This is the notice-board outside Cathedral Youth Club in Londonderry’s Fountain area (in August), inviting passers-by to express their loyalty in a ‘Relief of Derry fry’ – an Ulster fry with tea, coffee, or juice – to raise money for MacMillan Cancer Support.
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Copyright © 2015 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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A suggested cure for the winter-time blues, in waste ground off Milner Street: We need a bonfire. The pink plastic Barbie-mobile is not the best fuel.
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Copyright © 2015 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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Here are three shots of the new Blaze Fx (web | Fb) “Belfast Giants” mural in east Belfast’s Lord Street. The Giants have been Belfast’s ice-hockey team for the last fifteen years, beginning in 2000. The detail above shows mascot Finn MacCool and the image of the full mural, below, includes the team motto, the (a)politically-motivated “In the land of the giants, everyone is equal.” The mural takes the place of a UDA mural (featured previously, Feriens Tego; see also the second info board, below, on “the re-imaging of Lord Street 2012-2015”) and is one of three large murals and various small murals to be replaced or painted out. (This News Letter article puts the total at nine.)
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Copyright © 2015/2017 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X03112 X03164 X03162 ice hockey stick jersey mobile phone go foam finger cheering taking picture skates X03370 junior and senior teams local media likes mark morrison nathan clements bradley scott kaitlyn morrison X04481
Twenty-year-old William Frederick McFadzean from Lurgan won the Victoria Cross for throwing himself on top of a crate of hand grenades that fell into his trench on July 1st (WP), the first day of the battle of the Somme; July 1st and 2nd would see 5,000 of his comrades from the 36th (Ulster) Division killed or wounded. The portrait on which the image is based can be seen at CultureNI.
Here’s a recording of the song composed in his honour:
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Copyright © 2015 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X02867 36th Ulster Division (109 Brigade) 9th October 1895 – 1st July 1916 for valour for god and ulster UVF YCV ulster volunteer force young citizen volunteers
For Armistice Day commemorations 2015 an old mural (below) depicting east Belfast mill workers in cloth caps going to work beneath the H&W cranes was replaced with an image of a single soldier standing over a WWI burial cross with head bowed. In front are the same kind of small wooded crosses and poppies featured on Saturday (Row On Row) from Pitt Park. By Glenn Black and Ken Maze of Blaze FX (web).
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Copyright © 2013 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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Three F-bombs today in a concentrated package. Above we have the PSNI and the IRA combined into one (and next to a swastika, not shown) in Maladon Street, south Belfast. Below, we have “Fuck the TV man, part 3” in Roulston Street in Londonderry’s Waterside. And finally, there is is “Fuck DAAD fags” on the New Lodge Road in north Belfast. “DAAD” stands for “direct action against drugs”, a group which counted Kevin McGuigan and Jock Davison as members (both of whom were killed in a feud this summer) and now goes by “AAD”. (For AAD and the murders of Davison and McGuigan see Irish News | Belfast Telegraph | Guardian.)
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Copyright © 2015 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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Thousands of small wooden crosses, with names and a poppy, were placed in Pitt Park, east Belfast, between November 1st and 11th to commemorate those who fell during WWI. The Last Post was sounded each night at 8. We present here four images of the scene. The event and a similar one on the Shankill (both going by the name Row By Row) were organised by the Dr. Pitt Park Centenary Committee and the Royal British Legion. (City Council minutes)
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Copyright © 2015 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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Samson and Goliath, the cranes of the Harland & Wolff shipyard in east Belfast, stand alongside crosses on the burial grounds of the 36th (Ulster) Division in Flanders (though Cave Hill might be in the background) in this Flora Street mural in east Belfast. UVF flags fly overhead. One of the cranes can be seen in the background of the wide shot, below.
On the headstone in the front-middle is written “Francis Lemon 1916”, perhaps this Francis Lemon, from Ballymacarrett, who died on July 2nd: FindAGrave | IWM.
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Copyright © 2015 Extramural Activity
X02989 X02990 francis lemon 1916 remembrance day armistice day veterans
The quote on this new board in the Lower Shankill estate – “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, concerned citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has” – is attributed to “Margaret Mead, American Author 1901-1978”. Mead in fact was best known as an anthropologist and in particular for her study of adolescent coming-of-age in the islands of Samoa which concluded that adolescence there was not at all the stressful and confused period that it was Western teens.
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Copyright © 2015 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X03076 X03077 [X12019] The campaign against social exclusion group CASE created this artwork using themes of social justice to highlight how a group of residents by standing together can create real change within their area for the benefit of all residents the quote was written by the american author margaret mead and reflects what the residents aspire to within their community artist lesley cherry worked with case during this project drawing out their concerns hopes and fears for the future and how this statement can relate to similar communities not only in northern ireland but at an international level funded by the housing executive working in partnership with the lower shankill community association replaces several contentious paramilitary murals removed during the redevelopment of the shankill estate
This WWI mural is fading somewhat after at least eight years on a wall in Strule Gardens, Londonderry. It shows soldiers going over the top, as depicted in JP Beadle’s Attack Of The Ulster Division (belfastsomme.com).
The title comes from the Eric Bogle song No Man’s Land (better known as “The Green Fields Of France” or “Willie McBride”. Here (youtube) is the recording by Tommy Makem and Liam Clancy.)
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Copyright © 2015 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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Extramural Activity 