Extramural Activity

Here are three new pieces above the security gates on Northumberland Street, coving over the “Deserted! Well, We Can Stand Alone” graffiti in the last remaining spot on the wall without a mural. From left to right:

Arthur Guinness: “Black Protestant Porter” as a description of Guinness stems from Arthur Guinness’s opposition to the 1798 rebellion (Indo). The Union Star (newspaper in Belfast – A Planet Of Light And Heat) called Guinness a spy and advised that “United Irishmen will be cautious of dealing with any publican who sells his drink.” (An Phoblacht).

Gusty Spence, a former commander of the UVF, read out the ceasefire statement of the “Combined Loyalist Military Command” (UVF, RHC, and UDA): “Let us firmly resolve to respect our different views of freedom, culture and aspiration and never again permit our political circumstances to degenerate into bloody warfare – Gusty Spence, loyalist ceasefire [statement in full], 13 October, 1994.”

“Welcome To The Shankill Road – we are proud, resilient, welcoming”: The original ‘three hands’ was on Northumberland Street, just above this spot – see Proud, Defiant, Welcoming – which was then reproduced in reduced form in Gardiner Street – see Welcome To The Shankill Road.

This is the most conciliatory statement ever made by loyalism and the decision to put it on Northumberland Street, especially in the context of the internationally famous and associated-with-Ireland Guinness and the “welcome” mural, sugests that the trio is directed at tourists rather than locals.

For the 36th Division board to the far left, see XXXVI; for Kitchener, see To All Foreign Nationals Across The Empire; for the mental health board to the right, see Pain Is Real.

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“Arthur Guinness (1725-1803) – unionist, visionary, thinker, philanthropist. Arthur Guinness was born into an Irish Protestant Family, whose spiritual home lay in the townland of “Guiness” near Ballynahinch, Co. Down [BBC]. He was “directly opposed to any movment toward Irish independence” and wanting “Ireland to remain under British control.”
“The Guinness family being staunch Unionists and Anti Home Rulers, a descendent of Arthur Guinness Lord Iveagh was a major contributor of funding to the Ulster Unionists Council who in turned funded the Ulster Volunteer Force arms fund of 1913. One year later 1914, the UVF would land 25,000 rifles and 2 million rounds of ammunition on Ulster shores.
“At the outbreak of the First World War, employees of Guinness St Jame’s gate Brewery were encouraged to join the British forces. Over 800 employees served in the Great War serving on land, on sea and in the air all over the world. During Ww1 if you worked for Guinness they paid your brewery wages in full to your wife or mother for the entire time you were enlisted. This was in addition to your military salary.
“The Guinness family formed an Orange lodge in County Wicklow that is still in existence to this day. One of the great Southern Irish Protestant families.”