Hunger Strikers

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Frank Stagg and Michael Gaughan are included alongside the deceased 1981 hunger strikers in a gallery of portraits that has been updated annually since (at least) 2006. The large panel shows blanket-men Hugh Rooney and Freddie Toal, and Bobby Sands, the first to die in 1981.

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Copyright © 2008 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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Colin Area Remembers

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“Everyone tells me I’m a feminist. All I know is that I’m just as good as others, and that especially means men. I am definitely a socialist and I’m definitely a Republican. I believe in a united socialist country, definitely socialist. Capitalism can offer our people nothing and yet that’s the main interest of the British in Ireland – Oglach [sic] Maıréad Farrell.” Farrell was one of the Gibraltar 3 (along with Sean Savage and Dan McCann), killed by SAS soldiers in 1988. Painted by Rısteard Ó Murchú.

Jasmine Corner, Twinbrook

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Copyright © 2008 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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Young Guns

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Sixteen year-old Glen “Spacer” Branagh was killed by a premature blast bomb during a riot on Remembrance Sunday, 2001. His portrait is on a board at the centre of UDA flags and guns (and the tigers of Tiger’s Bay (which would make it “Tigers’ Bay”).

“If the Provos and the pan nationalist front and the British and Irish governments keep trying to succeed in a united Ireland then they may prepare themselves for another 30 bloody years for the battle will have just begun.”

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Copyright © 2008 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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Belfast Dockers And Carters Strike 1907

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“Not as Catholics or Protestants, not as nationalists or unionists, but as Belfast workers standing together.” For the 100th anniversary of the strike by dockers and carters in Belfast, this large board was painted by Fra Maher and Rısteard Ó Murchú. It was launched without the title across the top (youtube | M03786).

Leaders Boyd and Larkin are portrayed in the middle. The second panel shows speakers (including Larkin) on a platform (O’Hare); the third shows an RIC guard of blackleg workers – about 70% of the force mutinied and the fifth panel shows dismissed RIC constable William Barrett being carried through Belfast; the sixth shows the Cameron Highlanders being stoned by picketers (History Ireland). Margaret Lennon and Charles McMullan, two Catholic victims of British soldiers, shot during protests, are portrayed in the bottom right.

Northumberland Street, west Belfast

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Copyright © 2007 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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The RIC Murder Gang

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One RIC member was killed and another wounded outside the Beehive Bar in a shoot-out with IRA men in September 1920. In reprisal, County Inspector Harrison and his men killed Vol. Ned Trodden, Vol. Sean Gaynor, and Sean McFadden (Rısteard Ó Murchú). The gang, under Detective Inspector Nixon, would go on to kill more Catholics in 1921 and in 1922 commit the McMahon killings and the Arnon Street killings, in each of which 6 people died.

On the right is a small board on “political policing”: “Agents exposed. Shoot-to-kill. Spying. Cover-ups. Collusion. Plastic Bullets. Sectarian policing. Poisoning peace process.”

Northumberland Street, west Belfast

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Copyright © 2007 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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