The Pride Of Ballybeen is a recently-formed flute band and they now have a band mural. It features the Union Flag and Ulster Banner flanking the red hand of Ulster on a six-pointed star against an orange field, surrounded by a crown and a garland pinned by a rose; the titular banner, below, is supported by shamrock and thistle.
Like yesterday’s array of flags, the adjacent mural of army badges around a burial scene from the first world war features some lesser-seen items. On the left, alongside the Royal Irish Rifles (top left) and the (modern-day) Royal Irish Regiment (at the time of WWI the harp was plain and there was no garland), we see the emblem of the North Irish Horse, a cavalry unit in the Territorial Army. On the right, the emblem of the Royal Irish Rangers (which was folded into the Royal Irish Regiment in 1992) is joined by the star of the Irish Guards (above) and the emblem of the Ulster Special Constabulary or B-Specials (below). Only the Royal Irish Regiment and the Irish Guards remain as regiments of the British Army; “The Horse” now forms squadrons of other units. Of the six, four served in WWI; the B-Specials were formed in 1920 and the Rangers in 1968.
June 15th saw the official ‘Arts For All’ launch of a mural shown all the way back in January. For the launch, artist Jonny McKerr added backgrounds to the cross-maker and bugler on the low wall in front, and the information-board in the centre was added. For background and the images on which the mural is based, see The Home Front (and also The Undertaker).
The tall ships will be in Belfast July 2nd to 5th for the start of a race that will take them to Norway and then to Denmark. The first of about 80 ships have already arrived. The mural above is on the quay-side of the Rotterdam bar. The design, by 16 year-old Daniel Hamilton, is the winner of a Belfast Telegraph competition.
Englishman Clive Dutton was an urban planner who was best known for work in Birmingham, London (Newham), and Belfast. He produced “The Dutton Report” in 2004 and “The Big Plan” (pdf) (the cover of which is pictured in the mural) in 2013. In them, he proposed and then updated a plan to tackle economic deprivation in west Belfast by the creation of a ‘Gaeltacht Quarter’ or ‘Ceathrú Gaeltachta’. He died on June 8th at the age of 62 and the mural above has been painted in remembrance.
This Saturday and Sunday (June 20th and 21st), Belfast Community Circus celebrates its 30th birthday with two days of events and performances in the Cathedral Quarter, including a world record-breaking (hopefully) pie fight. Kev Largey (KVLR) last month placed two “foolish” figures among the acrobats on the front wall of the organization’s Gordon Street headquarters, a lobster having a drink of weasels wearing hats and a rambler with a patched bed-roll and basket of spray-cans. (Also seen in paste-up form outside the Sunflower – see Costume Party.)
The history of music is told (from right to left) in a new mural. The gramophone gives way to the cassette and then to the CD and finally the iPod, with a mic and speakers in the middle. The suggestion, presumably, is that life in east Belfast also changes. From Blaze FX, who also did the Teenage Dreams repaint on the other side of the flyover, and local youths from both Short Strand and Newtownards Road.
Extramural Activity 