Françoise Duparc‘s Woman Knitting is reproduced and extended with a scarf of multiple panels such as the two shown below, of a baby buggy about to run over a pile of dog doo, and of a girl painting forest sprites, as well as the Sandy Row Falcons (cheerleading) (Fb) and Sandy Row FC (Tw).
In black and white are scenes from yesteryear of children swinging on a lamp-post, riding a go-cart, playing hop-scotch, and walking down the alley between houses. In colour are more recent scenes: Rossville flats, the Dove Of Peace mural, children on bikes, and graffiti. Outside the Eden Place Arts centre (Fb) in Rossville Street.
Here are two murals from the Youth First (Tw) group in and around their Bogside home in Meenan Square. In the image above, a young mother sporting both a nappy pin and an Easter lily tends to her infant child while casting a look back at Free Derry corner and the silhouettes of marchers and washing on a line. The image below also shows Free Derry corner and the skyline of the city.
This mural featuring the rights of children was painted in Derry’s Brandywell area in 2014; it puts images alongside parts of Caroline Castle’s rendering of the UN’s Rights of the Child. The one above reads “Understand that all children are precious. Pick us up if we fall down and if we are lost lend us your hand. Give us things we need to make us happy and strong and always do your best for us whenever we are in your care. Right no. 3”.
A view of east Belfast from the perspective of the children in a nursery school in Beechfield and Westbourne Streets: the modes of modern travel, including the Seacat, and a long-standing symbol of industry, the ever-present H&W crane.
This mural of a skateboarder emerging from a girl’s reading replaced a Red Hand Commando mural (see D01242) at the Brooklands Road entrance to the Ballybeen estate in the mid 2000s. The lettering from the former mural is beginning to bleed through – above the window can be seen “Ballybeen [C Company]” and below it, “Ulster’s Elite”.
As the map below shows, the area between the Shankill and the Falls roads in 1789 was largely undeveloped and perhaps titles such as “Cluain Ard” (“Clonard”) were descriptions as well as names. The ‘White Linen Hall’ – on the site of the current City Hall – had been completed the year before. St. Mary’s was the first Catholic church in Belfast. Wikipedia reports that on the day of its first mass, May 30th, 1784, “the mostly Presbyterian 1st Belfast Volunteer Company paraded to the chapel yard and gave the parish priest a guard of honour, with many of the Protestants of Belfast also present and sharing the event”. (WP) The map also shows a series of ponds connected to the nearby Flush. A close-up of the board is below.
Treebeard the Ent (from Lord Of The Rings) watches over the young people of north Belfast’s Tigers Bay. Dean Clarke, age 16, hanged himself on November 4th, 2007, after a week in hospital recovering from an overdose of ketamine (which he believed to be Valium). The Dean Clarke Foundation (Fb) was founded by his mother Alison in order to provide activities and outings for young people. (BBC-NI | Tele) The foundation is also involved in the Tigers Bay community garden (see Work Ethic).
The New Lodge youth centre has received a make-over, with kids’ drawings of purple pencils, yellow flowers, pink buses, and red circles. Even the security wire at the top has been included in the gaiety.
Here’s a wide shot of the right-hand side of the murals in the lower Shankill estate. These gables have remained in place while the estate has been redeveloped, causing the removal of the Red Hand, Martin Luther and Cuchulainn murals.