Bobby Sands – Extramural Activity

A Perennial War

2022-10-232022-10-23Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

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

From left to right:

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 amnestry 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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Republican Prisoners Still Exist!

2022-09-132022-09-11Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

“Foremost in my tortured mind is the thought that there can never be peace in Ireland until the foreign, oppressive British presence is removed, leaving all the Irish people as a unit to control their own affairs and determine their own destinies as a sovereign people, free in mind and body, separate and distinct physically, culturally and economically.” The quote is from day one of Bobby Sands’s hunger strike diary (March 1st, 1981) and the photograph is a 2007 image of a cell in the H-4 (Irish Times).

“Maghaberry – Portlaoise – Hydebank. Republican prisoners still exist!” IRPWA (web) board on Divis St, Belfast, replacing the Sands & Hughes mural – see Cairde Agus Comr á daithe.

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On The Streets Of Derry

2022-08-072022-08-07Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

“This mural is dedicated to all those who tragically died on the streets of Derry during the hunger strike era. Suaimhneas Dé da nanamacha. 3rd October 2006.” The mural referred to is in fact the ‘crumbling cell’ mural (see M03350); the ‘Spirit Of Freedom’ mural was first painted in 2011 for the 30th anniversary (see X00999) – the 30th anniversary plaque remains, on the right of the mural. For the 40th anniversary of the 1981 hunger strike “40” has replaced the “30” in the bottom border – see the final image.

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X10899 X10902 X10903 X10901 X10900 our revenge will be the laughter of our children bainfear ár ndíoltas amach leis an ghaire dár bpáistí

The Joy Of Our Hearts

2022-04-042022-04-05Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

The Newington tribute to Bobby Sands and the other deceased hunger strikers of the 1970s and 80s (see previously: Mol An Óige Agus Tiocfaidh Sí) has been augmented with four plaques to republicans from the area who died in the Troubles: (l-r) Martin McDonagh, Rosemary Bleakley, Colm Mulgrew, and Sean ‘Maxi’ McIvenna.

Unbeknowst to her parents (Lost Lives), Bleakley had joined Cumann Na mBan at 18 and was four days short of her nineteenth birthday when she and McDonagh were killed in a premature bomb explosion in the North Street arcade (Victor Patterson image of the blast), along with civilians Ian Gallagher and Mary Dornan (Sutton); 20 others were injured (Fortnight). Bleakley was not buried in the republican plot (in Milltown) but coincidentally in the plot adjacent to Dornan (BBC).

Bleakley was portrayed in the old New Lodge Volunteers mural.

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Beechmount Remembers

2021-08-112021-12-17Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

A new board has been mounted in AMCOMRI Street for the fortieth anniversary of the 1981 hunger strike, with photographs from the area in the background, including the Revolution mural at the bottom of Beechmount Avenue in 1996-1997.

“Everyone, Republican or otherwise, has their own particular part to play. No part is too great or too small, no one is too old or too young to do something.”

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The Desire For Freedom

2021-08-072021-08-07Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

The Falls Commemoration Committee (Fb) organises an annual commemoration for IRA D company volunteers from Divis and the lower Falls (as well as special events for the fiftieth anniversary of the Falls Curfew in 2020). The fourteen local volunteers are portrayed in a group above St Peter’s. They include the five volunteers who died in 1972 are were depicted in a mural previously at this spot.

“‘They won’t break me because the desire for [freedom and the] freedom of the Irish people is in my heart. The day will dawn when all the people of Ireland will have the desire for freedom to show. It is then that we will see the rising of the moon’ – Bobby Sands [March 17th, 1981]” Originally in Irish: “Ní bhrisfidh siad mé mar tá an fonn saoirse, agus saoirse mhuintir na hEireann, i mo chroí. Tiocfaidh lá éigin nuair a bheidh an fonn saoirse seo le taispeáint ag daoine go léir na hEireann. Ansin tchífidh muid éirí na gealaí.”

Aontacht Lenár Linn

2021-08-022021-08-02Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

“Am le haontacht na hÉireann” [Time for Irish unity]. Between stints in prison in 1976, Bobby Sands carried a green harp flag – symbol of Ireland and in particular of the United Irishmen – in an August march to protest the withdrawal of political status (Gérard Harlay/Bobby Sands Trust). He is shown here marching under the #TimeForUnity message on Sliabh Dubh in the campaign for a border poll and Irish unity “lenár linn”/”in our time” (Fb | tw).

For Twinbrook

2021-03-292021-03-29Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

In 2019, images of Bobby Sands before his (second and final) arrest and imprisonment were rediscovered in the collection of French photographer Gérard Harlay. Sands was serving as a flag-bearer in an August 1976 march from the Busy Bee to Dunville Park to protest the withdrawal of political status. (For some of Harlay’s images, see Bobby Sands Trust.) This new mural in his home area of Twinbrook copies one of the images (though presents him as carrying a Tricolour rather than a harp) along with protesters protesting for “Public transport for Twinbrook now” and “Social housing for Twinbrook now”.

Our Nation As A Whole

2021-01-222021-11-27Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

Mairéad Farrell (on the right of the image above) was arrested for planting a bomb at a hotel in Dunmurry in April 1976, one month after Special Category Status for republican prisoners had been revoked. Kieran Nugent (on the left) began the “blanket” protest in September that year and Farrell was the first person to join the protest, when she arrived in Armagh women’s prison to begin her fourteen year sentence. She later took up a dirty protest and joined the 1980 hunger strike. She stood for election in 1981 (in Cork), but, unlike “Óglach Bobby Sands, MP for Fermanagh and South Tyrone”, was not successful. (WP)

“I am oppressed as a woman and I am oppressed as an Irish person. Everyone in this country is oppressed and yet we can only end our oppression as women if we end the oppression of our nation as a whole.” Máiread [sic] Farrell

For the other pieces shown in the wide shot, below, see The Proclamation | All Our Dead | Easter Week 1916 (and then England, The Never Failing Source Of All Our Political Evils and The Old IRA).

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X07823 X07821 Ardilea “They may hold our bodies in the most inhumane condition – But while our minds remain free our victory is assured.” Óglach Bobby Sands, MP for Fermanagh and South Tyrone, died on the 5th of May 1981 after 66 days on Hunger Strike.

The Rising Of The Moon

2019-01-132019-01-12Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

“End British internment: Strip searching, controlled movement, isolation.” This Saoradh/éistigí/IRPWA board in Central Drive, Creggan, Derry, uses the words of Bobby Sands to put current political prisoners in parallel with the blanket protest and hunger strikes. The quote is an English translation from the final day of Sands’s hunger strike diary, March 17th: Mura bhfuil siad in inmhe an fonn saoirse a scriosadh, ní bheadh siad in inmhe tú féin a bhriseadh. Ní bhrisfidh siad mé mar tá an fonn saoirse, agus saoirse mhuintir na hEireann, i mo chroí. Tiocfaidh lá éigin nuair a bheidh an fonn saoirse seo le taispeáint ag daoine go léir na hEireann. Ansin chífidh muid éirí na gealaí.” = “If they aren’t able to destroy to the desire for freedom, they won’t break you. They won’t break me because the desire for freedom, and the freedom of the Irish people, is is my heart. The day will dawn when all the people of Ireland will have the desire for freedom to show. It is then we’ll see the rising of the moon.”

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