PUL

Not A Dumping Ground

Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

These Shankill placards read “Landlords take notice: “You have a responsibility” This is not a dumping ground.” and “Landlords take notice: We are taking back our community.” Their wording is not as explicit as the tarps and posters that have been seen in other areas which read, “NIHE & Private Landlords take note: [Belvoir | Suffolk | Finaghy | Newtownards] will no longer accept the re-housing of illegal immigrants or the excrement of other communities!” (BBC Belvoir | BBC Suffolk | (BelTel Newtownards) and “We have had enough of undesirables and immigrants being placed into our community. The time has come for locals only.” (BBC Finaghy). The “excrement” language has been condemned by politicians from both sides, as it (probably) refers to homeless people and those suffering intimidation who apply for Housing Executive housing (here is the points system). See also: similar placards in Rathcoole (Belfast Live).

See previously: “Locals Only” graffiti on Shore Road.

Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2024 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X15059 X15058 X14956 [X14955]

Spinning Memories

Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

The inspiration for this new piece of street art by KMG (ig) was the Strand Spinning Mill (formerly the Jaffe Spinning Mill) which closed in 1983 and is now the Portview Trade Centre. During WWI the mill made munitions and during WWII viscose rayon. The film Lint And Linen (youtube) covers both pre-industrial and mechanical linen-production (though mostly focused on yarn from line fibres rather than from tow, which was the Strand mill’s claim to fame (Duffy Rafferty)); the painting appears to present a more primitive and imaginary age in which fibres could be spun using the human hand.

For photographs of the old mill on the Trade Centre, see previously the image of A Block in Strand Spinning Mill.

“Spinning memories” is the name of a planned collection of stories for an archive at Portview (Portview Stories).

Townsley Street, east Belfast, next to the Narnia sculptures and facing Aslan Is On The Move.

Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2024 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X15025 X15026 X15024

El Alma De Madrid

Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

“No foreigners” and “Locals only” graffiti in front of the new construction at the site of the Tudor Lodge on Shore Road at the bottom of Gray’s Lane.

Previously UDA graffiti at the site: Sinn Fein Toadies (from 2005) | Standing Stone (from 2021)

Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2024 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X15022 X15021 X15023

Meditating Boxer

Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

This is one of Solus’s (ig | web) boxers in graceful poses, painted for HTN24 on Millfield at the bottom of Brown Street.

For close-ups, see the post at Paddy Duffy’s site.

Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2024 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X15045 X15046

Childhood Dreams

Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

This painted box by Karl Fenz (web) is on Middlepath Street past the M3 and within sight of the Teenage Dreams.

Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2024 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X15215

In The Service Of Our Country

Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

These are images of people collecting for Andy Allen Veterans Support (web) on the Shankill, Belfast. At its peak (in 1973) the UDR had more than 9,000 personnel (Statista). The UDR was amalgamated into the Royal Irish Regiment in 1992 and a 2005 estimate put the number of its veterans at about 58,000 (Veterans Services NI).

The title of the post comes from a UDR memorial in Carrickfergus.

Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2024 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X14959 X14958 X14957

Auld Cobblers

Extramural Activity1 Comment

This new three-storey mural by Dee Craig (Fb) is at the city end of Newtownards Road and so serves as a highly-visible introduction to east Belfast. People arriving in the area are now greeted with a vintage image of a smiling bearded man in a cloth cap, surrounded by occupations from the industrial era: “Cobbler, rag’n’bone man, fish monger, welder, builder, sweep, carpenter, window cleaner, butcher”, capped off by an inspirational “Be your best”, with yellow highlights that match the colour of the shipyard cranes Samson and Goliath (see the third image).

In being overshadowed by the mural, the “Let’s Twist Again” sculpture on the plaza in front of the business centre now becomes a symbol of east Belfast rather than the symbol. It too features east Belfast’s “industrial past” (BelTel), using rope as a metaphor for community: “By being bound together in a common cause, the natural tendency for each twist, fibre, yarn, and strand to separate, only serves to make the rope stronger.”

On the wall behind the sculpture and below the mural is one of the Eastside Lives Heritage Trail (pdf) figures, Jane Scott, whose fifteen-year-old son Samuel fell to his death from a ladder while working on the ship in 1910. She supposedly cursed the ship and it sank two years later.

For a straight-on shot, see the post at the Paddy Duffy collection.

Images of the completed piece are from March 27th and 29th. The in-progress image below is from March 18th.

Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2024 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X14898 [X14897]
X14934 [X14935] [X14936] [X14937]
X14940 [X14939] [X14938]
X14900 X14901 X14899 X14902 X14903
X14894 [X14895] [X14896]

Road Rage Ruth

Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

Here are a few pieces from the so-called “peace” line dividing CNR and PUL west Belfast, featuring, above, ‘Road rage Ruth’ by Kilian (ig). Previously by Kilian on the “peace” line: The Brain Is Wider Than The Sky. See also the works done for HTN23, HTN22, and HTN21.

For wild-style from December (2023) see Bombing The “Peace” Line. For ten or so pieces of street art and wild-style writing on the wall from May 2023, see Ready To Rumble.

The obscured piece by Bust and the “World Wall Stylers” tag can be seen in better condition in New Levels, Same Devils (2022). “Ríoghnach” is an Irish-language name.

Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2024/2023 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X14720 X12197 X12198 X12199

Highland Fusiliers

Extramural Activity2 Comments

March 10th was the 53rd anniversary of the killings of three Highland Fusiliers, Dougald McCaughey and teen-aged brothers Joseph and John McCaig, who were drinking in a city centre pub and lured to their deaths in north Belfast at the hands of the (Provisional) IRA. The killings led to the resignation of NI prime minister James Chichester-Clark and an increase, to 18, in the minimum age for service (WP).

There is a monument in Ballysillan and a stone to the three in Ligoniel near the spot where they were executed, and a mural in Rathcoole.

This mural is at the Rangers Supporters’ Club in Carrickfergus. Also from the Club: a gallery of Rangers’ Managers in We Welcome The Chase | commemorative murals to the 36th Division in A Name That Equals Any In History and to the UDR in Some Gave All | various others from the laneway and courtyard in We Don’t Do Walking Away, and from inside and from the side patio in The Rangers That I Love.

Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2023 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X14283