City/Town

What Was The Price Of Protest?

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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.

A ‘garden of reflection’ around a monument to Daly was constructed in 2018.

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Now Is The Time To Kneel

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The “now” in “now is the time to kneel” would seem to suggest that there is some inappropriate kneeling going on at some other time, besides as a mark of respect to the patriotic dead (in this case, Queen Elizabeth II, who died on September 8th) – perhaps the kneeling prior to Premier League soccer matches as a protest against racism (World Soccer Talk).

The UVF board to the left of the wide shot can be seen in Our British Identity.

Replaces Clonduff Youth on Clonduff Drive in Castlereagh.

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A Perennial War

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Here is the scene at Kells Walk/Rossville St in the Bogside.

From left to right:

O’Hara-Devine mural

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”

End British Political Policing (Saoradh (web))

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)

“Peace” mural (with cross) from the Bogside Artists

In the shot above, our photographer has intervened and stood up the last panel of the “1981” board.

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Life Is Tough

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“… but so are you”. LAD Talk (ig | profile) mural in Sandy Row by ArtFillNI (Fb) and Codo (ig).

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Broken Promises

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The newspaper front pages reporting the “90-minute shouting match” between the resigning UK Home Secretary Suella Braverman and Prime Minister Liz Truss (third image, below) were barely dry when Truss herself resigned yesterday. The main cause was the September 23rd “mini-budget” that promised to scrap the 45% personal tax rate entirely, lower the 20% to 19%, and keep the corporate rate at 19% instead of having it increase to 25% in April 2023 – these numbers are seen on the pages falling from Truss’s hands, above – without explaining how the reductions would be funded. Over the next three weeks these positions were reversed – “volte face”, Truss’s flip-flops, and the two-headed Truss; all part of a pattern, artist Ciaran Gallagher (web) suggests with Truss’s clothing: she was originally in the Lib Dems before joining the Conservatives in 1996 and supported ‘remain’ in the Brexit vote (WP).

Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng went on the 14th. Braverman resigned over a breach of the Ministerial Code – sharing an official document on migration from her personal e-mail account – but got in a few digs at the Truss government as she left. (WP)

The Tories hope to put a new leader and PM in place within a week. Rishi Sunak, Terminator-style, says “I’ll be back!” and is – as of today, at least – the bookies’ favourite (BBC).

For Larry the cat – who was previously pictured sitting on the steps outside Number 10 but has gone from the mural – next week’s prime minister will be his fifth.

Previous versions of this mural: And In The Blue Corner … (from the Truss vs. Sunak leadership contest) | It’s A Knockout! (when Truss won)

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Grief Is The Price We Pay For Love

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Elizabeth II, queen of the United Kingdom, passed away on September 8th, at the age of 96, in the same year of her platinum jubilee, the 70th anniversary of her accession. The phrase “grief is the price we pay for love” comes from a message from Elizabeth in consolation with the relatives of those killed in the “9-11” attacks in 2001 (text at The Guardian).

“In everlasting memory – her majesty Queen Elizabeth II – 1926-2022.” “Long live the King”

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The Stolen Child

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The re-painted mural to plastic-bullet victim Julie Livingstone was rededicated this past Saturday (October 15th). For the previous mural, see 2010. “The Stolen Child – Come away, O human child/To the waters and the wild/With a faery hand in hand/For the world’s more full of weeping/Than you can understand… – WB Yeats.”

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Believe In Your Dreams

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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.

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Bloody Friday

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On July 21st, 1972 – Bloody Friday – 19 IRA bombs exploded in the course of an hour, killing 9, six of them at the Oxford Street bus station, including 15-year-old William Crothers from Parker Street in east Belfast who worked for Ulsterbus as a parcel-boy. The others were three more employess – William Irvine, Thomas Killops, and John Gibson – and two British Army soldiers – Stephen Cooper (32 Squadron) and Philip Price (Welsh Guards). (BBC | WP | Paper Trail | BBC documentary)

“In memory of the fallen Friday 21st July 1972 Oxford [Street] Bus Station Belfast. Lest we forget”

Major Street, Belfast. Replaces Templemore Avenue Primary.

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Maggie McAnaney

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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.”

Derry Journal has images from the launch.

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