Graffiti art by SNAK (ig), KONE1 (ig), VENTS (ig), and JAM2 (ig) for the Get Up jam in Strand Road, Derry.
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Copyright © 2023 Andy McDonagh/Eclipso Pictures (ig | Fb)
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Month: Jun 2023
The Forgotten Lands
“No more ‘promises’ … No more excuses … Fix it now! Wall of protest #FiftyYearsOfFailure It’s not subjective … it’s not debatable. The data doesn’t lie.”
The general concern of this campaign is persistent under-investment in Derry and the northwest. One of the placards reads carried by a protester reads, “Belfast’s economy has grown 14% since the [1998] Good Friday Agreement, Derry’s has shrunk 7%” but the complaint goes back “fifty years”, based on the approval in 1965 (BBC) and construction by 1968 of what was initially called the “New University Of Ulster” at a new site in Coleraine rather at Magee University College in Derry. The final panel of the long board includes the logo of the Derry University Group “fighting for a cross-border independent university for the north west” (tw). (1965 was also the year that Craigavon was created.)
For more on the campaign see Bel Tel | Derry Now.
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Copyright © 2023 Andy McDonagh/Eclipso Pictures (ig | Fb)
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A Vision Of The Future
Australian artist Fintan Magee (ig) in Ebrington Square, Londonderry, showing a young girl – a symbol of the next generation – (Bel Tel) behind obscure glass. To the right is a dove; the orca in the bottom right is Dopey Dick, who swam up the Foyle in 1977 (Fb).
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Copyright © 2023 Andy McDonagh/Eclipso Pictures (ig | Fb)
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Not In Sorrow But In Pride
“In honour of the men and women from Ballyclare and surrounding areas who gave their life in war. ‘They shall grow not old as we that are left grow old, age shall not weary them nor the years condemn, at the going down of the sun and in the morning, we will remember them’. Lest we forget.” With emblems of the Royal British Legion (left), Navy and Merchant Navy (right), and a separate stone for the UDR “When danger threatened, some made the supreme sacrifice”.
The main obelisk is dedicated “in the honoured memory of those men from Ballyclare & District who gave their lives for King and country in the Great War 1914-1918, 1939-1945. ‘Look not on this in sorrow but in pride and may ye live as nobly as they died.”
The remaining image shows the info board describing two aeroplane crashes around Big Collin Mountain, in which eleven airmen died while on training flights, one the result of an engine fire, the other crashed into the side of the mountain.
Ballyclare War Memorial Park, Ballyclare Road, Ballyclare. There are also separate murals in Erskine Park to the locals who died in WWI and in WWII.
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Copyright © 2023 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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Bristol Blenheim X6273 Consolidated Liberator bomber EV954
Summer’s Blood
The inspiration for this new street art by emic (ig | web) – perhaps in both pose and pallette – was Seamus Heaney’s poem ‘Blackberry Picking’ (Derry Journal). A young person appears to be searching intently: “You ate that first one and its flesh was sweet/Like thickened wine: summer’s blood was in it/Leaving stains upon the tongue and lust for/Picking.” (Full poem)
The official title is “Younger Days”; in Creggan, Derry, for Gasyard Féıle; with support from the Communities In Transition programme.
Replaces Creggan 75; there is still republican graffiti on the adjacent wall (final image): “Stop normalisation of RUC/PSNI”.
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Copyright © 2023 Andy McDonagh/Eclipso Pictures (ig | Fb)
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Extramural Activity 