This mural was previously on the side of the youth club (and before that was one of the WWI boards on the front wall that replaced some graffiti (News Letter)), but was removed when the club was extended and given a ‘Swiss façade‘ as part of an Urban Village redevelopment last year (2021) (BBC).
“At the going down of the sun and in the morning we will remember them.” “This mural, funded by the Housing Executive, has been re-located by the Cathedral Youth Club. It is a reminder of the brave men associated with the Fountain area, who served in World War One.”
Creggan sports centre opened in October 2009 (Leisure Opportunities) and part of the architecture was to cover the brick exterior with five plain-white panels along Central Drive. These have been taken over by Saoradh/IRPWA, this year to protest the extradition, internment, and treatment of republican prisoners, commemorate the 1981 hunger strikers, support Palestine, and threaten drug dealers.
Construction of Creggan estate was begun in 1947, to house a burgeoning Bogside population while keeping them all in the South ward. At its height, there were 15,000 residents in the area. (McGuinness & Downey | An Phoblacht)
It celebrated its 75th anniversary this year (2022) with a parade, a stage play called A Green Hill Far Away, and a new mural by Peaball (ig) and Vents (ig) along with children from local schools (Derry Journal).
RTÉ has video of James Callaghan touring the Bogside (9m 40s onwards) in August 1969, during which the crowd sings We Shall Overcome, originally a hymn in the US but by 1969 the anthem of the civil rights movements around the world. The white handkerchief waved by Edward Daly ahead of four men carrying the body of Jackie Duddy on Bloody Sunday has become emblematic of the day, as it was shown on televsion coverage and in the Fulvio Grimaldi photograph that was used for the Bloody Sunday/Civil Rights mural next to Free Derry Corner.
“Maggie smoothes and folds/A white cotton handkerchief/For a priest’s pocket.//Women have laid out/Their menfolk’s prized Sunday best/For Mass and the march.//Flocking in chapel/A last communion wafer/Soft-melts on their tongues.//Under blue-crisp skies/Voices rise in unison – /We shall overcome.//Silent coffins weep/What was the price of protest?/Only everything – Rosaline Callaghan”
Painted by Peaball (Fb) in Rossville Street, Derry.
No Amnesty For British State Forces: “Democide is the murder of any person or people by a government, including genocide, politicide and mass murder. Democide is not necessarily the elimination of entire cultural groups but rather groups within the country that the government feels needs to be eradicated for political reasons and due to claimed future threats. – No amnesty for British state forces”
Bobby Sands/IRPWA: “I’ll wear no convict’s uniform/Nor meekly serve my time/That Britain might brand Ireland’s fight/800 years of crime” [Francie Brolly song] (IRPWA (web))
Free All Political Prisoners! (IRPWA)
1981: 1981: “I am a political prisoner. I am a political prisoner because I am a casualty of a perennial war that is being fought between the oppressed Irish people and an alien, oppressive, unwanted regime that refuses to withdraw from our land.” [Bobby Sands’s diary, day 1] (IRPWA)
Unity Referendum Now!: “British occupation has been a disaster for the people of Ireland. A united Ireland is the way forward for all the people of Ireland.” (IRSP.ie)
40th anniversary of the 1981 hunger strike: described previously in For A Socialist Republic (IRSM/IRSP)
Here is a complete set of images from the Bogside end of the Brandywell. From left to right: “Nasc” by NOYS (ig) for Gasyard Féıle 2022, Long Tower Community Centre (see Brandywell Past And Present), a new “Brandywell” stencil by Peaball (ig), the Ryan McBride Foundation (tw), a new version of the Derry Brigade IRA mural (see previously Brıogáıd Dhoıre), Peaball and local youth at work, various pieces of wild-style writing and graffiti in support of Jason Ceulemans.
A plaque was mounted this (2022) summer to Maggie McAnaney, who died when a gun went off at an IRA checkpoint near Burnfoot, Co. Donegal, a month before the Civil War began (Derry Journal). This is an unusual use of the phrase “active service”, as McAnaney was travelling to a picnic at the time, rather than on exercises or preparing munitions; the phrase would later come to be associated primarily with a premature bomb explosion.
“In proud and loving memory of Margaret “Maggie” McAnaney, Cumann na mBan, died on active service at Burnfoot on 31st May 1922, aged 18 years. The McAnaney family home was situated on Bishop Street. Fuaır sıad bás ar son saoırse na hÉıreann.”
“It’s not a cost of living crisis, it’s capitalism – Join the fight for a socialist republic.” Here are images of the Lasaır Dhearg (web) “We Can’t Afford …” campaign in Derry’s Bogside. “We can’t afford … heat, electricity, to eat, a home.” “Ireland: 1.1 million living in poverty, 312,000 of them are children.” “Waiting on a home: 103,218; empty homes: 188,000”
“We have given much, we have much to give”. Earlier murals on this wall in the Caw (2015 | 2011) were similarly divided into Ulster Volunteers/Ulster Division on the left and the modern UVF on the right. But this version shows a UVF “hooded gunman” whereas before on both sides there were graveside mourners. There is also a very rare (and possibly unique) reference to the H-Blocks, rather than the Long Kesh cages – a watchtower and walls are included above Carson’s portrait.
On the left are the Union Flag, Covenant, the Clyde Valley, graveside mourner in WWI, and Carson. On the right a UVF hooded gunman, the PUP emblem and slogan “Country Before Party”, and the flag of the UVF (Londonderry company).
The plaque, which has been retained from previously, reads “In proud memory of our fallen comrades from the Nelson Drive flute band. Glorious on the graves of heroes, kindly on all those who have suffered for the cause. Thus will shine the dawn. They gave their tomorrow for our today.”
Extramural Activity 