“The Shamrock supports Kneecap”. Kneecap member Mo Chara (Lıam Óg Ó hAnnaıdh) appeared in court (in London) last week to face charges of displaying a flag of a proscribed organisation (Hezbollah). He was released on bail and will return on August 20th. (BBC | AP) In the meantime, the group appeared in front of 10,000 fans on the West Holts stage at Glastonbury on Saturday (June 28th) despite criticism from UK prime minister Keir Starmer (BBC).
The Shamrock Sport & Social Club (Fb) in Ardoyne is running a promotion by which people who post their selfies in front of the new mural in supoprt of Kneecap on social media can claim a bottle of Le Grá lager (web).
“This is republican youth land! Be happy! GGRY” This is a more ambitious piece of graffiti, at least in terms of scaling the building, when compared to 2023’s GGRY on the lower wall. (“GGRY” is “Glengormley Republican Youth”.)
With bonus “Nazis out!” graffiti on a litter bin at the Valley leisure centre.
“English Brigade Ulster Volunteer Force.” “England and Ulster – the ties that bind.” “United we stand.”
“Let our flag run out straight in the wind/The old red shall be floated again./When the ranks that are thin shall be thinned/When the names that were twenty are ten.” [from Swinburne’s A Song In Time Of Order which was also used as a socialist song]
On the left are the words from William Blake’s poem, which also serve as the lyrics to the hymn Jerusalem.
The images along the bottom illustrate the connection between Northern Ireland and England. From left to right: Edward Carson in Liverpool in 1912; 10,00 pledges from Liverpool men; Carson addressing 100,000 people in Hyde Park, London; a banner reading “City of London supports loyal Ulster”; “Field Marshall Sir Henry Wilson opens the Ulster Tower in 1921. Sir Henry was killed by the IRA in 1922 at his home in London”; GS Cather, VC winner with the Ulster Division; evacuees to Liverpool in 1973.
“The ‘Ulster Military Memorial Arch’ was funded by the generosity of the local business community, local residents, and our friends from Scotland. The arch was designed entirely by the people of the Greater Shankill, and erected to coincide with the 80th anniversary of VE Day 8th May 1945 – 8th May 2025. Our servicemen and women are proudly remembered.” For images of the VE Day launch, see the BelTel.
Pictured on Peter’s Hill side of the arch (bearing the quote “With pride and loyalty they served this land”) are (left to right) … Private Bernard McQuirt (a VC winner in 1858 during the Indian Rebellion) and Lt Colonel John Henry Patterson Monica De Wichfeld (raised in Fermanagh and Danish resistance member), Jessie Roberts (a nurse for the Ulster Volunteers and (in WWI) for the Volunteer Aid Detachment, serving in Birmingham and in Wimereux, France; she gets a very long entry on the info panels around the legs of the arch, as her biography is not available on-line), a (unidentified) nurse, Corporal Channing Day (a medic killed in Afghanistan, 2012), Princess Elizabeth Private William Frederick McFadzean and Sergeant Robert Quigg the tomb of “the unknown warrior” (central panel) Leading Seaman James Joseph Magennis and Lt Colonel Robert Blair ‘Paddy’ Mayne Field Marshal Alan Francis Brooke and Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery Field Marshal Sir Henry Hughes Wilson and Sir James Craig
On the other/Shankill side of the arch, bearing the quote “Throughout the long years of struggle … the men and women of Ulster have proved how nobly they fight and die”, the ‘WWII’ panel includes (top right) Warrant Officer David O’Neill, a Canadian Air Force pilot hailing from Ballymena, lost in 1943, and the ‘Northern Ireland’ panel features (left) Corporal Heather CJ Kerrigan, a UDR Greenfinch killed by the IRA in 1984. These two are also profiled in the info panels around the legs of the arch, along with Corporal Bryan James Budd, a 3rd Para soldier killed by friendly fire in Afghanistan, 2006.
Also included is JF Willcocks’s poem Poppies (sometimes called The Inquisitive Mind Of A Child): Why are they selling poppies, Mummy? Selling poppies in town today./The poppies, child, are flowers of love. For the men who marched away./But why have they chosen a poppy, Mummy? Why not a beautiful rose?/Because my child, men fought and died in the fields where the poppies grow./But why are the poppies so red, Mummy? Why are the poppies so red?/Red is the colour of blood, my child. The blood that our soldiers shed./The heart of the poppy is black, Mummy. Why does it have to be black?/Black, my child, is the symbol of grief. For the men who never came back./But why, Mummy are you crying so? Your tears are giving you pain./My tears are my fears for you my child. For the world is forgetting again.”
Andersonstown boxer Anto “The Apache” Cacace (ig) successfully defended his IBO super-featherweight title on May 10th, defeating Leigh Wood of (and in) Nottingham (BBC). Cacace originally won the title in May last year (2024) and was honoured by a mural in South Link.
This commercial hoarding depicts Cacace as the godfather, perhaps a reference to his father’s Italian heritage (DAZN) and/or to Joel Cacace of the Colombo mafia in New York (WP).
“Support republican political prisoners” in “Maghaberry – Portlaoise – Hydebank”. IRPWA (web) board in Ardoyne Avenue, north Belfast. For a close-up of the Saoradh call to commemorate the Easter Rising, see the Paddy Duffy collection.
The central space in Ardoyne’s Easter Rising centenary wall, combining stencils of the signatories to the Proclamation around a tarp of the document (see In Commemoration Of 1916) has been empty – except for some electoral signs – since 2019’s board marking the centenary of Sınn Féın (see Still The People Spoke). This new tarp returns to the Proclamation and Easter lily and matches the frame of signatories once more.
The last full mural on the wall fell down in 2014 and there does not appear to have been the energy to paint another full mural since then – but perhaps the fading paint around Clarke and Connolly will provoke a complete re-do.
This piece of Faigy (Fb) street-art for Bellaire Hair & Beauty (Fb) is hidden off William Street, and is not typically viewable. It was perhaps painted in 2014, around the same time as the smaller piece in William Street – see Bellaire.
The Nestlé logo features a bird feeding its young in a nest but in this sticker the tree is dead and the bird has fallen to the ground. The QR code at the centre of the sticker takes one to a Swiss site (orghan.ch) making the case (in German) that “Nestlé exploits & kills for profit. A good product is a free product. Greenwashing against climate.”.
The Don Patricio/Patrick O’Connell mural at the bottom of the Whiterock Road was refreshed for Féıle 2024. The major change is in the middle of the mural, where Lionel Messi – who went to Paris Saint-Germain in 2021 and then to Inter Miami in 2023 – has been replaced by current stars Aitana Bonmatí and Lamine Yamal. (A modern soccer-ball replaces the leather ball of the original mural, patches have been added to O’Connell’s jacket, and the FAI trophy and the large Cup Winner’s medal has been removed to make room for Bonmatí.) The new mural was relaunched on August 2nd, 2024, with an address by the director of the FC Barcelona museum at Camp Nou (Belfast Media).
For more – on O’Connell’s career as a player and manager, the emblems in the stands, and the headlines on the newspaper – see From Celtic Park To Barcelona.
Extramural Activity 