A mural of HMS Belfast “Built in Belfast” being launched on March 17, 1938, next to a fake storefront for “B&M Electricals”, with a Billy Graham hoarding above: “What if you got everything you wanted and it wasn’t enough?”, echoing the mural’s Latin inscription, the motto of Belfast city: What shall we give in return for so much?
The images in the windows of the McLean’s bookies on the Shankill Road suggest that betting on sports – even on George Best – is like playing roulette. The gate to the left (with barbed wire on top) is marked with the letters “U” and “R” of the nearby Ulster Rangers supporters club. (For two murals there, see previously: Save The Shankill | Doing Her Duty).
The mural on the shutters of Belfast Underground Records (Web | Fb) reproduces the cover of the album London Calling by The Clash. Vinyl records, and, since September 2015, a radio station with live streaming from the booth!
The All-Seeing Eye Of Providence joins the Eye Of Horus in a conspiracy-minded mural by Visual Waste at the Muddlers’ Club in Belfast. The eye is familiar from Freemasons and the 1 dollar bill in US currency (and the Illuminati!). Also included – against a background consisting of a secret handshake, a skull, and a floating skeleton – are the Square & Compasses of the Freemasons (with a “G” for “God” or “geometry”) a set of scales weighing money, a crown, the word “FATE” tattooed across the knuckles, a keyhole, a gem, the dollar sign, a drop of water, and the Chi-Rho of Catholic and Coptic faiths.
Street art is often vandalised (see: the whole of Cupar Way and also A Short Treatise On The Ephemerality Of Art in which NIKO destroyed Praise’s CNB12 piece) but rarely is the vandal a commercial company drumming up business.
In a first for Belfast murals, speech balloons have been added to the Ring Of Peace mural in Waring Street to advertise office space. They read “Forget it, Muriel. I’m moving my business to CQHQ without you!” “Oh Jeff … It’s too close to the City Centre! I want to be with nature …”. We hope that indeed the ad does move away from the “muriel” – the balloons appear to be pasted over the mural, rather than painted on.
The speech-balloons are in fact an improvement over the earlier complete covering of the mural (paperjamdesign). In a less successful part of its media strategy, the business’s web site, at cqhqbelfast.com, appears to be non-functioning.
Report and video on the corporate vandalism from BBC-NI.
The stands of three football stadiums are shown in the background of the Don Patricio mural at the bottom of the Whiterock: Belfast Celtic’s Celtic Park (“Paradise”), Manchester United’s Old Trafford, and Barcelona’s Camp Nou. The Old Trafford stands bear the emblems of the teams Patrick O’Connell played for and managed: Liffey Wanderers (whose shirt is also featured, on the left), Sheffield Wednesday, Hull City (The Tigers), Manchester United, Dumbarton, Real Racing Club de Santander, Real Oviedo, and Real Betis Balompié (also shirt on the right).