Is This Our City?

The PPR, champions of the ‘Build Homes Now’ campaign, recently (2019-09-18) launched an updated mural on Northumberland Street (see previously 2018 | 2017 | 2016 ), demanding “safe homes for refugees” as well as the usual suggestions of sites on which to build: “Build homes on Mackies” – “investigate Hillview (which was zoned for commercial use – Belfast Live)”.

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Copyright © 2019 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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FUTyoURES

“VaneMG” stand for VANEssa Moncayo González (web), a Colombian artist living in London, who visited for ten days in September to work with Beyond Skin in Belfast and Dungannon. She also got to paint the electricity box (shown above) at the junction of North Street and Church Street.

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Copyright © 2019 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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You Are Not Of This World

“This world isn’t worth your soul”. Religious graffiti on Cupar Way, based on Mark 8:36.

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The Men And Women Of Violence

“Saoradh salute the men and women of violence.” Namely the signatories to the 1916 Proclamation, the women of the 1970s IRA, and modern “dissidents” with home-made weapons. Saoradh currently (mid-late 2019, in the wake of the death of Lyra McKee) no longer has a web site or Twitter feed, and the Belfast and Derry section’s Facebook pages are non-existent (other section’s pages are still up, including Tyrone, Dublin, and Munster).

On the same wall as the Larry Marley plaque.

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Confrontier

Friday (September 27th) saw the launch of Kai Wiedenhöfer’s ‘Wall On Wall’ exhibition, mounted to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the Cupar Way “peace” line and the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. On the wall there are 36 images of walls from ten sites across the planet, taken between 1989 and 2018: Baghdad, Korea, Cyprus, USA-Mexico, Spain & Morocco, Israel-Palestine, France-UK, Greece-North Macedonia, Berlin. (His latest book is called Confrontier – the web site includes 53 images.)

See previously, the trial run image of Al Bayya in Baghdad in Wall On Wall.

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The Shadow Of A Gunman

Lyra McKee was killed observing a riot in Creggan, Derry, in April. The (New) IRA apologised for the consequences of the gun attack on police but did not suggest an end to violence (Guardian). The (presumably unfinished) stencil to McKee’s memory on Ardoyne Avenue (below) is now in the shadow of the “IRA” and assault rifle cut-outs (shown above) on the lamp-pole opposite.

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Copyright © 2019 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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Protective Sequestration

Here are two images of the “peace” line at the middle and eastern end of Bombay Street. If you want more such images, Frankie Quinn’s exhibition of images of the “peace” lines – Cordon Sanitaire – continues at Belfast Exposed in Donegall Street until October 5th.

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Shoes, No Socks

Two pieces by FGB (Francois Got Buffed | web), who is keeping an eye on Belfast’s Cathedral Quarter and the threat of redevelopment by TBC.

Also recently by FGB: Spontaneous Combustion

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In The Hell Of My Prison Cell

“Free Matt Johnston” IRPWA/Saoradh stencils below Teach Ghráinne in the New Lodge, calling for the release of Maghaberry prisoner (and New Lodge resident) Matt Johnston. Johnston was given four years for his part in a tiger kidnapping in 2008 and appears to have ben re-arrested in late 2017 (Irish News | RN). He was one of the prisoners involved with a “bigoted screw” that led to graffitied threats against Maghaberry prisoner warders (RN | El Norte | Derry Journal).

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