Glentoran FC’s emblem features a cock (similar to the rooster on Le Coq Sportif, which made the team’s strip from 1996-1999) and its slogan is “le jeu avant tout” (“the game before/above all). The sources of the French influence is unknown. In the mural above, from outside the Oval, he gives “East Belfast” the boot.
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Here are two versions of CS Lewis’s character of Aslan, from The Lion, The Witch, And The Wardrobe and the rest of the Chronicles Of Narnia,one by Glen Molloy in Bawnmore (alongside The Night King from Game Of Thrones) and the other by Alan Burke in Townsley Street (near Metal Work).
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This mural forms a pair with Ulster’s Past Defenders in the middle of Newtownards Road’s ‘Freedom Corner’. The present defenders are the UDA/UFF; the past defenders were the UDR, and before them, the B Specials, (and before them, Cuchulainn – 2005 and 1992). Both pieces were repainted in 2016 after the previous murals disintegrated (see Freedom Corner for possible causes).
“The UDA was formed in 1971 as an umbrella for loyalist vigilante groups being formed. There role to defend protestant community from IRA violence. They remain today. The UFF was formed in 1973 as military group for the UDA to defend protestants from acts of Irish Republican violence over 30 yrs of conflict.”
From left to right: For Freedom Alone | As Long As 100 Of Us Remain Alive | Loyalist East Belfast | The Strangest Victory In All History | Ulster’s Past Defenders | Nationality is included in Loyalist East Belfast | Ulster’s Present Defenders | Freedom Corner
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This mural (perhaps still in progress) is in the Connswater Women’s Group (“CWG” in the mural) spot on Severn Road, showing the sun rising over the Harland & Wolff cranes in east Belfast. For the previous mural, see The Verticality Of The Divine.
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The large mural of H&W shipyard workers at the turn of the century has been restored by Dee Craig (Fb). The mural is on the footbridge linking Dee Street and Queen’s Island. Inspired by paintings of William Conor such as Shipyard Workers Crossing Queen’s Bridge and Over The Bridge. For images of the previous version, see Titanic Workers.
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The original version of the hooded UFF gunman, with pistol and quotation modelled on the Declaration Of Arbroath (“As long as one hundred of us remain alive …”), was painted on the Newtownards Road in 1994. In their places now is a list of the battalions of the East Belfast Brigade (in numerical order): Young Newton, Dee Street, Ballybeen, Castlereagh, and Tullycarnet, plus North Down (see Always A Little Further).
The second image, below, shows the gunman but not the right-hand side painted out (from a February 2017 post); the third image is from a 2015 post, when the “Bendy Gunman” was painted. Only the UFF fist now remains from that 2015 version.
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Newcastle artist Alan Burke in 2015 produced four pieces for Eastside Partnership (with funding from the Arts Council) for the area between the Newtownards Road and (what is now) CS Lewis Square (Tele). The piece shown in today’s post is a pair of metalworks depicting the heavy industry of Harland & Wolff. The works themselves are made from sheet metal, stainless steel, and weathering steel which is designed to “form a stable rust-like appearance” after a few years of exposure the elements.
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Manchester duo Nomad Clan (web) – seen painting Harland & Wolf at the Dirty Onion during Culture Night/Hit The North 2017 – returned to paint on the Newtownards Road. In keeping with the previous piece at this site – Deirdre Robb’s flax flowers – they painted a “female flax gatherer from a bygone era” (East Side Partnership).
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The Harland & Wolff cranes are called Samson and Goliath after two biblical giants. This miniature was spotted in a window in Castlereagh Place.
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A plaque has been added to the controversial 2013 UVF mural in Inverwood Court, commemorating (fairly) recently-deceased volunteers Kenny Black, Neill Reeves (21 years old, possibly from tainted drugs) Kevin Carvil, and Robert Armour.
The quote – Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed – is from Martin Luther King. For more on the history of this wall and the MLK quote, see Direct Action.
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Extramural Activity 