The main panel (shown below) is a tribute to soldiers in the Great War (1914-1918), with a border of poppies and silhouetted soldiers reflecting over helmets on crosses. To the side, however, is the modern UVF volunteer (shown above), with balaclava and assault rifle.
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Copyright © 2018 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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In ancient Greek mythology, the Athenian Theseus (though here carrying a Spartan shield) killed the Cretan king Minos’s bull (minotaur) to end the sacrifice of Athenian youths as retribution for the earlier death of his son Androgeos at the Panathenaic games. Glasgow artist Rogue One (Fb | ig) recreated the myth for CNBX/HTN18.
Previously: Rogue One in London-/Derry.
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13 year-old Brian Stewart died on October 10th, 1976 – 42 years ago today – six days after being hit by a plastic bullet fired by the King’s Own Scottish Borders near his Turf Lodge Home. He was buried three days later, on October 13th – what would have been his fourteenth birthday. (For the long search for justice, see sister Marie Stewart | sceptic peg | saoirse32).
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Copyright © 2018 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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English artist Rob Heard (web | tw) created 3,775 jointed wooden sculptures, wrapped in calico, one for each soldier from the 36th (Ulster) and 10th (Irish) and 16th (Irish) regiments, or from Belfast, whose body was not recovered from the Somme battlefields. They were laid out last month in the Garden Of Remembrance at Belfast City hall (see second image). On Armistice Day this November, the Belfast figures will be included in a larger display commemorating 72,396 Commonwealth soldiers in London (more info).
See previously: An installation of “crush art” to commemorate the Jewish ghetto in WWII – So They Go To Meet The Death.
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Copyright © 2018 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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“In memory of our fallen INLA volunteers, upper Springfield area: Hugh Ferguson, Ronnie Bunting, Noel Little, Hugh O’Neill, Micky Kearney, John McColgan, Paddy “Paddybo” Campbell. Comrades: Barry “Baz” McMullan, Sean “Shanto” fleming, Harry O’Hara, Paul Collins, Bernado Brownlee, Emmanuel Kelly, Michael Conlon, Billy Lynch, James “Harpo” Murray, John Kennaway. Saoırse go deo [freedom forever].” Ferguson was the first member of the INLA to die, in 1975 in the feud with the OIRA. Bunting and Little/Lyttle (both Protestants) were shot dead in 1980 in Bunting’s Andersonstown home by masked gunmen from the UDA or SAS with RUC complicity.
Whiterock Road, Belfast, next to the Kevin Lynch – Marian Price – Kevin Lynch wall.
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The emblem on the flats at the mini-roundabout (where Glandore and Skegoneill avenues meet) depicts a tree and a face, perhaps a reference to the name “Skegoneill” or ‘the earl’s thorn bush” after the place at which Anglo-Norman earl William de Burgo was assassinated in 1333 (PlaceNamesNI).
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Copyright © 2018 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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Leo Boyd (web | previously) resurrected his ‘PSNI ice-cream wagon’ for Culture Night/Hit The North, along with Laura “Lamb” Nelson (profile), and added a trio of winged police land-rovers like wooden ducks ascending along a living-room wallpaper and vintage ice-cream advertising. The piece drew the response shown in the second image, but this was apparently too direct a comment and was quickly painted out.
Both artists are currently members of Vault Artists (web | Fb | ig) (formerly Belfast Bankers).
Update 2018-11 damage and grafitti
Update 2019-01 further damage
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Copyright © 2018/2019 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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Update: replaced by a Clockwork Land-Rover
From the Twitter feed of Colombian street artist Visual AGP (Anderson García Pérez | (web | tw): “Newen” means “strength” or “energy” … birds represent the freedom and colors of the Wiphala [the flag of indigenous peoples of the Andes].”
“Graficalia” refers to a street art festival aimed at minimising youth violence in their home town of Cali, Colombia.
Compatriot Sancho was also in Belfast for Hit The North/Culture Night: see Empezando Con La Magia.
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Copyright © 2018 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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“Serving the community for over fifty years.” BTCIC is the current name for what was previously the West Belfast Taxi Association. Black taxis have been running up and down the Falls since 1970, providing an alternative form of transportation to local people during the Troubles when buses were cancelled or, as in this picture, burnt out and used as barricades. They now, in addition, provide tours of the murals (such as the Bobby Sands mural in Sevastopol Street) and Belfast city. Taxi Trax has a web site but here provides a phone number for those already at the International Wall, where there has been a black taxi mural since 2003. There are other WBTA murals in Beechmount and Ardoyne. The painters have signed the mural: Doherty’s Coal Merchant and Lyons Tea.
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Copyright © 2018 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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Extramural Activity 