London-/Derry

The Cobwebs Of The Past

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In his statement in response to the news of the Belfast (Good Friday) Agreement (11 April, 1998), John Hume said, “This process is not about the victory or defeat of nationalism or unionism. It is about something much greater. Today, as Fergal Keane said in relation to South Africa, we can take collective breath and begin to blow away the cobwebs of the past. We can begin to break the bondage of fear which has so damaged our people and our country, difficult and demanding though this will be in the coming days and weeks.” (CAIN)

Commissioned by the Grand Central bar (Derry Journal) in Great James Street (whose side-wall the mural is on) and painted by Peaball (ig) an art group (including Donal O’Doherty, formerly of UVArts – Belfast Live).

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Bread For All And Roses Too

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“A woman’s place is in her union! We fight for bread but we fight for roses, too. Join the IWW [Industrial Workers Of The World (web)] OneBigUnion.ie.” The titular phrase comes from a 1910 speech by American suffragist Helen Todd, who later explained that votes for women would mean “helping forward the time when life’s Bread, which is home, shelter and security, and the Roses of life, music, education, nature and books, shall be the heritage of every child that is born in the country” (American Magazine LXXII p. 611)

Rossville Street, Derry

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Was This Lawful?

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A 2021 command paper that proposed a statue of limitations and amnesty for so-called “legacy” killings included the claim that ‘the vast majority of security force killings were lawful’ (BelTel) and the comment has been attributed to NI Secretary Brandon Lewis (Pat Finucane Centre). (For background see e.g. this eamonnmallie.com piece.) The claim is used against him in this tarp commemorating Stephen McConomy was hit by a plastic bullet forty years ago this month, on April 16th, and died three days later: “Stephen McConomy (11) shot dead by Lanc. Corp. from Royal Anglian Regiment – April 1982. Was this ‘lawful’, Brandon Lewis?” Speaking at the memorial service, surviving family-members vowed to continue resisting the proposed limitations (Derry Journal).

There is also a plaque to McConomy in Fahan Street where he was shot (this one has since been replaced) and long ago there was a mural on Rossville Street.

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All Children Have Rights

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The Bogside Inn and bogside shops have been razed and “exciting plans” made for a new development (Derry Journal). All that remains at present is the electrical station near Durrow Park, and all that remains of the murals along Meenan Square is the final panel shown above: “All children have rights and these rights must be protected.”

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Coming Back To Drumahoe

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Jim Donaghy was born in the Bonds area of the Waterside but when he joined the 10th (Derry) Battalion his family was living in Drumahoe. It was to there that he returned after seeing action at The Battle Of Albert in 1916, as well as the Battle of Messines, the Battle of Langemarck, the Cambrai Operations, and the Capture Of Bourlon Wood (Reserves & Cadets | Three Cheers For The Derrys). 

“”I arrived in Larne on the ferry from Scotland and before I caught the train to Londonderry, I sent a telegram to my mother telling her I was on my way. When I arrived in Waterside Station, there was no one there to meet me so I started my long walk to Drumahoe. As I walked down Daly’s Brae in my uniform, someone must have spotted me in the distance. The bell of Clarke’s Mill at Drumahoe started to ring frantically to my mother that I was home. When I got home the house was filled with my friends, relations and neighbours. They were overjoyed.” – Jim was home – it was over at least. Cpl Jim Donaghy returning home from the First World War.”

“Cpl Jim Donaghy MBE, 10th Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers and his former family home 2 Fincairn Road, Drumahoe.” The mural is on the yard wall of the house, which still stands.

“In remembrance of all those who served at home and abroad.”

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Monarch Of The Glen

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London street artist Irony (ig) drew on Edwin Landseer’s 1851 painting The Monarch Of The Glen (WP) for this piece of street art – fitting with its location as both near the Glen area of London-/Derry and formerly the old Scotch quarter (Derry Journal) – but updating it for contemporary audiences with an environmental message and the source of its less formal name: Stag With A Bag.

With support from London Calling (web).

Glenview Avenue, London-/Derry. Another large piece by Irony (in Belfast): Pearl.

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Spirit Of ’93

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The house in Bond’s Place that had been home to an Eddie mural for many years was torn down last summer (see final image for the hoarding around the site of the absent gable); it had been used since at least 1982 for images of the Commonwealth, King Billy, and, since 1996, Eddie The Trooper. The final Eddie board that was on the wall has been moved one neighbourhood over, into Lincoln Court. It was the first to include the words “Spirit Of ’93” – presumably a reference to the Greysteel Massacre in which eight people in the Rising Sun bar were killed in reprisal for the Shankill Bombing (BelTel). The “raid” was planned in – and both gunmen rented rooms at – the UDP office on Bond’s Place, just across Bonds Street (NI Judiciary).

Eddie has his own Visual History page.

“SLMFB” is the Sergeant Lindsay Mooney flute band.

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After We Are Gone

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Patsy O’Hara was born in 1957 Bishop Street, Derry, and joined Na Fıanna in 1970 and the local Sınn Féın cumann in 1971 and, in August was shot in the leg by British soldiers. In 1972 he joined the Republican Clubs and in 1975 the IRSP. He was imprisoned multiple times, the final time being in January 1979 for possession of a hand grenade (Bobby Sands Trust). He went on hunger strike 41 years ago tomorrow (March 22nd) and was the first of the three INLA hunger strikers to die in 1981. The long-standing mural in Bishop Street was repainted for the 40th anniversary of his death. (For the previous version, see Let The Fight Go On.)

“Óglach Patsy O’Hara, INLA Derry Brigade, Irish hunger striker, who died after 61 days on 21st May 1981, age 23. Last words ‘Let the fight go on’.”

“After we are gone, what will you say you were doing? Will you say you were with us in our struggle or where you conforming to very system that drove us to our deaths?” – these words also appeared in the 2013 mural to O’Hara on Shaws Road, west Belfast.

Bishop Street, Derry

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Freeze Derry

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Night falls over Free Derry Corner and temperatures head down, reaching freezing before dawn this morning. To heat your home with oil currently costs roughly 460 pounds or 500 euro for a delivery of 500 litres in the area (Derry Journal). In Belfast, prices have increased 36% in two months (Belfast Live). The council characterises a household as suffering “fuel poverty” if it spends more than 10% of its income on home fuel (Derry & Strabane). To protest and demand action, the group Derry Against Fuel Poverty (Fb) is holding its second rally this afternoon at 4 p.m. in Waterloo Place.

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Justice For Eddie Meenan

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The trial has begun, before Londonderry Crown Court, of three men accused of the murder of Eddie Meenan, who was stabbed 40-50 times in November, 2018 (Derry Journal | BBC). The graffiti above is on the electrical box at the bottom of Fahan Street, next to a Lasaır Dhearg (web) ‘Don’t join the PSNI’ poster (shown below), with the Che Guevara Lynch mural visible on the left.

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