City/Town

The Past And The Present

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“Fáılte go Cnoc na Foınse – Welcome to Springhill.” There are a dozen new boards on either side of the Ballymurphy entrance to Springhill, highlighting positive aspects of the community, such as the work of Mother Teresa and four Missionary Sisters Of Charity from 1971-1973, the Upper Springfield Festival of 1973 (later revived in 1988 and years following as the Springhill Festival), Tara Stores and The Craft Centre, set up as a form of local enterprise in an area of mass unemployment, and the Springhill Community House, still in operation today but going back to Des Wilson and Noelle Ryan. There is no explicit mention of the 1972 Springhill-Westrock Massacre, though there is a picture of Fr Noel Fitzpatrick on the south side of the street, which will be featured in a separate post.

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Copyright © 2018 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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The Butterfly Counts Not Months But Moments

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Danni Simpson (web | ig) is a world-travelling Australian who has settled (for now?) in Belfast. Between trips abroad, she painted the piece below back in May for Wardrobe Jam near CS Lewis Square in east Belfast (Andrew Stewart has a gallery of pics of the wardrobes being painted) – the two lions’ heads on the corner walls are intended to look like wings – and for Culture Night 2018 she painted more wings, this time on the hoarding around the demolished 100-year-old buildings in North Street (Belfast Live | BelTel).

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Repeal Head

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The female characters from the Hulu adaptation of The Handmaid’s Tale is used again (seen previously in She Is My Spy As I Am Hers) by Leo Boyd, this time to support the abortion referendum in the Republic (see Yes And No).

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If I Can’t Dance, I Don’t Want To Be In Your Revolution

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Communism and the Connolly Youth Movement (web | tw | Fb) compete with a Menagerie (front | side | car-park) flyer for the for the attention of young people in Divis Street, Belfast.

In her autobiography, Living My Life, Emma Goldman wrote, “At the dances I was one of the most untiring and gayest. One evening a cousin of Sasha, a young boy, took me aside. With a grave face … he whispered to me that it did not behoove an agitator to dance. Certainly not with such reckless abandon, anyway. It was undignified for one who was on the way to become a force in the anarchist movement. My frivolity would only hurt the Cause. I grew furious at the impudent interference of the boy. … I was tired of having the Cause constantly thrown into my face. I did not believe that a Cause which stood for a beautiful ideal, for anarchism, for release and freedom from convention and prejudice, should demand the denial of life and joy. … If it meant that, I did not want it.” (p. 56)

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The Pride Of Ulster

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Here are six panels from the shops in the Westwinds estate in Newtownards, which have replaced a UVF mural (Help Us To Help You).

Little is known about the omnibus called “The Pride Of Ulster”, except that this picture shows it at Newtownards Railway Station, Victoria Avenue, c. 1920. SAS soldier and boxer (and rugby-player) Blair “Paddy” Mayne, DSO, is portrayed in the second panel. (For more, see these posts about Mayne from 2013 and 2014.).

On the other side of the Ulster Banner in the centre is a WWII Douglas Dakota C-47, specifically “FZ692 of No. 233 Squadron, around the D-Day period in 1944. This aircraft, which was named “Kwicherbichen” by her crews, was involved in Para-dropping operations on the eve of D-Day and subsequently in re-supply and casualty evacuation missions into and out of forward airfields in the combat areas” (RAF). 

Motorcyclist Joey Dunlop is on the far right (see Race Of Legends), and above them all is a WWI board from the 1st Newtownards Somme Society (based in the Somme museum in Conlig?).

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Keep On Sprayin’

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Keep On Truckin’ is a famous one-page 1968 comic by R. [Robert] Crumb, and the first panel in particular has become iconic. Dublin artist ADW (Fb | ig | tw) has adapted it here to show four spray-can street artists, each a different colour, truckin’ along.

Previously from ADW: Born To Create | Keep ‘Er Lit | Labelz Are For Jars

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Mar Uachtarán

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Voters in the Irish Republic go to the polls today (October 26th, 2018) to elect a president. Northerners cannot vote, though a referendum to allow residents of Northern Ireland to vote in presidential elections is expected in 2019 (BelTel). Nonetheless, these posters for Sinn Féın candidate Lıadh Ní Rıada are at the Glen Road/Falls Road roundabout in west Belfast.

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Mural Of Concern

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Emmalene Blake (web | Inst | tw) painted her biggest piece to date for this year’s CNBX/HTN18, in support of same-sex marriage in Northern Ireland – it was approved in November 2015 but was blocked by a DUP petition of concern; the DUP now has only 28 seats but any new legislation is stalled by the current lack of a local parliament. The (Westsminster) Commons is scheduled to take up the matter on Friday (October 26th) for a second time – the bill was blocked in May (BelTel).

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Da War Is Not Over Yet

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Well-meaning but simplistic (if not patronising) message from a tourist: «Irish, forget the past.» Local response: “Da war is not over yet.” Response-to-the-response: “Bring it on.” On the nationalist side of the “peace” line at Townsend Street.

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Boom

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Three members of the Miami Showband were killed in 1975 at a fake check-point set by members of the UVF’s Glennane Gang. The explosion during the incident did not kill the musicians (as the graffiti on the poster above in loyalist east Belfast suggests); they were shot. Rather, a bomb exploded prematurely as it was being planted on their van, killing two of the attackers – see Boyle & Somerville – prompting the shooting spree (WP) that left three of the five band-members dead.

For the mural in the background, see Please Pay Here.

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