PUL

My Lady Of Chimney Corner

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Sculptor Anna Cheyne (WP) produced the piece ‘My Lady Of The Chimney-Corner’ for Antrim Council in 1998, inspired by the domestic and farming scenes in the 1913 book of the same name by Antrim native Alexander Irvine. The book is subtitled “A story of love and poverty in Irish peasant life” – Irvine’s parents were in a mixed marriage. (You can read the book at Project Gutenberg or at Google Books).

For more information on Irvine and the mural next to his Pogue’s Entry home (which is also the location of the blue plaque, below), see A Tale Of Ireland.

The two sides of Cheyne’s sculpture are shown above and immediately below. ‘Alexander Irvine Park’ is also home to a memorial garden to the victims of the covid-19 pandemic in the park – see the final two images, below. (A similar garden was installed at the Whiteabbey/Jordanstown foreshore.)

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A Better Place

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Discover Ulster-Scots (web) has added some more boards in north Belfast, joining the recent gallery of famous figures at Mountcollyer Avenue (see The Scots In Ulster).

The boards shown here are in North Queen St: “Ulster-Scots have been making Belfast a better place for over 400 years. Many of Belfast’s leading charitable, religious and educational institutions were founded by Ulster-Scots.” with images of BRA (James Crombie), Clifton House (possibly William Tennant is intended), the Linen Hall Library (a list of founders can be found on page 11 of this History), the Assembly buildings (of the Presbyterian church), and Queen’s (John Mowat).

Additional new boards, concerning soda farls and potato bread, and brown lemonade, can be seen in the Paddy Duffy Collection: The Ulster Fry.

See also: the Visual History page on Ulster-Scots murals.

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Frank McKelvey

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Francis “Frank” McKelvey grew up at 56 Woodvale Road (based on Lennon Wylie and the blue plaque on the wall at this address – Street View). That would put him a stone’s throw from Woodvale Park, which provides the backdrop for this new mural at the end of Woodvale Street. The photograph reproduced, of “Woodvale park pond”, can be seen on the Old Shankill Fb page. The pond was filled in after the second World War (City Council). McKelvey’s ‘A Summer’s Day‘ is perhaps of Woodvale Park pond. He died in 1974 (Ulster History Circle).

By Holly Hooks (ig) in Woodvale Street, west Belfast.

February 14th

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Not A Dumping Ground

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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.

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Spinning Memories

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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.

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El Alma De Madrid

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“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)

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Meditating Boxer

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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.

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Childhood Dreams

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

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In The Service Of Our Country

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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.

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Auld Cobblers

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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.

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