Belfast west

Hold Your Head Up High

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03417 2016-04-27 96 Hillsborough+

On April 15th, 1989, 96 Liverpool football fans were crushed to death against steel fencing around the pitch at Hillsborough stadium in Sheffield. On Tuesday (April 26th), an inquest found the police “grossly negligent” and that the fans were “unlawfully killed”. It also refuted allegations that fans had entered the ground illegally, and were drunk and unruly, and a variety of other claims made in The Sun and The Times about bad behaviour during the event. (Guardian | WP)

According to the Irish News, the simple tribute on Black Mountain of the number 96 is a collaboration by West Against Racism Network (WARN) and the West Belfast Liverpool Supporters Club. The materials were borrowed from Gael Force Art.

See also the Slıabh Dubh Visual History page.

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Copyright © 2016 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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I Could Hardly Wait To Keep Our Date

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03384 2016-04-23 People's Parade+

Two competing posters for two competing dates for two (competing?) Easter Rising parades: the People’s Parade (above) was held today, April 24th, the date of the Rising in 1916; the other was held on this year’s Easter Sunday, March 27th, as the parade is annually held on Easter Sunday.

03383 2016-04-08 Easter Parade+

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Copyright © 2016 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X03384 X03385 beechmount ave glen rd easter parade 1916 2016 assemble divis tower 11.30 am parade leaves 12.00 pm sharp speaker gerry adams TD honour ireland’s patriot dead wear an easter lily cumann uaigheann na laochra gael national graves assocition easter commemoration committee belfast leaving barrack street for milltown at 12 noon

Slippery Road

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03382 2016-04-19 Slippery Road+

Vote with caution, regardless of party! Sınn Féın and People Before Profit posters for NI Assembly elections which take place on May 5th.

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Copyright © 2016 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X03382 falls rd

The Seven Signatories

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03371 2016-04-07 Cead Bliain Signatories+

The seven signatories of the 1916 Proclamation of the provisional government of the Irish Republic. From left to right: Joseph Plunkett, Sean MacDiarmada, Thomas Clarke, James Connolly, Padraig Pearse, Éamonn Ceannt, Thomas MacDonagh.

The wide shot below shows all three new Andersonstown murals featured this week. For the main mural, see The Undauntable Thought; for the lily, see Ag Fíorú Na Poblachta.

03375 2016-04-07 Cead Bliain w+

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Copyright © 2016 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X03371 X03375 south link

The Undauntable Thought

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03374 2016-04-07 Cead Bliain+

A succession of Irish rebels is shown in this new mural in Andersonstown, west Belfast. It begins (top left) with the rebellion of 1798 and then to the Easter Rising of 1916 at the GPO in Dublin. In the lower left, a pious Padraıg Pearse awaits his execution with rosary beads in hand. There are then shown female figures from Cumann Na mBán and the IRA (see previously: United Irishwomen, Do You Care? and Mothering Sunday In Beechmount), and then Maıréad Farrell in Armagh Women’s Prison (for the original, see Prison Walls). In the bottom right corner there is a blanketman. The busts of Bobby Sands and Joe McDonnell float above the GPO and the last verse of Sands’s The Rhythm Of Time form the epigraph: “It lights the dark of this prison cell, it thunders forth its might, it is the undauntable thought, my friend, the thought that says, “I’m right”.

03373 2016-04-07 Cead Bliain Pearse+

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Copyright © 2016 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X03374 X03373 south link 1916 2016 centenary irish republic unbowed unbroken

Ag Fíorú Na Poblachta

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03372 2016-04-07 Cead Blian Lily+

“Realising the Republic”. This is the first of three new murals side-by-side in Andersonstown. It celebrates the centenary (“Céad Blıaın 1916 – 2016”) of the Easter Rising and shows a copy of the proclamation of the republic and an Easter lily.

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Copyright © 2016 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X03372 south link

Knock The Wall Down

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03199 2015-12-01 Knock The Wall Down+

Here’s a patronising slogan from the Cupar Way “peace” line, complete with peace/anti-nuclear symbol. Also visible: “Be kind; don’t hurt”, “United, all win”, “Praying for peace in Belfast”, “Love one another”, “Trust and compromise” and so on.

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Copyright © 2015 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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Business As Usual

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03351 Easter Rising Centenary Parade Shirt crop+

While taking part in the Easter Rising centenary parade, members of the James Connolly 1st Republican Flute Band from Glasgow (tw) pause on the Falls Road during a squall. Embroidered on the rear of their shirts are the words “We serve neither king nor kaiser, but Ireland”, the slogan which hung outside the ITGWU’s Liberty Hall during the first world war. Image courtesy of Bronagh Bowerman.

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Copyright © 2016 Bronagh Bowerman
03351 tricolour plough stars

Roulette

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03289 2016-02-16 McLean Bookies+

The images in the windows of the McLean’s bookies on the Shankill Road suggest that betting on sports – even on George Best – is like playing roulette. The gate to the left (with barbed wire on top) is marked with the letters “U” and “R” of the nearby Ulster Rangers supporters club. (For two murals there, see previously: Save The Shankill | Doing Her Duty).

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Copyright © 2016 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X03289 northern ireland football wheel

Dissidence

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03296 2016-02-14 FTONH+

Anti-Óglaıgh Na hÉıreann graffiti in Beechmount Street beneath a Sınn Féın banner using Martin Luther King to advocate for non-violent protest (featured previously in Always Avoid Violence).

See also: The F-Bomb.

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Copyright © 2016 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X03296 FTONH