A tale of two east Belfasts: above is the playground at Pitt Park (next to the Ballymac Youth Centre’s SafeZone); below is Dee Street at its junction with Medway and Severn Streets and next to the Connswater Women’s Group (see The Verticality Of The Divine): “Quis Separabit • Simply the best • UFF • UDA”.
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The Young Citizen Volunteers of 1912 eventually joined the Ulster Volunteers (in 1914) as the 14th battalion of the Royal Irish Rifles and part of the 36th (Ulster) Division (WP). In 1972 the name was resurrected for use as the youth wing of the UVF (WP). In the wide shot, below, this history is presented as a continuous movement from left to right; a modern-day hooded gunman climbs out of a WWI trench with one hand on a YCV flag.
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This republican mural in Glenwood shows a funeral party firing a volley of shots over a tricolour-draped coffin containing one of the ten hunger-strikers of 1981: Bobby Sands, Francis Hughes, Raymond McCreesh, Patsy O’Hara, Joe McDonnell, Martin Hurson, Kevin Lynch, Kieran Doherty, Tom McElwee, Mickey Devine. The H-blocks of Long Kesh are in the background.
2015 repainting of a 2001 mural.
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Above, “End forced strip search, controlled movement” RNU/Cogús (web) stencil (“End forced strip search, controlled movement”) in front of a gallery of RNU/Cogús boards (see Until All Are Free We Are All Imprisoned).
Below, stencil of the iconic Che over his father’s words: “[In my son’s veins flowed the] Blood of an Irish rebel”. (See previously: Che Guevara Lynch)
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The three-storey mural above is in Ballysillan and replaced a UVF mural when it was added in 2011. The mural is the work of Jim Russell, shown below at Arts For All where he is artist-in-residence. The information below was provided by Arts For All.
The Great War: The first panel commemorates the Great War that ravaged Europe from 1914 to 1918 and shows troops advancing into battle, the Ulster Tower at Thiepval commemorating the sacrifice at the Somme and an image showing one of the war cemeteries and highlighting the true cost of war.
Second World War: The second panel features some of the devastation visited upon Belfast during a series of Luftwaffe raids during the early years of the Second World War. Belfast suffered greatly with over 1,000 people dying in four nights of bombing in April and May of 1941.
The Troubles: In the third panel highlight the dark history known as the Troubles. It features two events from the years of that time – the murder of the three young off-duty Scottish soldiers in 1971 [the monument depicted was featured in The Highland] and the Bloody Friday bombings of July 1972. In the midst of the horror that accompanied the early years of the Troubles these events still caused many to struggle to understand how people could carry out such atrocities.
Present Day Conflict: Panel four brings us up to the present day. Military service is a tradition for many in Northern Ireland and for many their first overseas trip came on the back of an overseas posting whilst serving in one of the Armed Forces. From times past, through the World Wars, the Korean War, to more recent conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan soldiers and regiments drawn from Norther Ireland continue to play a role.
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The plaque above was unveiled on the 40th anniversary of the death of Martha Campbell, on May 14th, 2012. Campbell was the last person to die in the protracted gunfire that followed the bombing of Kelly’s Bar in Ballymurphy on the 13th. UVF gunmen are attributed the killing by McKittrick (186), but no one has officially taken responsibility for the death (WP). A tribute site exists on-line, which maintains that the bullet came from Henry Taggart rather than Springmartin.
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“Show no mercy and expect none”. Iron Maiden’s Eddie the trooper, armed with an assault rifle and carrying a UDA flag, leads the grim reaper over the graves of “G. Adams”, “McGuinness” and “A. Maskey”. UDA/UFF mural in Carrickfergus.
For more on Eddie, see his Visual History page.
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South Belfast Ulster Volunteer Force 2nd Battalion “A” Company Donegall Pass, with the flag of England (St. George’s Cross) in one corner and in the other an orange star with “1912” written below, the year the Ulster Volunteers were founded. The colour-scheme is the reverse of the Orange Order’s: its flag has the purple star of the Williamites on an orange field.
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Here are three “nail-ups” from west Belfast, all showing their age.
The first is “IRA – Brits out, not sell out. Join RSF” in Fallswater Street.
The second is a “Lower Shankill UFF C Coy” board high above the “Shankill Protestant Boys UVF” mural at the junction of Northemberland Street and the Shankill.
The third is the phoenix in the apex above the mural in AMCOMRI Street.
The images were taken in late 2014; the phoenix goes back at least to 2003 and the others are at least six years old.
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The 2010 work of Jade, Andi, Katie, Leigh, Ellen, Lyndsay, Shannon, and Hannah on the substation at the top of the Glenfield estate’s Oakfield Road has been replaced this week by a new UDA mural sporting a hooded gunman facing the viewer with a slogan borrowed from Mexican revolutionary Emiliano Zapata: “Better to die on your feet than live on your knees in an Irish republic. Join the UDA.”. The two wide shots below allow you to compare the scene this week with last week.
The mural has been criticized by both DUP and Alliance councillors (Newsletter). The final words – Join the UDA – have drawn particular ire, as in other respects it is similar to other murals in featuring hooded gunmen, such as these two other Carrickfergus murals: Inclusion | Eternal Vigilance.
Nolan Show discussion of the mural on 2015-02-11: Part 1 | Part 2
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Extramural Activity 