Month: Mar 2011

They Sleep Beyond Ulster’s Foam

Extramural Activity2 Comments

Here are three details from the metalworks in the Mount Vernon WWI memorial garden, showing scenes from the conflict and a map of the area around Messines (photoshopped in red). For more, including the panels to John Cordon and William McFadzean, see M07770.

Update: As the images below from 2017 and 2018 show, the metalworks themselves have also been repainted (and replaced in a slightly different configuration), a new gate has been installed and the boards on the surrounding wall have been restored, against a freshly-painted background of green. The boards have verses from Laurence Binyon’s For The Fallen. “They mingle not with their laughing comrades again/They sit no more at familiar tables of home/They have no lot in our labour of the day-time/They sleep beyond Ulster’s [originally, England’s] foam.”

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Copyright © 2011/2017/2018 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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T04420 T04419 courtesy of Paddy Duffy

Victoria By The Seaside

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Queen Victoria and entourage paddle along the Irish shore at the end of the Great Hunger. (Here are one | two discussions of her visit and (un)involvement with famine relief.) Work by Rosie McGurran (Fb) in Linden Street, Belfast.

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Copyright © 2011 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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I’m Not A Criminal

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When the mural to “the first blanketman” Kieran Nugent mural (in the Rock streets) was re-done in February 2011, it was initially framed with a terrific selection of posters from the period, many of them from continental Europe, about Kieran, the blanket protest, and hunger striker.

“I’m not a criminal. The Brits will have to nail prison clothes to my back.” For the previous mural, and some background about Nugent going “on the blanket”, see M02550.

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Copyright © 2011 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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