Nala bounds ahead so quickly that the bicycles seem to stand still. Work by Conor McClure (ig | web) for HTN2020.
Previously by McClure: Vaulty Towers | Head On | More Wolf Than Woman | Spring Wings | The Art Of Precious Scars | Walled Garden.
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Update February 2021: OMAK leaves his mark on Leo Boyd’s piece:
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East Belfast’s Lismore Street is recently famous for the removal of bonfire materials in 2019. (See previously: A Vote For The IRA | Dump Wood, No Shite.) The corner of the street usually serves as the “Dump Wood” sign but is currently functioning as a ‘thank you’ to NHS workers.
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Artist and screen-printer Shane O’Driscoll (ig | web) was in Belfast in September for HTN 2020. His Kent Street piece contains some of the same elements as in his ‘Sea Song’ piece for the New Light exhibition this summer.
Update Nov 7th: The local writers give their verdict by vandalising the piece/re-purposing the wall.
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“By night and by day, I ever, ever pray/While lonely my life flows on/To see our flag unfurled/And my true love [to] enfold/In the valley of Slievenamon.” The lyrics are the final lines of The Valley Of Slievenamon, written by Charles J Kickham “fenian, IRB, poet, novelist, author” and much loved in Tipperary. The heroic hurler, however, is Cú Chulainn (rather than the midlands’ Fıonn Mac Cumhaıll). Ardoyne Gaelic games club Cıceam Ard Eoın (tw | Fb) was founded in 1907, 25 years after Kickham’s death.
See previously: (2008) Ard Eoın Kickhams | (2015) The Heart Of Our Community one | two. Also Stronger Together.
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Illustrator and stained-glass artist Kerrie Hanna (ig| web) has been drawing a series of ‘quarantined bodies’ during, and inspired by, the pandemic lockdowns. For HTN 2020 she did a self-portrait – herself, partner Tiarnán and cat, all sharing the sofa.
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Muralist Gerard ‘Mo Chara’ Kelly (whose catalogue of work can be seen in a separate site) and others from Gael Force Art (Fb) have mounted a three-piece memorial for the centenary of the Falls Road Massacre in which four people were killed – one of them being Mo Chara’s great uncle Jimmy Shields – in a 5-minute shooting spree by a “special patrol” on the night of the funerals of three men killed by the ‘RIC Murder Gang’ (see the 2007 post). For more background see the memorial’s Facebook page.
More than 500 people were killed in Belfast from 1920 to 1922; for details and their locations see The Social Geography Of Violence During The Belfast Troubles.
“These four innocent local men were murdered by an RIC/British Army death squad near this spot in [September 28th] 1920: James Shields, William Teer, Robert Gordon, Thomas Barkley.” With perhaps the first appearance of a hashtag on a plaque: #fallsroadmassacre1920
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Writing by PHATS (ig) for HTN 2020 in Kent Street, Belfast.
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Bannerettes at the top of Sandy Row. On the left, “St Nicholas Church Temperance LOL No 782”. On the right, “Sandy Row RBDC [Royal Black District Chapter] No. 3, Belfast”. The No. 3 chapter was formed in 1885 (Belfast Grand Black Chapter Fb | web). Both groups are based in Sandy Row Orange Hall
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Still in the window of Harland House (Templemore Avenue, east Belfast) two years after the World Cup, Union Flag and IFA bunting and a ‘Deutschland’ scarf. NI did not qualify, Germany did not make it to the knock-out stage, and England lost to Croatia in the semis.
It’s not known what the connection to Edward Harland (of Harland & Wolff) – please get in touch.
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Extramural Activity 