Belfast

Place Of Pride

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An owner, with Ireland’s Saturday Night (which ceased publication in 2008) tucked in his coat pocket, shows off his greyhound.

The words of the poem read

“In the east of the city, isolated alone, is a dear little place we like to call home.

Old strengthened by new, the homes and the streets, looking out for each other, a broad smile when they meet

The once terraced streets, some narrow, some wide, behind so many faces a story there lies

In the east of the city by the lagan’s fair side, looking back at its history our hearts fill with pride.”

Next to No More in Edgar Street, Short Strand

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Copyright © 2013 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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The Dark

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2013-12-23 TheDark+

“I don’t mind being called a dissenter, I’ve been a dissenter all my life”. Mural to, and quote from, Brendan Hughes, IRA volunteer and leader of the 1980 (first) Maze hunger strike (WP).

Painted by Rebel Rebel of Gael Force Art in October, 2013. Previously at this location: End Internment.

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Copyright © 2013 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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Reserved

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2013-12-28 Reserved+

The final large spot on (republican) Northumberland Street wall has been claimed, we know not by whom. A small, bookmark-shaped, span of wall also remains further down the road. See the Visual History page for Northumberland Street for details.

“Watch this space”, as they say. Or, as in the piece (below) on the Cliftonville Road (first seen last year), “new mural loading”.

The piece in the centre-left is one to O’Neill & Beattie.

12 09 11 NewMuralLoading+

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Copyright © 2012 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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No More

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2013-12-20 EdgarNoMore+

A boy — Dylan Wilson from east Belfast, grandson of loyalist community worker Jim Wilson —shakes hands with a girl – Dearbhla Ward, granddaughter of Short Strand Sınn Féın councillor Joe O’Donnell (sources: Al Jazeera | NewsLetter | The Scotsman). The centre was left for locals to make their mark on.

A gable-wall version of this image — without the word “síocháın” (peace), with the girl in green, and with Wilson’s poem ‘No More’ — can be found about half a mile away in Wolfe Close, just across the Newtownards Road. See No More, Again. This mural was part of the re-imaging effort of 2010.

No more bombing, no more murder
No more killing of our sons
No more standing at the grave side
Having to bury our loved ones

No more waking up every hour
Hoping our children, they come home
No more maimed or wounded people
Who have suffered all alone

No more minutes to leave a building
No more fear of just parked cars
No more looking over our shoulders
No more killing in our bars

No more hatred from our children
No more. No more. No more!

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Copyright © 2013 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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Red Star Army

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2013-12-20 DevineStar+

INLA member Mickey Devine was the tenth and final hunger-striker to die in 1981, on August 20th. The mural above, in the familiar style of the IRSP/INLA (see Patsy O’Hara | IRSP), is in Chemical Street, in the Short Strand, across from the set of five murals on Mountpottinger Road – see the wide shot below.

2013-12-20 DevineWide+

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Copyright © 2013 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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Whatever The Cost May Be

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2013-12-24 BloodTearsSweat+

A message from “E.B. [east Belfast] Loyalists” in Castlereagh Parade, combining two speeches of Winston Churchill’s: “We have nothing to offer but blood, tears, and sweat” and “Whatever the cost maybe, we shall fight on the beach’es [sic], we shall fight in the fields and on the street’s [sic]. We shall never surrender.”

1940-05-13: “I would say to the House, as I said to those who have joined the government: I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat. We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many, many long months of struggle and of suffering. You ask: What is our policy? I will say: It is to wage war, by sea, land and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us, to wage war against a monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark and lamentable catalogue of human crime.”

1940-06-04: “We shall defend our island whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches. We shall fight on the landing grounds. We shall fight in the fields and in the streets. We shall fight in the hills. We shall never surrender. “

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Copyright © 2013 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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Gas Masked

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2013-12-19 GasMasked+

This piece – a small figure in white made grotesque by a gas mask, with the This Means Nothing hand in the background – is in North Street, originally next to Praise’s ‘Dot‘ (and the ‘Get Paid’ crosses, which are still on the electrical box) from Culture Night 2012, and now between DMC’s Long Runs The Fox and Visual Waste’s ‘bird snatching boy’ (Carried Away).

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Copyright © 2013 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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Check

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2013-12-28 OppressionDefeated+

Graffiti at the Royal Victoria Hospital on the Falls Road, from December 28th (that is, before the end of the Haass talks without agreement on the final draft), showing three items ticked: The laughter of our children; Oppression defeated; Mandate + ballot box.

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Copyright © 2013 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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May I Never Hear Such Cries Again!

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2013-11-28 KitchenerStWWI+

These Kilburn Street boards commemorate the “Young Citizen Volunteers Of Ireland” and the battle of the Somme. The text in the side-wall board (shown below) is from the diary of a Somme soldier: “We surge forward. Bayonets sparkle and glint. Cries and curses rent the air. Chums fall, some without a word … and others … Oh, my God! May I never hear such cries again! There goes the YCV flag tied to the muzzle of a rifle. That man had nerve! Through the road just ahead of us we had crossed the sunken road. We could see khaki figures rushing the German front line. The Inniskillings had got at them.”

The larger board, on the right, describes the transition from rebels to British Army soldiers: “On the 17th May 1914 the Young Citizen Volunteers became a battalion of the Belfast regiment of the Ulster Volunteer Force. This formed part of the Ulster Division authorised on 28th October 1914 which officially became the 14th battalion of the Royal Irish Rifles, part of the 109th brigade. The 14th saw action throughout the First World War.”

It includes a quote from Edward Carson, “You will find in your ranks men with the same ideals, men with the same loyalty and the same determination to uphold the rights of their country”, and a quote from VC winner William Fredrick McFadzean, “You people at home make me feel quite proud when you tell me I am the soldier boy of the McFadzeans. I hope to play the game and if I don’t add much lustre to it I certainly will not tarnish it.”

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