“We salute our key workers.” The Irish saying “Ar scáth a chéıle a mhaıreann na daoıne” means “the people abide in each other’s shadow”. This version of Free Derry Corner shows an NHS doctor and nurse in the shadow of a pair of wings, hence our title: “scıath” = wing or shield.
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Copyright © 2020 Andy McDonagh/Eclipso Pictures (ig | Fb)
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Public Health England last Friday issued guidelines for reusing personal protective equipment (PPE) when stocks of fresh gowns, goggles, gloves, and masks run out. In response to concerns from local health workers, First Minister Arlene Foster has given assurances that the policy will not be adopted here (iTV | BelTel) but the on-going coronavirus pandemic means that the search for PPE continues. A quarter million gowns were transferred from Northern Ireland to England this week without any firm date for their being returned in kind (BelTel). The Orange Order, on the other hand, was able to make a contribution of masks and aprons via lodges both north and south (NewsLetter | Irish News). Mural perhaps based on this banner. The image below shows the mural at the time of its official launch on April 18th; it was added to the following week.
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Copyright © 2020 Sabine Troendle
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Local artist Paul Morrison (web | Fb) was asked to paint a shrine for Corpus Christi church in Westrock/Springhill. As his main subject he chose Mother Teresa, who lived and worked in the area with four nuns from 1971 to 1973 before being put out (allegedly) by the Catholic church. Morrison also painted portraits of the sixteen victims of the Ballymurphy and Springhill/Westrock massacres of 1972, including the one of John Dougal, shown below, as well as clerics Noel Fitzpatrick (from St John’s) and Hugh Mullan (from Corpus Christi itself).
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Copyright © 2020 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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James Connolly worked in Belfast from 1910 or 1911 to 1916 as a labour organizer, before being executed on May 12th, 1916, for his part in the Easter Rising. He lived in Glenalina Terrace on the Falls Road (An Phoblacht | the plaque over the door) a few blocks above the visitor centre in his honour which opened in spring 2019. (There is video from each of the Official Opening and the Grand Opening, which NVTv also covered extensively.)
The new mural shown here is on the International Wall on Divis Street, next to Welcome To West Belfast and Merdeka.
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Copyright © 2020 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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Tourists to West Belfast/Feırste Thıar are given a tour of the sights on a black taxi tour: (clockwise from left) the entrance to Milltown Cemetery at the edge of Andersonstown, a trio of murals (the Bobby Sands mural on the side of the Sınn Féın offices; the Easter Rising mural in Beechmount Ave; the Acht Anoıs fáınne on Divis Street (also in Ardoyne)) with a march taking place, Cultúrlann McAdam-Ó Fıaıch, gaelic football and hurling, Divis tower, Conway mill, and the Falls library. This is the third such tourist mural in the area, after one at Divis tower (Gateway To West Belfast) and one on the offices of Fáılte Feırste Thıar (Go West! | Fáılte Feırste Thıar | The Conlan Revolution).
Replaces Willowbank Huts from the centenary mural.
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Copyright © 2020 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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The streets in the Bone (or Marrowbone) area were built around the turn of the 20th century but before that the area was on the way to the ‘old park’. The name perhaps comes from the Irish “machaire botháin”, the “cabin field”, possibly in reference to a shepherd’s hut, and certainly nothing to do with punning fish-and-chip shops. Above the shops are pictures of local children, continuing from the Marrowbone Community Association which is out of picture to the left.
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Copyright © 2020 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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“The face of community policing?? Not in our name. Reject all forms of British political policing in Ireland.” The 32 County Sovereignty Movement lost its Facebook page this month, but its poster campaign against harassment and imprisonment of members continues.
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Copyright © 2020 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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“Saoradh salute the men and women of violence,” namely the signatories to the 1916 Proclamation, the women of the 1970s IRA, and modern “dissidents” with home-made weapons.
The plaque on the left is to the IRA’s Pearse Jordan, next to the centenary celebration of the Proclamation, Ag Fíorú Na Poblachta. The board was been moved to this Falls Road location from Ardoyne; it replaces an anti-RUC/PSNI mural.
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Copyright © 2020 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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This is a new INLA board to deceased volunteers Danny Loughran and Matt McLarnon, Paul (“Bonanza”) McCann, Martin McElkerney, and Gino Gallagher. The new addition here is Martin McElkerney, who died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound in March last year (2019) (Guardian). Shots were fired over McElkerney’s coffin (tw). He was released under the terms of the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement after 12 years for his part in a booby-trap bombing of two British soldiers, one of whom died, in which two children also died.
For basic information on the deaths of the other four, see this IRSP page on the previous mural.
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Copyright © 2020 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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Civil war continues in Yemen with 111 soldiers killed, allegedly by Houthi rebels, in a missile attack on a military mosque on January 18th (BBC). The country remains the country with the most humanitarian need: according to the UN, 24 million people, 80% of the population, are in need. The mural on west Belfast’s International Wall from April 2019 has been completed with the flags of Spain, Canada, and China being added to those of the US, UK, and France on the missiles raining down (now in two ranks) on civilians, blood dripping from cash-filled Saudi hands, and a UNICEF statistic included in our original post: “1 child dies every 10 minutes as a result of the war in Yemen”
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Copyright © 2020 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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Extramural Activity 