physical force

Young Guns

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Sixteen year-old Glen “Spacer” Branagh was killed by a premature blast bomb during a riot on Remembrance Sunday, 2001. His portrait is on a board at the centre of UDA flags and guns (and the tigers of Tiger’s Bay (which would make it “Tigers’ Bay”).

“If the Provos and the pan nationalist front and the British and Irish governments keep trying to succeed in a united Ireland then they may prepare themselves for another 30 bloody years for the battle will have just begun.”

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Copyright © 2008 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X00280 Edlingham Street

Huns Out, Guns Out

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Here are two images of graffiti on the cannons on the walls of the old Derry city. Above, “Fuck the Huns [Protestants]”; below, “I shagged ur ma”.

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Copyright © 2008 Cathal Woods
X00091 X00227

The RIC Murder Gang

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One RIC member was killed and another wounded outside the Beehive Bar in a shoot-out with IRA men in September 1920. In reprisal, County Inspector Harrison and his men killed Vol. Ned Trodden, Vol. Sean Gaynor, and Sean McFadden (Rısteard Ó Murchú). The gang, under Detective Inspector Nixon, would go on to kill more Catholics in 1921 and in 1922 commit the McMahon killings and the Arnon Street killings, in each of which 6 people died.

On the right is a small board on “political policing”: “Agents exposed. Shoot-to-kill. Spying. Cover-ups. Collusion. Plastic Bullets. Sectarian policing. Poisoning peace process.”

Northumberland Street, west Belfast

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Copyright © 2007 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X00165

View From The Graveyard

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Here are two image of murals on the Whiterock Road taken from City Cemetery. Of the pair in the bottom image, the one on the left is to Keven Lynch (see M02999); the one on the right is against plastic bullets and dates back to 1995 (see M01360).

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Copyright © 2007 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X00157 X00159

Robert Dougan

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South Belfast UDA commander Robert Dougan killed by the IRA on February 10th, 1998 while sitting in a car outside Balmoral Textiles in Dunmurry, two months before the Good Friday Agreement was signed. “Murdered by the enemies 10th Feburary [sic] 1998. In memory of our fallen comrade – gone but not forgotten. Quis separabit.”

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Copyright © 2007 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X00193

A New Look For Us

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This is the scene at the junction of Wellwood Street and Sandy Row. On the northern side, a sofa and pallets have been dumped against the remaining half of the UVF mural (see C01427 for the whole thing), while on the southern side, the hoardings on the corner have been covered in UFF flags and “Kill all taigs” graffiti. The site behind them would remain vacant until 2014.

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Copyright © 2007 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X00183 X00185 X00191

In Glorious Memory

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“In glorious memory” of King William III of Orange, crossing the Boyne to defeat King James II and secure Ireland for England. North Street, Ballymena.

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Copyright © 2007 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X00158

PSNI No Go Zone

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These two pieces of anti-PSNI graffiti are in Glenvale Street, PUL west Belfast: “PSNI no-go zone – enter at your own risk” and “Providing Support [for] Nationalist Interests”.

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Copyright © 2005 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X05019 X05017 X05020

You Know Where

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This is a photograph of the outer fences of “you know where” – Long Kesh/the H Blocks/Her Majesty’s Prison Maze.

Whatever you say, say nothing
When you talk about you-know-what.
For if you-know-who could hear you
You know what you’d get –
They’d take you off to you-know-where

– Colum Sands “Whatever You Say, Say Nothing”


(Makem & Clancy also do a version)

Colum Sands’s song (1981) is pre-dated by Seamus Heaney’s 1975 poem of the same name, from the collection North.
“This morning from a dewy motorway
I saw the new camp for the internees …”

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Copyright © 2005 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X00915