… while a dog may look away from a queen, and she from it. Ornaments to a Woodvale back garden, where giant poppies grow.
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Copyright © 2020 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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A Cat May Look At A King
Belfast west
Not Playing Ball
“We will never accept a united Ireland” – unionist graffiti at the Springfield Road pedestrian entrance into Highfield.
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Copyright © 2020 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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I Can Has Gráınne?
Work by HAS of the FA Krew on the Cupar Way “peace” line.
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Copyright © 2020 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X06966
Hard Pressed
Conway Street used to run all the way from the Falls to the Shankill but was divided into two in response to the intense rioting of August 1969. Makeshift barriers were constructed along the Falls at the bottom of Conway Street and others, soon to be replaced by the permanent barrier. Although the so-called “peace” line largely does its job, the wall is itself a form of oppression to those living in its shadow. “No surrender” to the op(p)ressors. Graffiti on Conway Street above (i.e. Shankill side of) the “peace” line.
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Copyright © 2019 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X06646
Áras Uí Chonghaıle
James Connolly worked in Belfast from 1910 or 1911 to 1916 as a labour organizer, before being executed on May 12th, 1916, for his part in the Easter Rising. He lived in Glenalina Terrace on the Falls Road (An Phoblacht | the plaque over the door) a few blocks above the visitor centre in his honour which opened in spring 2019. (There is video from each of the Official Opening and the Grand Opening, which NVTv also covered extensively.)
The new mural shown here is on the International Wall on Divis Street, next to Welcome To West Belfast and Merdeka.
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Copyright © 2020 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X06988
Welcome To West Belfast
Tourists to West Belfast/Feırste Thıar are given a tour of the sights on a black taxi tour: (clockwise from left) the entrance to Milltown Cemetery at the edge of Andersonstown, a trio of murals (the Bobby Sands mural on the side of the Sınn Féın offices; the Easter Rising mural in Beechmount Ave; the Acht Anoıs fáınne on Divis Street (also in Ardoyne)) with a march taking place, Cultúrlann McAdam-Ó Fıaıch, gaelic football and hurling, Divis tower, Conway mill, and the Falls library. This is the third such tourist mural in the area, after one at Divis tower (Gateway To West Belfast) and one on the offices of Fáılte Feırste Thıar (Go West! | Fáılte Feırste Thıar | The Conlan Revolution).
Replaces Willowbank Huts from the centenary mural.
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Copyright © 2020 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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Community Policing
“The face of community policing?? Not in our name. Reject all forms of British political policing in Ireland.” The 32 County Sovereignty Movement lost its Facebook page this month, but its poster campaign against harassment and imprisonment of members continues.
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Copyright © 2020 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X06987
Her Old Tradition Of Nationhood
“Saoradh salute the men and women of violence,” namely the signatories to the 1916 Proclamation, the women of the 1970s IRA, and modern “dissidents” with home-made weapons.
The plaque on the left is to the IRA’s Pearse Jordan, next to the centenary celebration of the Proclamation, Ag Fíorú Na Poblachta. The board was been moved to this Falls Road location from Ardoyne; it replaces an anti-RUC/PSNI mural.
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Copyright © 2020 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X06993
Fallen Comrades Of The INLA
This is a new INLA board to deceased volunteers Danny Loughran and Matt McLarnon, Paul (“Bonanza”) McCann, Martin McElkerney, and Gino Gallagher. The new addition here is Martin McElkerney, who died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound in March last year (2019) (Guardian). Shots were fired over McElkerney’s coffin (tw). He was released under the terms of the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement after 12 years for his part in a booby-trap bombing of two British soldiers, one of whom died, in which two children also died.
For basic information on the deaths of the other four, see this IRSP page on the previous mural.
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Copyright © 2020 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X06992
A Living Hell For Children
Civil war continues in Yemen with 111 soldiers killed, allegedly by Houthi rebels, in a missile attack on a military mosque on January 18th (BBC). The country remains the country with the most humanitarian need: according to the UN, 24 million people, 80% of the population, are in need. The mural on west Belfast’s International Wall from April 2019 has been completed with the flags of Spain, Canada, and China being added to those of the US, UK, and France on the missiles raining down (now in two ranks) on civilians, blood dripping from cash-filled Saudi hands, and a UNICEF statistic included in our original post: “1 child dies every 10 minutes as a result of the war in Yemen”
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Copyright © 2020 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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Extramural Activity 