We have featured this ‘bookmark’-dimensioned mural on the so-called “International Wall” before (in 2018) but today include an image (the third one, below) of the replica cell inside the museum itself; a sharper image (and the source for the painting) can be seen on the home page of the Museum’s web site.
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Shane O’Malley’s (web) piece for the “Famine Street Art Trail” (youtube) in Derry was inspired by the tune The Coffin Ships (score | youtube) by Tommy Peoples (web). The other piece in the “trail” is Omin’s Stars, Look Down/A Réaltaí, Féachaíg’ Anuas.
Great James Street, Derry
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On May 20th, 1932, Amelia Earhart took off from Harbour Grace in Newfoundland hoping to be the first woman to fly single-handedly across the Atlantic and make it to Paris. It didn’t go entirely to plan. Fifteen hours later, however, she landed in Robert Gallagher’s farm in Ballyarnett, forced down by bad weather and technical problems. The farmer’s wife recorded her recollections of the event, three years later (youtube).
“This work was designed and executed by Tom Agnew, Ceramic Artist, for Leafair Community Association (Fb) as part of the re-imaging communities programme funded by the Northern Ireland Arts Council – 2010.”
Lenamore Road, Derry
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This is the scene on the green-spaces on Lecky Road, Derry. The area is heavily trafficked by tourists visiting around Free Derry Corner (Visual History of the front | rear), the People’s Gallery murals (Visual History), the Hunger Strike Memorial, and the Museum Of Free Derry (web). Anti-Agreement groups thus use the area to get their messages across. In today’s post we see “Sovereignty, not Stormont” from the 32CSM (web); an RNU (Fb) board in support of the “Craigavon 2”; “Stop the extradition of Liam Campbell”, probably from Republican Sin Féin (web) – contrary to the board beneath the one showing, Campbell was extradited to Lithuania but his case was dismissed in October on the grounds that the statute of limitations had passed (Sunday World); an IRA nail-up on a light-pole; a “Remember the ten” 40th anniversary commemoration of the 1918 hunger strike, from IRSP/IRSM (web); and an IRPWA (web) board supporting republican prisoners (previously included in British Gaols In Ireland).
Also on the green is an olive tree for unity.
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Republican graffiti in Fahan Street, Derry, adjacent to the Che Guevara Lynch mural. Any specific reference is unknown; in 2019 there was controversy over signs threatening informers in relation to the killing of Lyra McKee (e.g. extra).
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According to a history of Brown’s Square, the area was known as “the oasis” during WWII on account of its 3 dance-halls and 22 pubs (Religion, Riots And Rebels). As with so much publicly-funded art (though we cannot find any provenance for this art) it depicts Belfast in the “good old days” – that is, before the Troubles, which produced the so-called “peace line” dividing west Belfast.
In this case of Brown’s Square, the area was further desolated in anticipation of a planned ring road (formally to be known as the Belfast Urban Motorway). the plan produced only the subterranean “Westlink” that cut Brown’s Square in half. The images in today’s post are in Townsend Street, (these are from below the security gates; there are others above it). Before the construction of the Westlink, which opened in 1981, Townsend Street was considered the western border, and part of Brown’s Square. John Gilbert’s photographs at the Belfast Archive Project show the area in the mid-seventies, when much of it had been abandoned but prior to construction.
The Boys Brigade are shown parading in front of Townsend Presbyterian which held its last service in September and is being handed over to the Ulster Orchestra (Belfast Media) (see previously On The Other Side for stained glass windows inside the church). The Brown’s Square school was at the junction of Brown’s Square (the street) and Melbourne Street.
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This is a memorial garden in Westland Street, Derry, in remembrance of children who have died during the Troubles.
They are listed in the following order on the main stone: Bernadette McCool, Carol Ann McCool, Damien Harkin, Gary Gormley, Annette McGavigan, Manus Deery, James O’Hagan, Gerald Doherty, Daniel Hegarty, Tony Diamond, Gordon Gallagher, Kathleen Feeny, Michael Meenan, John McDaid, Paul Whitters, Stephen McConomy, Charles Love.
McGavigan was the first to die at the hands of British forces, in September 1971, though the cross on the right is to nine-year-old Damien Harkin, who was crushed in July 1971 by a British Army lorry accident in the Bogside (MFD). Gary Gormley was also crushed by an armoured car (MFD). McGavigan is depicted in one of the murals in the ‘Bogside Gallery‘ series: The Death Of Innocence.
Other deaths were earlier but did not involve British forces: the McCool sisters died in a premature explosion in Creggan in 1970 and James (Jim) O’Hagan was killed in August 1971 by a fellow IRA member.
Gerry Doherty, Kathleen Feeney, Tony Diamond, Gordon Gallagher, Michael Meenan, John McDaid, and Charles Love also died accidentally by their own or IRA actions (MFD profiles, which lists 20 children, adding David Devine, Joseph Connolly, and Kathryn Eakin). Charles Love was killed by flying masonry from an IRA bomb; he is remembered by a plaque in Fahan Street. There is also a plaque to Stephen McConomy in Fahan Street and long ago he was depicted in a mural in Glenfada Park.
The Manus Deery plaque under the tree to the right was previously on a wall behind the Bogside Inn, before the pub was torn down – see M01919.
On the left are words from WB Yeats’s The Stolen Child, also used in a Belfast mural to Julie Livingstone.
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Here are various IRPWA (tw)/Saoradh (web)/Éıstıgí (Fb) statements in Derry’s Creggan and Bogside.
Above, in Iniscarn Road, “Irish republican prisoners still interned within British Gaols in Ireland”. Below that, two from Central Drive, “Support our hunger strikers in Ireland” (explained in Are You On The Side Of The 2020 Hunger Strikers?) and an aging “Disband the rebranded RUC” (seen previously in 2019).
And at the bottom, two from Westland Street, “Irish republican solidarity with Palestine” (described in a north Belfast appearance) and “Salute the men and women of violence” (for which see Her Old Tradition Of Nationhood) and one from the gaggle of boards next to Free Derry Corner: “Support republican prisoner”.
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Noah Donohoe would have been 17 last Friday (November 25th). The inquest had been due to start on the 28th, but after the Coroner Joe McCrisker ruled at the end of October that it should take place in front of a jury, a preliminary hearing will be held on December 9th at which a new date might be set (Belfast Media | Sunday World).
There are 23 other posts featuring Noah Donohoe on Extramural Activity. This mural is at the entrance to the Kashmir Bar on the Springfield Road; for the mural on the outside wall, see The Best Singers In The West.
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“Britain out of Ireland, Ireland out of the E.U.” Strict Irish independence is the policy of the IRSP (web). Back in 1972, Sinn Féin campaigned against Irish membership in the EEC (DFA), but (in the north) supported the ‘remain’ position on Brexit (UNU).
The poster is on Lecky Road, in the Brandywell, on top of what used to be ‘Derry Women Make Communities’ – see Well-Behaved Women Seldom Make History.
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Extramural Activity 