political

Self-Government Is Our Right

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Here is the second (of three) new paintings on the exterior wall of Casement Park in Andersonstown, west Belfast celebrating the life and death of Roger Casement. The words come from Casement’s speech from the dock at his trial on charges of treason. The quote in fact reads “Self-government is our right, a thing born in us at birth; a thing no more to be doled out to us or withheld from us by another people than the right to life itself — than the right to feel the sun or smell the flowers or to love our kind.” As the post on the first painting (see It Is Better For Men To Fight And Die) noted, Casement made his name (and was knighted) for his reports into abuses of “human rights” in Congo and Peru.

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Copyright © 2016 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X03724 Andersonstown Rd

Where Did The Seeds Fall?

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This part of the new mural on the International Wall uses the area of Kilmainham jail where most of the leaders of the Easter Rising were executed in order to tie together the blanket protest – Kieran Nugent and Maıréad Farrell are shown with raised fists –  the hunger strikers – including Frank Stagg and Michael Gaughan on the ground – and Roger Casement, walking towards the gallows. Casement was executed not in Kilmainham but in Pentonville Prison, England, convicted of treason for his attempts to secure German rifles and machine-guns for the Rising.

Between Bobby Sands and Mickey Devine in the lower centre of the image is a 200th-anniversary stone in Maynooth/Maıgh Nuad(h) of the 1798 rising. A photograph of the stone is available here. “The Tree Of Liberty: What is that in your hand? It is a branch. Of what? Of the tree of liberty. Where did it first grow? In America. Where does it bloom? In France. Where did the seeds fall? In Ireland.”

At the launch (on August 3rd) actor James Doran (see the final image, below) read from Casement’s speech from the dock after his conviction for treason.

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X03741 X03740 X03713 Divis St armagh women’s prison proclamation irish republic smash h block

Spreading The Word

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03736 2016-08-09 IntWall2016 MacDiarmada Lightbox+

Seán Mac Dıarmada was born in Leitrim but worked on the trams in Belfast in 1905. He also, as member and organiser for many nationalist groups, including Sınn Féın (formed in 1905) and the Irish Republican Brotherhood. He is shown here speaking on Clonard Street in the lower Falls, in 1906, flanked by fellow Brothers Denis McCullough (l) and Bulmer Hobson (r), both from Belfast. (For a brief account of MacDıarmada’s life, see this previous mural on Extramural Activity The Mainspring, which shows MacDıarmada delivering his speech from the back of a coal cart, and also this Saoirse32 post. See also MacDıarmada for a board near where he lived in Ardoyne.

The other part of the picture illustrates the use of magic lanterns to display images on gable walls to spread nationalist history and ideology. On one wall is Eoın MacNeill’s article ‘The North Began’ (which also features earlier on the new wall; see Shared Space and We Won’t Have Carson. On the other wall is an image of An Gorta Mór/The Great Hunger. (Magic lanterns were used by Alice Milligan (NWCI | Field Day | also a kids version from Creative Centenaries) when she gave talks; for her newspaper work, see Shan Van Vocht.)

The image below shows that there were originally (or at least, in April) plans for a two larger faces to be featured.

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X03736 X03354 Divis St

Shan Van Vocht

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03735 2016-08-09 IntWall2016 Shan Van Vocht+

Ethna Carbery (the left-most of the four female figures, who wrote the song Roddy McCorley) and Alice Milligan (with her hand to her face) together founded both The Northern Patriot and The Shan Van Vocht (“the poor, old, woman,” i.e. Ireland), the latter being a monthly socialist newspaper that ran from 1896 until 1899 and included some early writings by James Connolly (pictured on the right of the mural), such as the piece “Socialism And Nationalism” which appeared in The Shan Van Vocht in January, 1897 and from which the quotation on the wall is taken: “If you remove the English army to-morrow and hoist the green flag over Dublin Castle, unless you set about the organisation of the Socialist Republic, your efforts would be in vain.” (For the passage in broader context, see (previously) If You Remove The English Army Tomorrow.)

The other two women shown are Elizabeth (seated second) and Nell Corr (standing), Cumann Na mBan members from the Ormeau Road in Belfast, who were in Dublin on the morning of the Rising but headed north. (For more information and a mural depicting the political complexity of their family, see previously The Corrs.)

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An tAos Óg Ag Sıúl

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Some of the people on 35th anniversary march were perhaps among the “Short Strand Youth Against H-Block & Armagh” in 1981 but the speakers at the Dunville Park rally were intentionally drawn from the younger Sinn Féin leaders, including Nıall Ó Donnghaıle from the Short Strand (An Phoblacht).

Here’s Michael McVeigh’s contribution to the Guthanna ’81 project; he was a member of the youth group during the blanket and hunger strikes.

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X03748 X03749 X03750 young people on the march na cúıg achuınge the five demands

An Staılc Ocraıs

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“An staılc ocraıs 1981 hunger strike – 35th anniversary march – Sunday 14th August – Assemble Divis tower 2pm”. With portraits of the deceased 1981 hunger strikers; Frank Stagg and Michael Gaughan are included even though they died in the 1970s.

On the site of the former Andytown RUC barracks, Falls Road/Glen Road, Belfast.

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Young Ireland

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The new mural on the International Wall is book-ended on the left-hand side by a host of Irish nationalists from the centuries before the 1916 Rising, who continue to watch over the unfolding drama of the nationalist cause. In chronological order, the figures depicted are …

  • Theobold Wolfe Tone (1768-1798), the main figure shown above, leader of the United Irishmen and the 1798 rebellion
  • Betsy Gray, female in green, who died in the 1798 rebellion
  • Henry Joy McCraken (1767-1798) second from the left at bottom, leader of the 1798 rebellion in County Antrim, rising on June 6
  • Mary Anne McCracken (1770-1876) on Tone’s cheekbone, political activist and anti-slavery and poverty reformer
  • Robert Emmett (1778-1803) obscured by pole, leader of a revolt in 1803
  • Anna Wheeler (1780-1848), female in purple, feminist author
  • James Fintan Lalor (1807-1849), bottom left, writer and political activist
  • Thomas Davis (1814-1845) small portrait below Gray, organiser of Young Ireland
  • John Mitchel (1815-1875) top row left of the pole, Young Ireland and the Irish Confederation
  • Michael Davitt (1846-1906) third from left at bottom, founder of the Land League and who took part in the Fenian Rising of 1867
  • John Devoy (1842-1928) fourth from left at bottom, one of the Cuba Five, exiled to the U.S. in 1871, and active in all of the Fenian Rising, the 1916 Rising, and the War of Independence

(There is a twelfth figure, in a bowler hat, top left. If you know who this is, please get in touch.)

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Copyright © 2016 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X03732 divis st Ag Fíorú Na Poblachta 1916 2016 cead blıaın

Civil Rights

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The Bogside Artists’ Civil Rights mural in Rossville Street, Derry/Doıre, which was originally painted in 2004, was repainted (in October 2015) and the portraits of Ivan Cooper and John Hume added. For video of the launch, see the Bogside Artists’ website. See also the Visual History page on the Bogside Artists.

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Mothers & Sisters

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The figure in the centre of the mural above is Peggy O’Hara, mother of INLA hunger striker Patsy O’Hara, who remained active in socialist and republican circles and stood in the assembly elections in 2007 as an independent. She died in 2015 and was given a paramilitary funeral, including a volley of shots fired over the coffin. (For a description, and video, see this Derry Journal article.) The female above Mickey Devine (in the bottom right) is his sister Margaret, from whose house his coffin processed after his death in 1981. (See the plaque in Breaking The Chains.) The girl on the left is pointing towards another mural, a dove of peace. (See Network.)

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Breaking The Chains

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03624 2016-07-04 Mickey Devine+

This new full-size mural to INLA hunger striker Mickey Devine replaces a smaller black-and-white board (for which see Waked & Buried).

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03621 2016-07-04 Oglach Mickey Devine+

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Copyright © 2016 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X03624 X03625 X03621 Rathkeele Way In proud and loving memory of Óglach Mickey Devine. Died 20th August 1981 in the H-Blocks of Long Kesh after 60 days on hunger-strike. Mickey was waked and buried from this house, the family home of his sister Margaret. Also died 30th March 2005.