PUL areas all over Belfast have their own version of this tarp celebrating Queen Elizabeth’s platinum jubilee; the one shown today is in the upper Shankill: “Tennent Street would like to thank her majesty Queen Elizabeth II on devoting 70 years of service to our great nation. God save the Queen.”
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Bell Close, at the top of the old Shankill allotments, has been given an alternative name – “SPB Way” – by the Shankill Protestant Boys flute band (Fb) who use the social club previously belonging to the Shankill Homing Pigeon club. The mosaic on the far wall was previously in Carnan St, which was also given an alternative name by the SPB: C Coy St (see M04515).
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The only references to TYG appear to be flags and graffiti in this street (Upper Riga Street) going back to 2012, though the stencils shown here claim the group was established in 2007. Please get in touch if you have more information.
There is a mural version of the speeding sign on the Shankill – see Kill Your Speed.
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Here is a selection of anti-Protocol placards from the Caw, Londonderry and Newbuildings. Above: a PSNI officer with a Sinn Féin badge – “PSNI – destroying the loyalist community since 4th Nov. 2001. In the pocket of Sinn Féin.” (November 4th, 2001 is the date the PSNI was created.) For the farmer’s wife protecting the farm, see Deserted, well I can stand alone. Below: “Newbuildings says No to Irish Sea border”, “Loyalist Newbuildings will never accept a border in the Irish Sea”, “The Belfast Agreement has been broken – the deal’s off”, and “Our forefathers fought for our freedom and rights/No border in the sea or we continue the fight”.
For similar placards in Moygashel, see Belfast Agreement Null And Void.
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Copyright © 2022 Andy McDonagh/Eclipso Pictures (ig | Fb)
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“Trophies come and go but legends last forever.” Scott Harvey and Lee Findlay have taken over as the management team of Northern Amateur Football League premier division team East Belfast FC (Fb) (Belfast Live) due to sequestration in connection with the UVF show of strength in Pitt Park in February, 2021 (Belfast Live). The club’s home field is East Park where the mural above stands to former greats (from left to right) Billy Caskey, Billy Humphries, Sammy McCrory, Ian Lawther, Walter Bruce, Roy Coyle, Tom Casey, and Warren Feeney.
Previously at EB FC: The Back Of The Net | Give Sectarianism The Boot
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Nothing about us without us is for us est. 1929
The 36th (Ulster) Division Memorial Association (Fb) put on a play called From The Shipyard To The Somme (Fb | watch on youtube) in Connswater Community Centre in 2013. It follows a group of men from east Belfast who joined the Ulster Volunteers in Belfast but are now training at Abercorn barracks in Ballykinlar (later an internment camp) as members of the 36th Division, before going to the Battle Of The Somme in France.
Belfast – with one tenth of the population – provided about a third of the Irish soldier to participate in WWI. In the shipyards, Harland & Wolff responded to the slow-down in production not by putting everyone on short time but by letting go of employees, particularly unskilled employees, for whom the wages of soldiering were competitive (particularly if married), while skilled men were reclassified as “munitions workers” needed to fulfill war contracts (History Ireland | Long Kesh Inside Out).
The Somme board, which dates to about 2015, is above Connswater Commemorates and The Glorious Dead.
The plaques are to John Cochrane of the Mersey Street Area Residents Association and Margaret Proctor ?of the Connswater Community Centre?
The industrial mural on the side perhaps features the Ballymacarrett rail crash of 1945, described previously in Step Back In Time.
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X10347 X10346 X10344 X10345 Oh, Belfast may boast and justly to the progress it has made and point with pride and pleasure to its vast and varied trade Your king needs you country 36th division ulster
Of some interest in this Mersey Street NI Centenary board is the use of St Patrick’s saltire (in the background). The saltire is an anglo symbol of Ireland and was included in the Union Flag when the union was between Britain and Ireland and thus – like the word “Ulster” – has been reduced to meaning Northern Ireland after partition.
There is also an anti-Irish Sea border board on the next house along – see An Act Of Betrayal. This features the Union Flag together with flags representing the “home countries”: the Welsh dragon, the English St George’s Cross, the Scots St Andrew’s Saltire, and the Northern Irish Ulster Banner.
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The graffiti reads “No EU, No Irish, Buy British” but the cars parked in front of these graffiti are a BMW – a German company with factories also in China, Mexico, the Netherlands, South Africa and the US (WP) – and a Ford – a US company with factories all over the world, but since 2002 Ford cars have not been made in Britain (WP). The graffiti is a protest at the NI Protocol (as seen in roughly 22 previous posts).
In the Dee St/Newtownards Rd Iceland car-park, adjacent to the ‘pilgrims’ mural seen in Please Pay Here.
Reminiscent of: ‘No Blacks, No Dogs, No Irish’ in Oppose Racism | No Irish No POWs | More Blacks, More Gays, More Irish
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According to 13th century Icelandic historian Snorri Sturluson, The Battle Of Latharna (now Larne) took place in 1018 between Irish warriors and Orkney vikings at Larne Lough or “Ulfreksfjord” which name eventually became “Olderfleet”, to the south of the harbour.
This is the contribution of artist Kim Montgomery (web) to a Larne Council project to add art to the city centre (BelTel). See previously, Dawn Aston’s Dire Wolf.
Main St, Larne
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Michael Blakstad’s Children In Crossfire is a justly famous documentary portraying the lives of children in Creggan (Derry) and various areas of Belfast, such as Ballymurphy & Springmartin, Divis, and the area around Gawn St in east Belfast. The documentary is on youtube and an image from it (c. 28m 13s) is depicted in this mural (Connswater Chronicle) at the foot of the Dee Street overpass into what is now the “Titanic Quarter”.
The panel to the right shows the original Armitage Street; the area has been redeveloped and the street was built over with a cluster of houses named Armitage Close.
By Dee Craig with support from the Housing Executive, City Council, and Connswater Homes.
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Extramural Activity 