“Ardoyne-Bone boxers have punched well above their weight. As professional we have won … British, Commonwealth, European & W.B.U. titles. As amateurs we have won 3 olympic bronze, European Gold, Commonwealth Gold, World Junior silver, 17 Irish senior titles & an A.B.A senior title. Nor forgetting all our boxing coaches, who put in their time and effort for all our young boxers. Truly amazing for such a small area.” The wide shot below shows the whole of this new Ardoyne/Ard Eoın mural celebrating local boxers; the boxers named are Darren Corbett (WP), John Kelly (FightsRec), Paddy Barnes (WP), Harry McAuley (BoxRec), Anthony Maguire, Hugh Gilhooley (BoxRec), Eamonn McAuley (BoxRec), Freddie Gilroy (WP), Terry Magee (WP), Sean Brown, Noel Magee (WP), Barney Burns, Pat Kelly, Eamonn Magee (WP).
A mural celebrating Paddy Barnes’s 2014 Commonwealth gold medal: Oh, Paddy Boy
Pathé video of John Kelly being knocked out in 1954
Students from Coláıste Feırste took part in a Forbaırt Feırste (Fb) “pop-up art” project, designing plastic wrap for the installation of blocks at the old entrance to Beechmount leisure centre (see the wide shot immediately below). Taking its lead from a Ciarán Carson poem, the design features “a million wind-blown buttercups”, as well as the front page of Edward O’Reilly’s English-Irish dictionary (image #4, below).
The IRPWA (tw | Fb) placed the names of prisoners currently held in Maghaberry in the barbed wire above the so-called “international” wall. Barbed wire is the symbol of republican prisoners though this barbed wire is used to protect Andrews Flour. Above, you can see the boards for Harkin, Mellon and McGilloway.
The full list, from left to right: Seamus Kearney, Gerard McManus, Nathan Hastings, Mark McGuigan, Sean Kelly, Barry Concannon, Damien Harkin, Thomas Mellon, Martin McGilloway, Jason Ceulemans, Gavin Coney, Liam O’Donnell, Neil Hegarty, Jon Paul Wooton, Martin Kelly, Colin Duffy, Harry Fitzsimons, Christopher O’Kane, Tarlach MacDhomhnaill, Seamus McLaughlin, Gavin Coyle, Brendan McConville, Kevin Barry Nolan.
Former CIRA commander Tommy Crossan’s 2014 murder by former colleagues was unusual in that is was carried out during the daytime (and also because he was abducted just off the Springfield Rd). (BBC-NI news video) The graffiti above declares that vengeance will be won.
This 2015 mural in the Bogside in support of a Twitter campaign shows a brain giving birth to the idea of love, smiley faces giving the ‘V for victory’ salute and other cheery images and colours.
Update: Here’s Sinn Féin’s Martina Anderson being interviewed in August 2016 in front of the mural after a bonfire was erected and set alight at the bottom of the flyover (Derry Journal).
The People Before Profit Alliance is an all-Ireland political party closely related to the Socialist Workers Party. In the north, candidate Gerry Carroll was elected to Belfast City Council in 2014, representing Black Mountain. Gay rights does not seem to form an explicit part of the platform, but the mural above, featuring a heart with the rainbow colours, appeared on Divis St in time for the Pride parade on August 1st.
Above is a local interpretation of Robert Ballagh’s 1970 rendering of Goya’s The Third Of May 1808 in Glenfada Park, Derry/Doıre, site of four deaths on Bloody Sunday, 1972.
The original commemorates Spanish resistance to the forces of Napoleon (WP). For this Derry version, features from the city’s skyline – the Guildhall, St. Columb’s Cathedral, and an intact Governor Walker column – have replaced the original’s outline of Madrid, as well as an insignia of the Paras on the arm of a soldier.
As the map below shows, the area between the Shankill and the Falls roads in 1789 was largely undeveloped and perhaps titles such as “Cluain Ard” (“Clonard”) were descriptions as well as names. The ‘White Linen Hall’ – on the site of the current City Hall – had been completed the year before. St. Mary’s was the first Catholic church in Belfast. Wikipedia reports that on the day of its first mass, May 30th, 1784, “the mostly Presbyterian 1st Belfast Volunteer Company paraded to the chapel yard and gave the parish priest a guard of honour, with many of the Protestants of Belfast also present and sharing the event”. (WP) The map also shows a series of ponds connected to the nearby Flush. A close-up of the board is below.
The 1916 Proclamation Of Irish Republic includes the sentence “The Republic guarantees religious and civil liberty, equal rights and equal opportunities to all its citizens, and declares its resolve to pursue the happiness and prosperity of the whole nation and of all its parts, cherishing all of the children of the nation equally, and oblivious of the differences carefully fostered by an alien Government, which have divided a minority from the majority in the past.” At the time, it had a political meaning, but it has since been pressed into service by advocates of children’s right and now, in the board above, by supporters of gay rights. James Connolly (leader of the Irish Citizen Army) and the text of the declaration are shown against a backdrop of the gay pride rainbow flag. Launched 2015-07-31