Loose-Talk Costs Lives

03387 2016-04-26 Loose Talk+

After a larger version of the poster on boards (Belfast LiveBelfast Telegraph) was taken down, the wall beneath  — a mural to (now-released) Basque activist Arnaldo Otegi, featured previously in Free Otegi — has been plastered with these flyer-sized versions of an old (possibly 1970s) Provisional IRA poster warning the republican community about information-gathering by the security forces: “Loose-talk costs lives. In taxis, on the phone, at footbal[l] matches, at home with friends, anywhere! Whatever you say – say nothing.”

For a link to the 1975 Seamus Heaney poem “Whatever you say, say nothing” and a video of Colum Sands singing his song of the same name, see You Know Where.

Update: the flyers were removed on Wednesday 27th around lunchtime.

03386 2016-04-26 Loose Talk Wall+

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Copyright © 2016 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X03387 X03386 divis st Thompson submachine-gun balaclava IRA the pathway to peace pake bidean spanish french jails

I Could Hardly Wait To Keep Our Date

03384 2016-04-23 People's Parade+

Two competing posters for two competing dates for two (competing?) Easter Rising parades: the People’s Parade (above) was held today, April 24th, the date of the Rising in 1916; the other was held on this year’s Easter Sunday, March 27th, as the parade is annually held on Easter Sunday.

03383 2016-04-08 Easter Parade+

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Copyright © 2016 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X03384 X03385 beechmount ave glen rd easter parade 1916 2016 assemble divis tower 11.30 am parade leaves 12.00 pm sharp speaker gerry adams TD honour ireland’s patriot dead wear an easter lily cumann uaigheann na laochra gael national graves assocition easter commemoration committee belfast leaving barrack street for milltown at 12 noon

Slippery Road

03382 2016-04-19 Slippery Road+

Vote with caution, regardless of party! Sınn Féın and People Before Profit posters for NI Assembly elections which take place on May 5th.

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Copyright © 2016 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X03382 falls rd

In Commemoration Of Easter 1916

03376 2016-04-12 In Commemoration Easter 1916+

Tom Clarke is at the head of his fellow signatories as he looks down over a printed tarp reproducing photographs of events surrounding the Easter Rising of 1916, including soldiers from the Irish Citizen Army on a rooftop (see the original in this Spectator article) and members of Cumann Na mBan on parade. For the photo of the building in the top left, see this Irish Times article.

The previous Ardoyne – Bone – Ligoniel mural fell down almost as soon as it was completed, leaving only the portraits of locals killed during the troubles

03377 2016-04-12 A Commemoration Easter 1916 mid+

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Copyright © 2016 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X03376 X03377 céad blıaın an fíorú na poblachta irish republic to the people of ireland proclamation Joseph Plunkett, Sean MacDiarmada, James Connolly, Padraig Pearse, Éamonn Ceannt, Thomas MacDonagh.

Convenience Shop No 6

03311 2016-03-01 Convenience Shop No6+

a.k.a. “Brompton Stores” a.k.a “Sıopa An Ghleanna Aırd”.

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Copyright © 2016 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X03311 brompton pk

The Undauntable Thought

03374 2016-04-07 Cead Bliain+

A succession of Irish rebels is shown in this new mural in Andersonstown, west Belfast. It begins (top left) with the rebellion of 1798 and then to the Easter Rising of 1916 at the GPO in Dublin. In the lower left, a pious Padraıg Pearse awaits his execution with rosary beads in hand. There are then shown female figures from Cumann Na mBán and the IRA (see previously: United Irishwomen, Do You Care? and Mothering Sunday In Beechmount), and then Maıréad Farrell in Armagh Women’s Prison (for the original, see Prison Walls). In the bottom right corner there is a blanketman. The busts of Bobby Sands and Joe McDonnell float above the GPO and the last verse of Sands’s The Rhythm Of Time form the epigraph: “It lights the dark of this prison cell, it thunders forth its might, it is the undauntable thought, my friend, the thought that says, “I’m right”.

03373 2016-04-07 Cead Bliain Pearse+

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X03374 X03373 south link 1916 2016 centenary irish republic unbowed unbroken

Ag Fíorú Na Poblachta

03372 2016-04-07 Cead Blian Lily+

“Realising the Republic”. This is the first of three new murals side-by-side in Andersonstown. It celebrates the centenary (“Céad Blıaın 1916 – 2016”) of the Easter Rising and shows a copy of the proclamation of the republic and an Easter lily.

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Copyright © 2016 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X03372 south link

Brandywell Past And Present

02842 2015-08-25 LongTower+

“You are the future” is the message from Long Tower Youth & Community Centre (Fb) to young people in the Brandywell. Sporting heroes of the past, especially boxing and soccer (for a mural of local clubs, see I Don’t Like Mondays) are featured in black and white. (Derry Journal article on the mural and its sponsors.)

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Copyright © 2015 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X02842 lecky rd serving the community since 1943 2014 derry londonderry dove oak leaf spider kelly tommy mccann george mccann johnny campbell joe healy liam coyle eddie crossan frankie campbell Tony o’doherty jim mcloughlin jobby crossan fay coyle lisa toland anne lyttle jim leland jimmy lyttle st columba’s lumen cristi college

If You Remove The English Army Tomorrow

03353 2016-04-01 England Will Still Rule You+

A line from James Connolly’s 1897 piece “Socialism And Nationalism” is adapted by the IRSP for the current post-partition situation: “England will still rule you, she would rule you through her bankers, landlords and Stormont”.

Connolly’s original thought is that – even in a self-governing republic – nationalism is not enough to establish an authentically Irish state: “If you remove the English army tomorrow and hoist the green flag over Dublin Castle, unless you set about the organization of the Socialist Republic your efforts would be in vain. England would still rule you. She would rule you through her capitalists, through her landlords, through her financiers, through the whole array of commercial and individualist institutions she has planted in this country and watered with the tears of our mothers and the blood of our martyrs.”

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Copyright © 2016 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X03353 glen rd irish republican socialist party

Business As Usual

03351 Easter Rising Centenary Parade Shirt crop+

While taking part in the Easter Rising centenary parade, members of the James Connolly 1st Republican Flute Band from Glasgow (tw) pause on the Falls Road during a squall. Embroidered on the rear of their shirts are the words “We serve neither king nor kaiser, but Ireland”, the slogan which hung outside the ITGWU’s Liberty Hall during the first world war. Image courtesy of Bronagh Bowerman.

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Copyright © 2016 Bronagh Bowerman
03351 tricolour plough stars