physical force – Page 26 – Extramural Activity

Our Nation As A Whole

2021-01-222025-01-02Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

Mairéad Farrell (on the right of the image above) was arrested for planting a bomb at a hotel in Dunmurry in April 1976, one month after Special Category Status for republican prisoners had been revoked. Kieran Nugent (on the left) began the “blanket” protest in September that year and Farrell was the first person to join the protest, when she arrived in Armagh women’s prison to begin her fourteen year sentence. She later took up a dirty protest and joined the 1980 hunger strike. She stood for election in 1981 (in Cork), but, unlike “Óglach Bobby Sands, MP for Fermanagh and South Tyrone”, was not successful. (WP)

“I am oppressed as a woman and I am oppressed as an Irish person. Everyone in this country is oppressed and yet we can only end our oppression as women if we end the oppression of our nation as a whole.” Máiread [sic] Farrell

For the other pieces shown in the wide shot, below, see The Proclamation | All Our Dead | Easter Week 1916 (and then England, The Never Failing Source Of All Our Political Evils and The Old IRA).

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Copyright © 2021 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X07823 X07821 Ardilea “They may hold our bodies in the most inhumane condition – But while our minds remain free our victory is assured.” Óglach Bobby Sands, MP for Fermanagh and South Tyrone, died on the 5th of May 1981 after 66 days on Hunger Strike.

The Old IRA

2021-01-152025-01-02Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

Cú Chulaınn stands dying; the raven on his shoulder will signal his death. “This memorial is dedicated to all the brave and gallant men and women of the Old IRA (Óglaıgh na hÉıreann) and Cumann Na mBán who fought in all of the campaigns from the 1920s War of Independence onwards.”

The Irish tricolour with crossed rifles was the flag of the Irish Volunteers (Óglaıgh na hÉıreann), the splits in which gave rise all the subsequent IRAs.

For a roll of honour 1916-1966, including some profiles, see Treason Felony.

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X08359 [X07822] Ardilea

England, The Never-Failing Source Of All Our Political Evils

2021-01-122025-05-27Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

“‘To unite Protestant, Catholic and Dissenter under the common name of Irishmen in order to break the connection with England, the never failing source of all our political evils, that was my aim’ (Theobald Wolfe Tone, 1763-1798)”. As the dates suggest, Tone was captured and sentenced to death; his exact cause of death is uncertain – perhaps a self-inflicted knife to the throat, or a bullet to the throat. The other portraits are of Michael Dywer [should be “Dwyer”], Lord Edward Fitzgerald, Anne Devlin, Mary Anne McCracken, Betsy Gray, Fr. John Murphy, William Orr, Robert Emmet, Henry-Joy McCracken, and Jeremiah O’Donovan Rossa.

Ard An Lao/Ardilea, Machaıre Botháın/the Bone, Ard Eoın/Ardoyne

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X08358

Easter Week 1916

2021-01-112025-01-02Extramural Activity3 Comments

16 leaders and 70 others who were “killed whilst fighting” in the Rising during Easter Week 1916.

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X08357 Ard An Lao

Inter City Regiment

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“Rangers ICF [Inter City Firm – football ultras] supports our troops, particularly those who might be accused of crimes on “Bloody Sunday 1972”. The flags are hanging outside Bar Berlin, home of the Berlin Loyal RSC (tw).

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X07813

The Past Comes Back

2020-11-202025-10-07Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

The “Ulster’s Finest” mural in Monkstown was remarkable for its depiction of two female volunteers, carrying Uzis, the only depiction of female loyalist volunteers (see Rolston ‘Women on the walls’ in Crime Media Culture 14.3, 2018, p. 373). It was plastered over, perhaps because the gable is next to Hollybank primary. Some of the pebbledash wore away in January/February to reveal the mural – still in good condition – beneath (Vintage_UVF). For the original mural, see T00230.

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X07742 X07741

Bang Up To Date

2020-11-172025-01-01Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

The previous UVF mural in Carrington Street (Volunteering | On Your Side) was paint-bombed in October (Keep It Local) but has been quickly replaced by this computer-generated board showing the Harland & Wolff cranes, a Long Kesh watch-tower, and a hooded gunman from the UVF’s East Belfast Battalion.

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Copyright © 2020 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X07746 [X07743] X07744 X07745

Rathfern Remembers

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For the centenary of the end of WWI (in November 2018) a small board was added to the UFF’s South East Antrim Brigade mural in Rathfern.

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Copyright © 2020 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X07738 Knockenagh Ave

We Are The People

2020-10-282025-01-01Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

“The Glorious Revolution for civil and religious liberty.” King James II of England – a Catholic convert – had a son in 1688 that replaced his (Protestant) daughter Mary as first in line for the English throne. In order to prevent a Catholic succession, William of Orange, Protestant ruler of Holland and Mary’s cousin and husband set sail in October with 40,000 men in 463 ships (WP). He is shown in this new board in Main Street, Markethill leading his troops across the Boyne in Ireland. His success in deposing James would become known as the “Glorious Revolution.”

There are three Biblical references inside the band:
Psalm 60 v.4 “Thou hast given a banner to them that fear thee, that it may be displayed because of the truth”;
Isaiah 13 v.2 “Lift ye up a banner upon the high mountain, exalt the voice unto them, shake the hand, that they may go into the gates of the nobles”;
Psalm 95 v.7 “For he is our God; and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand.”
and a possible signature “RGm”

The Falls Road Massacre

2020-10-272025-01-01Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

Muralist Gerard ‘Mo Chara’ Kelly (whose catalogue of work can be seen in a separate site) and others from Gael Force Art (Fb) have mounted a three-piece memorial for the centenary of the Falls Road Massacre in which four people were killed – one of them being Mo Chara’s great uncle Jimmy Shields – in a 5-minute shooting spree by a “special patrol” on the night of the funerals of three men killed by the ‘RIC Murder Gang’ (see the 2007 post). For more background see the memorial’s Facebook page.

More than 500 people were killed in Belfast from 1920 to 1922; for details and their locations see The Social Geography Of Violence During The Belfast Troubles.

“These four innocent local men were murdered by an RIC/British Army death squad near this spot in [September 28th] 1920: James Shields, William Teer, Robert Gordon, Thomas Barkley.” With perhaps the first appearance of a hashtag on a plaque: #fallsroadmassacre1920