UDA members John Fulton and were Stephen Goatley were killed together in the Alexandra Bar on York Road (close to the Mervue Street location of this memorial) by the UVF as part of a UDA-UVF feud in 1975. The poppy is more often associated with the Ulster Volunteers (of WWI) and the UVF.
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Copyright © 2017 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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St Mary’s Chapel Lane is Belfast’s first post-penal law Catholic church, originally constructed in 1784 with funds from local Presbyterian and Anglican congregations (WP). The current building dates to 1868. It was made a “B1” listed building in 1979. The “doorcase” is described as follows in its entry: “Painted sandstone doorcase comprises a pair of round-headed door openings with vertically-sheeted timber doors and bowtel arches rising from squat green marble columns with elaborate stiff-leaf capitals surmounted by an oval niche housing a statue of St. Mary and flanking seraphims to the spandrels. The entire entrance is framed by a further bowtel arch with chevron moulding and outer hood moulding also rising from a pair of green marble columns.”
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The harp as a symbol of Ireland dates back to the 1500’s, with the ‘winged maiden’ version current by the late 1700s. The United Irishmen replaced the crown typically added above it (used, for example, by the Royal Irish Rifles) with a cap of freedom (for another image see the 2000 Bobby Sands mural). The Irish Republican National Congress (web) is a 2014 group with the goal of a united Ireland.
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Based on the ‘lambda’ symbol on the right (ancient Greek “L” standing for “Lakedaimon”), ‘Identity Movement Ireland’ appears to be ‘Generation Identity Ireland’ (Fb), which appears to be (associated with) Identity Ireland (web | Fb), a relatively new (July 2015) nationalist party in favor of EU withdrawal and increased (Muslim) immigration control. It has joined with similar organisations in fifteen other European countries who subscribe to PEGIDA – Patriotische Europäer gegen die Islamisierung des Abendlandes (Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the West). The stencil above has appeared on the Cavehill Road, Belfast.
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You can see (or imagine) all of east Belfast with the help of the guide-post in the middle of Lisvannon Community Garden: Stormont to the east, factories to the south-west, and Harland & Wolff to the north-west.
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Here is another set of four portraits of Robert Bennett, Joe Long, James Cordner, and Robert “Squeak” Seymour, all members of the UVF killed in the 1970s (Bennet, Long, Cordner) and 1980s (Seymour).
Inverary Street, east Belfast.
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The old Bank Street (looking towards St Mary’s, Chapel Lane) is recreated in a new mural outside Manny’s fish and chips, though with some liberties taken. (Here is the street in 1915 and in 1924.) Kelly’s Cellars, for example, is where Bittles Bar is shown; Bittles Bar was the flatiron building on Victoria Street, recently sold.
Landmarks such as City Hall, the Titanic Centre, the H&W cranes, and An Chultúrlann are included. On the right side of the mural (see the wide shot, below) three murals are included: the one outside Madden’s Bar, the one on the West Belfast Taxi terminal and the Madonna And Child mural at the bottom of Divis that hasn’t existed since about 2000.
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IRA volunteer Francis Liggett was shot dead by the British Army during an attempted armed robbery at Royal Victoria Hospital, Falls Road in 1973 (Sutton) while local Sinn Féin member Paddy Brady was shot by the UFF while at work in 1984 (Sutton | An Phoblacht). They are commemorated in the St James memorial garden with the board shown above, featuring two verses from Bobby Sands’s poem Weeping Winds: Oh, Whispering [Whistling, in the original] winds why do you weep/When roaming free you are,
Oh! Is it that your poor heart’s broke/And scattered off afar?
Or is it that you bear the cries/Of people born unfree,
Who like your way have no control/Or sovereign destiny?
Oh! Lonely winds that stalk [walk] the night/To haunt the sinner’s soul/
Pray pity me a wretched lad/Who never will grow old.
Pray pity those who lie in pain/The bondsman and the slave
And whisper sweet the breath of God/Upon my humble grave.
The board is similar in design to the painted one it replaces, except that Éire was at the centre rather than the “SF” logo.
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Strandtown and District Unionist Club used to be at 4 Belmont Road (Strandtown Hall) and it erected this memorial to local casualties in the Great War in Portland stone on the adjacent wall,(Lord Belmont in NI) which is now part of a Christian Fellowship church. “Hereon are recorded the names of those men and women who in serving voluntarily their King and country, laid down their lives. Pass not this stone sorrow but in pride and may you live as nobly as they died.” The building currently houses Bennett’s On Belmont, a UUP headquarters, and the Victoria Ulster Unionist Association upstairs.
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A mosque rises between Samson and Goliath, the Harland & Wolff cranes, while in the lower third, people of different races and nationalities share the same streets of terraced housing.
Here are pictures of the launch on August 21st, part of the Active Communities Network‘s ‘Walk The Walls‘ event.
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Extramural Activity 