-18 st. quentin hindenburg line france and flanders macedonia suvla gallipoli gaza jerusalem palestine 1917-18 dyle scomer-la bassee dunkirk 1940 normandy landing caen iraq thine bremen bou arrada djebel tanniguocha 1942-43 centuripe 1943 sangro garigliano crossing anzio cassino II tiber argenta gap 1943-45 malta 1940 yenangyuang 1952 burma 1942043 imjin korea 1950-51
Here is another mural celebrating the Northern Ireland football team with the slogan “our wee country” on the top part of a wall of the Times Bar in York Road.
George Best is on the left and David Healy on the right.
Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2012 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X00794 supporters club
Fiddler Art Lundy is depicted in the mural on the side of Madden’s bar in Berry St, just below Castle Court. Note the ‘decommissioned’ ashtray!
The original photograph of Lundy is by Frankie Quinn (web).
Front door and mural detail below.
Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2012 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X00793 X00792 X00791
This house-front on the Shore Road is a mix of union flags and Christmas decorations. The centre-piece states that the resident is “Proud To Be British”.
The ASDA railings in the background were the site of the memorial to Billy Hunter.
Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2012 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X00786
This vintage UDA/UFF stencil goes back to the time of the ceasefire and the Agreement.
On the shutters of A1 Alterations on the Newtownards Road, east Belfast.
Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2012 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X00849
The industrial high-point of Belfast, according to this mural, would seem to be when people travelled on trams, cloth was woven by hand, and Titanic sat in dry dock. Only the Shorts-Bombardier aircraft confuses the nostalgia.
Bloomfield Ave, east Belfast
Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2012 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X05212 X05213 X05214 X05211
Seosamh Mac Coille Collection 