Seamus Heaney was born on this date in 1939 on a farm in County London-/Derry. His first (full) collection was Death Of A Naturalist in 1966 and it included the poem Twice Shy, the concluding lines of which are painted on Stranmillis embankment: Still waters running deep along the embankment walk.
Painted by UUSU students (see also Animals Two By Two).
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“The way a society treats children reflects not only its qualities of compassion & protective caring but also its sense of justice, its commitment to the future & its urge to enhance the human condition for coming generations.” Words by the United Nations Secretary-General Javier Perez De Cuellar in 1987 inscribed on a mural by Margaret McCann and Andrea Redmond in Dunlewey Street in Clonard.
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X02548 X02549 X02550 rainbow mountains duck flying “1/4 of W. Belfast is under 15. 12 of 16 most deprived wards in Belfast are in W. B.” dolmen races children
Here are more images from the new ‘Unite – the union’ mural at Transport House. Monday’s post featured Jim Larkin, who, after the Belfast lockout, founded the Irish Transport & General Workers Union in 1909. The separate (Amalgamated) Transport & General Workers Union (headquartered in London) was formed in 1922. (Larkin’s old union NUDL, renamed the National Union of Dock, Riverside and General Workers in Great Britain and Ireland, joined soon after in the same year.) In 2007, the T&G merged with Amicus to form the current Unite – The Union. The TGWU’s base in Belfast was Transport House, a 1959 building by architect J.J. Brennan in the International style (C20) and a B1 listed building (wikimedia). As can be seen from the image of a female welder above, the new mural features the green tile squares of the building itself, as well as the string of workers in the large mosaic on the front.
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Big Jim Larkin spoke from the steps of the Custom House – a stone’s throw away from this new mural at Transport House in the city centre – in the early months of 1907, speaking on behalf of the dockers and other unskilled labourers, recruiting them to the National Union of Dock Workers, and ultimately organizing various strikes as part of what is now known as the ‘Belfast Lockout’, which stretched from April 26th to August 28th. Larkin was expelled from the NUDL and went on to form the Irish Transport & General Workers Union in 1909 and organize the Dublin Lockout in 1913. The rest of his history is equally dramatic, including arrest and imprisonment for ‘criminal anarchism’ in the US in 1919. (WP)
Here is an image of Larkin on the platform at a Belfast rally (mouse-over to enlarge), surrounded by workers wearing cloth caps.
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The road to equality is long and winding and goes through Andersonstown’s Derrin Pass. The junction is full of small board depicting Gaelic games, Irish culture, and landscape drawings, as well as exhortations towards equality — see the corresponding entry in the Peter Moloney Collection.
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Anti-racism board on Sınn Féın’s Andersonstown office.
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A menacing sofa, or possibly the Titanic centre, lurches through the flames on the shutters of the re:store furniture shop, with LOFT upstairs.
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Local residents and children who helped construct the ‘Welcome To Sliabh Dubh’ mosaic at the top of the estate got to include their handprints as part of the artwork, under the direction of Martin McClure (according to a City Council brochure). As the other images (below) show, the area is also host to another mosaic depicting local landmarks from the past such as the Glenalina Bleaching Co and a cottage on the hills of Black Mountain as well as the superhero murals (Wallbusters | Cartoon World | Red-Eye) and Disney murals (some of which have been featured in If The Shoe Fits | Look Behind You! | Magic Mountain).
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The ‘Welcome To The Shankill’ board is looking the worse for wear, as can be seen particularly in the three close-ups below of the Boyardo memorial at Aberdeen Street, the (previously featured) Malvern Arch mural in Hopewell, and the Crumlin Road Gaol. For the two strips of ‘famous faces’ on either side, see Welcome To The Shankill Road.
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X02523 X02522 X02525 X02524 Gardiner Street Norman Whiteside, Baroness May Blood, Jimmy Warnock, William Conor, Col. James Cunningham, Johnny McQuade, Wayne McCullough, Rev. Henry Montgomery, lower shankill, peter’s hill, agnes, canmore, woodvale, cupar, berlin, crimea, tennent, cambrai, northumberland, boundary, doggie barbers grooming service, alternatives
The ‘Teenage Dreams So Hard To Beat’ line from the Undertones’ ‘Teenage Kicks’ is back after a 21-month absence, officially unveiled on Saturday (2015-03-28) during the Urban Village festival (Belfast Live). The new version makes no mention of DJ John Peel, who helped promote the song and after whose 2004 death the original was painted (Tele) by TDS (The Dark Side). The new version was painted by TDS together with youth from Doyle and Ballymac Youth clubs – the sig is below.
See also: Teenage Dreams | John Peel
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