Positive thinking in a suicide-prevention poster from the Republican Network for Unity (RNU) in Ardoyne: Place your hand over your heart, can you feel it? This is called purpose! Your’re [sic] alive for a reason! … Don’t ever give up
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Copyright © 2015 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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This graffiti is in the Ligoniel area of north Belfast: “UFF – Free Wee Rab”. If you know who Wee Rab is or how he is being constrained, please e-mail or comment!
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Here is the latest political comment from TLO (we assume): DUP member and former Minister for Culture, Arts, and Leisure Gregory Campbell – MLA for East Londonderry– is shown suffering from “Derryrhoea”. In the upper posters, his hair is orange and tongue red, while in the lower poster he appears to be seeing and thinking feces. Campbell has been twicebarred from speaking in the Assembly in the last 15 months.
Previously by TLO: Demonizing Paisley, Three Studies Of Ian Paisley, and Ian Jong-un, Wee Angel, Taking The Hump
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Copyright © 2015 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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Here is the second of two boards outside the Ulster Rangers Supporters Club (see also Doing Her Duty). The painting features a tram going under an Orange arch between the public baths on one side an Spin-A-Disc records on the other, surrounded by notable figures from the Shankill area.
Many thanks to Johnny Dougan of Shankill Area Social History (Fb) for the information below! Please e-mail or add a comment with additions or corrections.
Front, from left to right: Manchester United and Northern Ireland Soccer player Norman Whiteside (WP) and behind him boxer Davy Larmour and community worker Saidie Patterson (see WRDA), boxer Sammy (Cisco) Cosgrove, Senator Charlie McCullough (WP), Tommy Henderson, boxer Jimmy Warnock (original photograph here), Hugh Smyth (see previously Third Class Citizens), artist William Conor (see previously Conor’s Corner, Jack Henning (running), musician Belter Bell, writer Albert Haslett (Northern Visions interview).
Atop the tram: on the left is Jackie Redpath of the Save the Shankill Campaign (note other members of the group with placard on right; Northern Visions has a documentary about the Save The Shankill campaign) and Jack Higgins holding his book The Eagle Has Landed (WP). Up there too is Miss Sands, the music teacher in the Girls Model School, and historian Bobby Foster (Northern Visions interview). On the stairs are May Blood MBE and above her D.I. Nixon.
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Copyright © 2015 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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The All-Seeing Eye Of Providence joins the Eye Of Horus in a conspiracy-minded mural by Visual Waste at the Muddlers’ Club in Belfast. The eye is familiar from Freemasons and the 1 dollar bill in US currency (and the Illuminati!). Also included – against a background consisting of a secret handshake, a skull, and a floating skeleton – are the Square & Compasses of the Freemasons (with a “G” for “God” or “geometry”) a set of scales weighing money, a crown, the word “FATE” tattooed across the knuckles, a keyhole, a gem, the dollar sign, a drop of water, and the Chi-Rho of Catholic and Coptic faiths.
To the left is another, smaller, piece – see The Wider Conspiracy.
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Copyright © 2015 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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The north and west sides of the substation at Boundary Way in the Lower Shankill estate have been repainted, restoring the Union flag (M02467) and “UYM” (M02469) lettering in vibrant red, white, and blue.
The other two sides, which previously featured “UFF” (X00249) and a C Coy. mural (M02466) are now blank and walled in.
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Copyright © 2015 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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Here is a board from outside the Ulster Rangers Supporters Club (Fb) on the Shankill Road. It highlights the roles played by women during WWI as nurses and welders and in the Land Army. “She hasn’t a sword and she hasn’t a gun. But she’s doing her duty now fighting’s begun.”
The forces are shown gathered outside the West Belfast Orange Hall, on the Shankill at Brookmount Street.
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Copyright © 2015 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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More David Bowie commemoration in Belfast’s city centre: Visual Waste (Web | Fb) reproduces Bowie as Aladdin Sane, successor to Ziggy Stardust. Here’s an Independent article on the iconic image of Bowie with blue and red lightning bolt across his face. On the make-up artist for both Aladdin Sane and Ziggy Stardust, Pierre LaRoche, see this article.
Previously: Bowie by Boyd – Oh You Pretty Thing
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David Bowie’s song Oh! You Pretty Things (from Hunky Dory) concerns “the impending obsolescence of the human race in favour of an alliance between arriving aliens and the youth of the present society” (Carr & Murray (1981). Bowie: An Illustrated Record: pp. 40-41 | WP). Ziggy Stardust also brought a message of hope for Earth’s youth. In the tribute poster to Bowie’s death (on January 10th, 2016), Leo Boyd (Tumblr | Belfast Print Workshop) takes the image from the cover of Earthling (Bowie’s 1997 album) and adds flying saucers, as though Bowie is to be beamed up. Farewell, Starman.
Previously by Boyd: Big Men Wail Hammers
Here is Bowie performing the song on the Old Grey Whistle Test in 1972.
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Jef Aérosol (Jean-François Perroy) is a French stencil-artist who did (at least) three pieces in Belfast. Below is a crossed-legged boy that was in Islandbawn Street and above is an accordion-player in Sevastopol Street; for a third piece, on Northumberland Street, see C02031. When the nearby Bobby Sands mural was extended this past year (2015), the stencil was retained. (See also the Visual History page of the Bobby Sands wall.)
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Copyright © 2009 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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Extramural Activity 