“Wash your hands – we’re in this together”. Coronavirus-related graffiti on the Newtownards Road next to the construction-site hoardings at Templemore Avenue, which have been in place for over a decade since Edenoak collapsed.
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Copyright © 2020 Sabine Troendle
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Photographs of a dozen atrocities are included on the right of this Derwent Street mural, ranging in time from the 1970 gun-battle around the nearby St Matthew’s church in 1970, in which Jimmy McCurrie and Bobby Neill were killed, to the October 1993 IRA bombing of Frizzell’s fish shop on the Shankill Road, in which Leanne Murray (shown on the left) was one of ten people, two of them children, to die. The others incidents portrayed are Bloody Friday, Darkley, Coleraine, Abercorn, Balmoral, Claudy, La Mon, Kingsmill, and Teebane.
This new computer-generated mural replaces the painted East Belfast Remembers, which had peeled away to a great extent.
“The slaughter of the innocent by the blood soaked hands of Sinn Fein/IRA never to be forgotten. The dead cannot cry out for justice. It is a duty of the living to do so for them. Is this the equality Sinn Fein/IRA asks for? No economic targets, no legitimate targets, no enquiries, no truth, no justice. Hold dear the memory of all the innocents murdered in our country in support of the Sinn Fein electorate. This memory extends to those not mentioned here who were murdered going about their daily lives at work, at prayer and in remembrance. Nothing was sacred in the futile question for a united Ireland.”
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Copyright © 2020 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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“The Great War (1914-1918) 36th (Ulster) Division. This memorial is dedicated to the memory of those who fell in the Great War. May their names be held in honour and their sacrifice be remembered with pride.” Next to to the UVF Flute Band 50th anniversary mural and the Singer Sergeant painting (Observe The Sons Of Ulster).
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Copyright © 2020 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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The 62 year-old painter John Singer Sergeant went to the western front in 1918 to find a scene suitable for painting on the theme of Anglo-American co-operation during the war. On the 21st of August, however, he witnessed at Arras British soldiers blinded by a German mustard gas attack, one following behind the other in a human chain, each group being directed by an orderly towards a dressing station. The War Memorials Committee agreed to change its commission and Sergeant received 600 pounds (about 34,000 in today’s money) for his painting, Gassed (WP).
This copy is in St Leonard’s Crescent, part of the 50th anniversary garden and mural for the UVF regimental band and memorial for east Belfast volunteers who joined the 36th Division (which did not fight at Arras as it had been disbanded in May, 1918). The plaque below list the nine counties of Ulster and reads “To strive, to seek, to find and not to yield. Sons Of Ulster RBP 375.”
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Copyright © 2020 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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Harland & Wolff shipyard workers occupied the premises for nine weeks this (2019) summer in response to news that a sale by owners Dolphin Drilling was falling through. The unions called for the yard to re-nationalised, as it was from 1970 to 1989 before being sold into private hands (BBC). The UK government declined to intervene. Ultimately, the yard was sold for 6 million pounds to InfraStrata, an energy company based in London. The deal included continued employment for the remaining 79 employees (BBC). The poster above is in the window of McDowell’s chemists on the Newtownards Road.
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Copyright © 2019 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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“[Politics is almost as exciting as war, and quite as dangerous.] In war you can only be killed once. In politics, many times. [ – Winston Churchill, 1903] Our British identity is non-negotiable! UVF East Belfast Battalion.” Hooded UVF volunteers are shown in active poses (as compared to the cradled rifles in The Erosion Of Our Identity) ready to resist any compromise in the still-unresolved tension between Brexit and the Belfast (Good Friday) Agreement of 1998.
For the piece on the right, see Clonduff Youth.
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Copyright © 2019 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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The current Brexit deal would unite Ireland, north and south, in various economic ways, while keeping Northern Ireland inside the UK politically. This east Belfast banner suggests that the UVF will take up guns to prevent this. Perhaps by attacking Boris Johnson and the Conservatives? Or perhaps customs officials checking goods moving between Northern Ireland and Britain? It is not clear. “The prevention of the erosion of our identity is now our priority – East Belfast Battalion PAF – UVF – YCV.”
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Copyright © 2019 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X06878 [X06879] [X06880] [X06881] X06882 Other boards read “Our British identity cannot and will not be sacrificed to appease the Irish Republic” “In war you can only be killed once. In politics, many times. Our British identity is non-negotiable.”
An outline, presumably by Leo Boyd (ig), from one of his tech heads pieces, which in this colour-scheme particularly reminds us of the Handmaid’s Tale tech head: She Is My Spy As I Am Hers.
Replaces the ‘This machine kills machines‘ posters for Hit The East 2017 in the alley off Bloomfield Avenue.
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Copyright © 2019 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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“This is a neighbourhood watch area”, says the small sign sandwiched between the UVF East Belfast battalion flag and the “Jesus is alive” placard.
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This UVF LPOW mural in Inverary Drive, east Belfast, probably dates back to the years after the Agreement, when the release of prisoners from both sides was being implemented between 1998 and 2000. That would make the mural about 20 years old.
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Extramural Activity 