Ballybeen Dream

Teenagers at Dundonald High “dream, believe, achieve” success on a par with their “Ballybeen sporting hero[e]s”, such as IBO super bantamweight boxer John Lowey and footballers Noel Brotherson (Blackburn Rovers), Glenn “Spike” Ferguson (Glenavon and Linfield), and Chris Walker (Glentoran).

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Copyright © 2017 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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Play With Drugs?

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Sonic the hedgehog joins Pac-Man in an anti-drugs message in the lower Shankill estate. “Play with drugs? Game Over.” For the two boards in the background, see Child’s Play and The Dead Man’s Penny.

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Generations Of Health

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These two murals of five women and five babies at the rear of the Maureen Sheehan health care centre are entering (at least) their eighth year of existence and are showing their wear due to both the natural and human causes, such as graffiti and burning (see previously: A Philosophy of Liberation). For the murals in better condition (in 2010) see M05732 and M05733.

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The Garden Of Hope

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Two kids’ murals from the bottom of St James, where the ‘Garden Of Hope’ community farm is (and next to Music Is Our Drug), one showing various insects and the other (“St James Goes Wild”) showing the sun rising over a meadow of flowers.

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Copyright © 2016 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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We Are Friends

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Here is another new piece of Carrickfergus community art featuring the castle (and its blacksmith), along with residents of different ethnicities, kids playing sports, and borders of poppies. At the shops on Hawthorn Avenue in the Sunnylands estate. (See previously: Carrickfergus Castle.)

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Taughmonagh Family Learning Centre

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Three images from the Taughmongh Family Learning Centre (run by Taughmonagh Community Forum) in Finwood Park of children from days gone by: the boys are playing football and girls are playing games in the street, in front of the old bungalows on the estate from the 1940s that were replaced in the 1980s. (For a small gallery of vintage images, see this BBC page.).

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Ballymac Hits The Books

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The recently-refurbished Ballymac Friendship Centre (Fb) was re-opened in August this year, with a new paste-on mural of local schoolchildren with books and backpacks on the front.

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X03937 fraser pass hope inspiration dream belief desire faith

An tAos Óg Ag Sıúl

Some of the people on 35th anniversary march were perhaps among the “Short Strand Youth Against H-Block & Armagh” in 1981 but the speakers at the Dunville Park rally were intentionally drawn from the younger Sinn Féin leaders, including Nıall Ó Donnghaıle from the Short Strand (An Phoblacht).

Here’s Michael McVeigh’s contribution to the Guthanna ’81 project; he was a member of the youth group during the blanket and hunger strikes.

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Copyright © 2016 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X03748 X03749 X03750 young people on the march na cúıg achuınge the five demands

Le Jeu Avant Tout

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The board above, on the Frank Gillen Centre, which is in the nationalist Divis area of the lower Falls, shows the emblems not only of Cliftonville and local team Immaculata, but also the Protestand-supported Glentoran and Linfield. The flags on the building (shown below), for the Euro 2016 championships, likewise include the Northern Ireland banner along with the Irish Tricolour and the flags of the other nations.

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X03577 X03578 cullingtree rd our divis our youth our future painted by sonnie boyce pierce atherton robert mcateer fra tairnan mcgreevy declan o’neill ricky quinn

Civil Order, Plastic Death

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“Since 1970 seventeen people killed – including eight children”. A vintage poster against plastic bullets (see also Plastic Death in the Peter Moloney Collection for a mural) is part of this Beechmount Avenue mural showing a candle for each of the victims. The first listed (Rowntree, Molloy, Friel) were killed by rubber bullets, the rest by plastic; plastic bullets took over from rubber bullets in 1975 (WP).

Panels 10-15 of the ‘murdered’ follow to the right of the Plastic Bullets board, here presented two-at-a-time. The 11th panel (the second one shown here, with Francis Bradley in top left) was previously the ninth panel; it is not clear why its position was swapped.

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X02897 X02898 X02899 X02900 geddis stewart donnelly whitters carol anne carol ann kelly julie livingstone duffy norah mccabe doherty mcguiness mcconomy white downes duffy