Belfast west – Page 48 – Extramural Activity

Something In The Air

2019-09-222024-12-28Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

Clonard monastery (and church of the Holy Redeemer) date back to 1897, built on the grounds of Clonard House (1843) and including 3.5 acres to provide spiritual services to the burgeoning Catholic population of west Belfast, about 30,000 in number (Ita | Rafferty). On the night of August 15th, 1969, the complex came perilously close to destruction, like the houses in the streets around it, but became of focal point of locals’ attempts to defend the area (Murray).

For other posts about the 50th anniversary of the August riots, see The Pogrom Of 1969 | Clonard Remembers | End Apartheid | Derry, Enniskillen, Aughrim, And Ardoyne.

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The First Outbreak Of The Troubles

2019-09-212024-12-28Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

The plaque shown above sits in a memorial garden at the northern end of Disraeli Street, which in 1969 ran out onto the Crumlin Road between Hooker and Brookfield streets on the nationalist side, which saw intense rioting in August 1969 (see 90 Years Of Resistance; also Can It Change? for the lower Shankill). The UVF was founded in 1966 in response to the Civil Rights campaign and an IRA attack on Nelson’s statue in Dublin, and the WDA in June 1970 in response to escalating tensions along the upper Crumlin.

“The officers and volunteers “B” company Ulster Volunteer Force and the officers and volunteers “B” company Woodvale Defence Association remember with pride the people of the Woodvale area killed during the conflict. This plaque stands in the area which bore witness to the first outbreak of the troubles and is a symbol of the solidarity shown by the people of this community.

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Ulster And Scotland Did Answer The Call

2019-09-182024-12-28Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

The Battle Of Assaye (India) took place on September 23rd, 1803, and the 74th regiment of the Royal Highland Fusiliers became known as the Assaye regiment in recognition of their performance (WP). By the time of WWI, the regiment had been merged into the Highland Light Infantry, whose 2nd battalion fought at the Somme in 1916 alongside the 36th (Ulster) Division (WP). The Highlanders’ emblem (which still includes the word “Assaye”) is on the right, the Ulster Volunteers’ on the left. In the apex are the flags of the UVF and YCV (14th battalion Royal Irish Rifles). This new mural commemorates the UVF volunteers of both WWI and the Scottish brigade: J. Rankin, Br. Creer, B. Wilson, B. Creer, A. Steele.

“Ulster and Scotland did answer the call/Together in battle they bled and fall/Shoulder to shoulder their lives they did give/It’s to them we give thanks/For the lives that we live.”

“We are the dead. Short days ago/We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow/Loved and were loved/And now we lie/In Flanders Fields.”

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And The Cry Was “Keine Kapitulation”

2019-09-162024-12-28Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

The third (and surely not the final?) season of the popular UK drama Brexit is keeping people guessing. This week, it looks like Boris might betray the ever-loyal Arlene and agree a Northern Ireland-only backstop with EU before time runs out on October 31st. In Belfast, lower Shankill residents are not amused by this potential turn of events and have invoked the classic “No surrender!” catch-phrase from 1688’s Siege Of Derry, painted on the wall between the security gates dividing Catholic and Protestant west Belfast. (Just kidding, of course; this is serious stuff. But the twists and turns are worthy of a telenovela. As Belfasters have always said, “If you’re not confused, you don’t know what’s going on.”)

Other recent messages below the Imagine mural: Victory To Isreal | Your Wall, Your Border

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Break Free, Belfast

2019-09-132024-12-28Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

New graffiti art – artist unknown – at the bottom of loyalist Conway Street, next to the Cupar Way “peace” line.

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Pat And Dan Duffin

2019-09-112025-08-09Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

The IRA shot dead two members of the British Auxiliaries, Ernest Bolan and John Bales, in Donegall Street in Belfast city centre on April 23rd, 1921. Just before midnight, Pat and Dan Duffin were shot to death by men who entered their Clonard home.

Another brother, John, was upstairs and not harmed and when he approached the scene he found not only his dead brothers but the station dog of the Springfield Road RIC barracks (“GB Kenna“, real name Fr John Hassan).

DeValera led the funeral cortège along the Falls. Joe Devlin would include the Duffin murders in a Westminster speech in June, following the killings in a single night of Alexander McBride, Malachy Halfpenny, and William Kerr (Hansard). The RIC in west Belfast under CI Harrison, DI Nixon, and in this case DI Ferris (Aiken et al.), would continue their killings into 1922 – see The RIC Murder Gang.

“In memory of volunteers Pat and Dan Duffin, murdered by the RIC in their home at 64 Clonard Gardens 23rd April 1921. Erected the by the Greater Clonard Ex-Prisoners Association.”

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End Apartheid

2019-09-052024-12-28Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

15 year-old Fıan Gerald McAuley was the first member of the IRA to die in the Troubles. He was shot in Waterville Street by a loyalist sniper while helping people move from burned-out homes in Bombay Street, along which the “peace” line separating the Falls and Shankill now runs, overlooking the Clonard Memorial Garden, site of the service for the 50th anniversary of McAuley’s death. In the windows of a nearby house we also see a poster in support of Palestine and a Bobby Sands-Che Guevara hurl.

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Wall On Wall

2019-09-022024-12-28Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

The Berlin Wall fell in 1989 but dividing walls all over the world still stand. Kai Wiedenhöfer’s Wall On Wall exhibition comes to Belfast later in the month (the launch is September 27th at 4 pm), placing images of dividing walls on Belfast’s own dividing wall, the Cupar Way “peace” line. Shown above is the image of the wall in Al Bayya (Baiyya) in the Al Rashid district, part of the 700 km of walls in Baghdad, Iraq (Browse Gallery), which was pasted onto the “peace” line as a trial for the forthcoming exhibition. As usual, it has been vandalised by tourists and their patronising slogans (and political statements: “Hong Kong is doesn’t have to be a part of China!”). Wiedenhöfer’s image of the Occupied Territories was on Free Derry Corner in 2013 (see Ramallah, Israeli City Of Culture) and three images of Belfast were pasted onto the Berlin Wall in 2013 (Irish Times).

The Chronicles Of A People

2019-09-012024-12-28Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

Republican Seán Murry’s great-grandfather was in the British Army and Orange Order and his family lived on the Shankill Road. One of his daughters married a Catholic and converted. The history of the family on both sides of the wall is also depicted Murray’s short video ‘The Wall‘. The poem is next to Clonard Remembers.

“From the burning ashes of a Clonard Street is where I trace my own. Not fifty yards across the wall, my blood runs blue as well. The red brick walls and darkened halls where secrets never met. For fear a neighbor lent his ear to something he’d regret.//

To the sharpened steel and concrete wall that separates our minds. Where the language of indifference knows never to be kind. The towering church that rang its bells in a panicked cry for help. Drew boys and girls in fearless hordes through the smell of burning felt.//

Near fifty years of blood and tears some said we’d never learn? To put the past behind us and embrace another world. But Belfast streets refuse to give its secrets of the past. With the unrelenting notion that the die’s already cast. //

My truth is mine and yours is yours, no need for compromise. When a monopoly of victims can hide a thousand and lies. When pain and years of suffering is just reserved for some. The one we leave behind us will not escape the gun.”