This new piece from Belfast One BID is full of literary references (web). The blackberries (top left of the image above) are perhaps for Seamus Heaney, and the kites (bottom right of the image above) are perhaps for John Hewitt. Comment/Get in touch if you can identify others.
Below the Linen Hall library in Fountain Street, Belfast city centre.
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Leitrim’s “literary heritage” is recognised by this large mural by Nik Purdy/Blow Designs (ig) in Main Street, Carrick-On-Shannon. Clockwise from top we see portraits and quotes from …
Canon [William] Slator: “You’ll never find more beauty/Peace and welcome all combined/Than along the Shannon River/where your cares are left behind.”
Nora J Murray: “There are silver waters lapping/Under arches grey and brown/When the swans come up the river/To the bridge in Carrick town”
John McGahern: “I think fiction is a very serious thing, that while it is fiction, it is also a revelation of truth.” (2000 interview)
MJ McManus: “The people came to drink the soup/Ladled from greasy bowls/They died in whitewashed wards that held/A thousand Irish souls” (from the poem ‘Eighteen Forty-Nine’)
Susan Mitchell: “No bigger than a bulrush./I beside the rushy Shannon cry./There are no children on the shore./The singing voices sing no more./The sea draws all the rivers down./And love has sailed from Carrick town.” (from the poem ‘Carrick’ – Google Books)
The monument in front of the mural is also to Mitchell.
Purdy also did Committees Of The Rich in Sligo.
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Copyright © 2024 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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“The cry was no surrender” – in preparation for the Twelfth, Ulster Banners, the Union Flag are posted along a fence in upper Shankill below a Shankill Old Boys (Fb) tarp and a band flag using St Patrick’s Saltire as a background. On the big day, the band paraded (Parades’ Commission) from the Shankill into the city centre (youtube), and back again after the demonstration in Barnett’s Demense (GOLI).
With a pair of bonus Shankill Star (Fb) t-shirts.
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Copyright © 2024 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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Discover Ulster-Scots (web) has added some more boards in north Belfast, joining the recent gallery of famous figures at Mountcollyer Avenue (see The Scots In Ulster).
The boards shown here are in North Queen St: “Ulster-Scots have been making Belfast a better place for over 400 years. Many of Belfast’s leading charitable, religious and educational institutions were founded by Ulster-Scots.” with images of BRA (James Crombie), Clifton House (possibly William Tennant is intended), the Linen Hall Library (a list of founders can be found on page 11 of this History), the Assembly buildings (of the Presbyterian church), and Queen’s (John Mowat).
Additional new boards, concerning soda farls and potato bread, and brown lemonade, can be seen in the Paddy Duffy Collection: The Ulster Fry.
See also: the Visual History page on Ulster-Scots murals.
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Copyright © 2024 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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“DUP backs united Ireland in coming border poll, Mon, 5th May”. This image updates one of the images from two weeks ago of the re-painted mural at Madden’s bar in the city centre – see Sásta A Bheıth Anseo. Initially the newspaper showed a headline relating to the prosecution of DUP (now-former) leader Jeffrey Donaldson on charges of rape and sexual assault.
The DUP in January flirted (strategically) with the idea of supporting a border poll (BBC) but their more typical stance is that the conditions for a poll are not close to being met (News Letter).
While elections sometimes fall on the 5th as the first Thursday in May – most recently the 2022 Assembly elections (CAIN) – the date here is probably a nod to the anniversary of Bobby Sands’s death (in 1981).
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Copyright © 2024 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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Here is a gallery of seven pieces of stained glass in Belfast City Hall. BCC has a guide to all of the stained-glass windows in the Hall.
1 (above): North Irish Horse, and in particular, the WWII battles it participated in (listed at the bottom of the window).
2 (below): Spanish Civil War
3 Cú Chulaınn – seen previously in Ulster’s Defence Force. See also the Visual History page In The Shadow Of Cú Chulaınn.
4: The Dockers’ Strike – seen previously in One Big Union.
5: The Famine Window. See also the Visual History page on The Great Hunger.
6: The Pathways Window – according to the guide, this window commemorates the pain caused to the relatives of deceased persons from whom organs were taken without consent.
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Copyright © 2024 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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“In memory to all who fought and gave their lives.” This is the tribute to the Ulster Division at the Carrickfergus Rangers Supporters’ Club, citing the words of Wilfrid Spender “I am not an Ulsterman but yesterday, the First of July [1916], as I followed their amazing attack, I felt that I would rather be an Ulsterman than anything else in the world.” (For more of Spender’s tribute to the 36th Division, see I Am Not An Ulsterman.)
For the names and information of the nine VC recipients, see Victoria Crosses or Repaying Their Memory.
Also from the Club: a gallery of Rangers’ Managers in We Welcome The Chase | commemorative murals to the three Scottish soldiers in Highland Fusiliers and to the UDR in Some Gave All | various others from the laneway and courtyard in We Don’t Do Walking Away, and from inside and from the side patio in The Rangers That I Love.
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Copyright © 2023 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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Here are images of murals from the interior and the outside patio of the Rangers Supporters Club (Fb) in Carrickfergus. January 2nd, 1971 – included in the panel above – is the date of the Ibrox disaster, in which 66 people died (WP). “Fleshers’ Haugh” [Butchers’ Low-Lying Meadow] – included in the panel below – is the part of Glasgow Green where Rangers played their games in the first three years of the club’s existence (Scotland Guide). Edmiston Drive (above) and Copland Road (third image) are streets adjacent to the stadium.
Also from the Club: a gallery of Rangers’ Managers in We Welcome The Chase | commemorative murals to the 36th Division in A Name That Equals Any In History, the three Scottish soldiers in Highland Fusiliers, and to the UDR in Some Gave All | various others from the laneway and courtyard in We Don’t Do Walking Away.
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we are the people follow follow our lads had a dream the blue blue sea of ibrox absent friends we will remember them all taigs are targets our club will never die
TUV (Traditional Unionist Voice) has put up placards attacking the DUP (Democratic Unionist Party) – including outside the office of DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson – in response to the possibility that the DUP might re-enter Stormont – which has been defunct now for two years – and implement the NI Protocol (BBC | BelTel).
It hasn’t happened yet, but a combination of public dissatisfaction concerning inaction over strikes by transport workers on December 22 and a general strike planned for January 18 (ITv)) and a financial package for pay awards are keeping the pressure on (Shropshire Star).
For the Orange symbols above, see Your Kingdom Will Endure Forever; for Psalm 95 see We Are The People; for the Lamentations, see אי כניעה (“No surrender” in Hebrew).
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W. B. Yeats’s poem When You Are Old is generally understood to be directed at Maud Gonne, who was born on this day in 1866. Yeats met the actress and activist in 1899, fell in love with her, and proposed marriage four times in the years to follow, each time being rejected. It is as Yeats’s muse — and not for her mysticism or anti-Semitism or Irish nationalism — that she is the subject of this mural in Union Street, Sligo, painted by artist Nick Purdy of Blowdesigns (Fb) in 2018.
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Extramural Activity 