political

If You Remove The English Army Tomorrow

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03353 2016-04-01 England Will Still Rule You+

A line from James Connolly’s 1897 piece “Socialism And Nationalism” is adapted by the IRSP for the current post-partition situation: “England will still rule you, she would rule you through her bankers, landlords and Stormont”.

Connolly’s original thought is that – even in a self-governing republic – nationalism is not enough to establish an authentically Irish state: “If you remove the English army tomorrow and hoist the green flag over Dublin Castle, unless you set about the organization of the Socialist Republic your efforts would be in vain. England would still rule you. She would rule you through her capitalists, through her landlords, through her financiers, through the whole array of commercial and individualist institutions she has planted in this country and watered with the tears of our mothers and the blood of our martyrs.”

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Copyright © 2016 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X03353 glen rd irish republican socialist party

Fly The Flag

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03207 2015-12-04 Sky Lantern+

You can let your Union flag fly across the rooftops with this “sky lantern”, for sale in the window of a shop on the Newtownards Road. “Ready to light … lift … and launch.”

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Copyright © 2015 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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Twinbrook Rebuilds

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03304 2016-02-29 Twinbrook Rebuild+

The Twinbrook Road shops have been moved out to the edge of the street and the murals that were on the old shops are now gone or obscured, including the long wall of hunger-striker portraits had been updated annually since 2006. That mural has been condensed into a new, printed, image, placed on the side of the shops facing the Stewartstown Road. As before, it shows blanketmen Freddie Toal and Hugh Rooney, Sands, and three volunteers firing a volley of shots, with the portraits of the strikers who died in the 70s and 80s along the bottom.

03303 2016-02-29 Twinbrook Rebuild w+

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X03304 X03303 twinbrook rd colin commemoration committee stagg gaughan sands mcdonnell hurson lynch doherty devine mcilwee o’hara hughes mccreesh

Voice Of The North

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03300 2016-02-28 Sell Out

“Sell Out” with arrows pointing to three red dots on the wall of the Republican Ex-Prisoners Association (also housing SNAP – Safer Neighbourhood Ardoyne Project – and Glór An Tuaiscirt (Voice Of The North – an Irish-language and cultural organisation)) in Ardyone.

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X03300 brompton rd cumann na h-iarchimi poblachtacha

Unbroken Presence

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03302 2016-02-28 Ardoyne Wall Curtain+

More “peace” line images today (after yesterday’s repainting of the Cliftonville “peace” line in Blue Sky Thinking): at the end of February work began taking down a section of the 8 foot high wall on the Ardoyne side of the Crumlin Road, separating Ardoyne from the Woodvale area, though the section close to Woodvale and the wall on the Woodvale side remain for now.

The houses on the north side of the road will now be able to see the road and the doors of Holy Cross church (shown above).

The vintage piece of Free Brendan Lillis graffiti shown in the final image survives, just out of picture to the left in the wide shot below.

Here is some BBC-NI footage of the wall being knocked down. Here are Irish Times, NewsLetter and Tele articles on the 2013 NI Executive policy objective of removing the lines by 2023. And here’s an interview with Heather Bellamy, author of Towards A City Without Walls.

03305 2016-03-01 Ardoyne Wall w+

03306 2016-03-01 Ardoyne Wall Cross+

03319 2016-03-07 Brendan Lillis Crumlin Graffiti+

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X03302 X03305 X03306 X03319 this cross stands here to mark the unbroken presence of the passionists and the people at holy cross since 1869 and as a sign of hope

Blue Sky Thinking

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03269 2016-01-25 Painting Peace Line Over+

The Manor Street “peace” line dividing north Belfast’s Lower Oldpark and Cliftonville areas got a facelift in January — the beige was painted over with a sky blue colour. The wide shot, (third image, below,) gives an impression of its height and extent (and this is only the north-south part of the line.) The fourth image is of an old European Union “Urban” mural showing the north Belfast skyline, including Cave Hill (and Napoleon’s Nose) and Belfast Lough. (For more info on Urban II and the mural, see minute 17 onward in this NVTv documentary).

03268 2016-01-25 Painting Peace Line Statue+

03265 2016-01-25 Painting Peace Line w+

03266 2016-01-25 Painting Peace Line Urban+

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X03269 X03268 X03265 X03266 giving the community the initiative partnership in practice

Your Patronising Slogans

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03202 2015-12-01 Fuck You And Your Patronising Slogans+

Included in the black taxi tours of the murals of west Belfast is a stop along the Cupar Way “peace” line and an invitation to take a black marker and leave one’s mark. A designated name-tag with “Hello my name is …” was even painted for the purpose – see the image below. Many sign their names while others leave an inspiring slogan. In the image above alone you can read “Build legacies, not walls”; “It is easier to take a life than protect a life – decide you for peace!”; “A wish for peace, a hope for understanding, a belief in love”; “Don’t let the darkness consume you”; “Love lives longer than hate”; and so on. Bromides such as these have elicited the commentary in white from a local graffitist.

03203 2015-12-01 Hello My Name Is+

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X03202 X03203 fuck you NOTA none of the above TMN

Waked & Buried

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02855 2015-08-26 DevineRathkeele+

“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 [in Rathkeele Way, Derry], the family home of his sister Margaret. Also died 30th March 2005.” For an image of the open coffin within the house, see this An Phoblacht article. Here is a Guardian interview with Margaret (Devine) McCauley.

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Copyright © 2015 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X02855 INLA final last tenth hunger striker

We Must Share The Responsibility

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03247 2015-12-20 Common Sense+

UDA commander John McMichael was also secretary of the New Ulster Political Research Group (NUPRG), a think tank of the UDA/UFF. The group argued for an independent Northern Ireland (based in part on beliefs about a separate Ulster ethnic identity – see the Visual History page on Cú Chulainn) in two documents, 1979’s Beyond the Religious Divide and 1987’s Common Sense (available at CAIN), promoting the philosophy of ‘Ulster nationalism’, depicted here by the free-floating Northern Ireland. McMichael ran unsuccessfully for the Belfast South seat after the murder of Robert Bradford (see To Bathe The Sharp Sword Of My Word In Heaven).

“As John McMichael stated before his untimely death, we must share the responsibility for finding a settlement and share the responsibility of maintaining good government. He left us hope.”

Here’s a link to an image (from @conflictNI) of McMichael at the launch of Common Sense in 1987.

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Copyright © 2013 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X03247 X01585 [X01583] [X01584] [X01586] [X01587] lemberg st

He Sowed That We Might Reap

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02871 2015-08-26 SeanDolanSociety+

The Derry branch of the 1916 Societies (Fb) is named after Sean Dolan, an IRA volunteer interned at the outbreak of WWII on the prison ship Al Rawdah (WP | saoırse32) before being moved to Crumlin Road gaol. He was released on grounds of ill health shortly before dying in 1941 at age 28 in Derry. The title of today’s post comes from Dolan’s gravestone, which is in Ardmore (findagrave).

It was the 1916 Societies that hoisted an Irish tricolour from the roof of Stormont in June 2015 (BBC).

The wide shot below shows the 1916 board next to a Fıanna roll of honour and an IRSP O’Hara-McCreesh hunger-strikers memorial (see Socialist Volunteers).

02869 2015-08-26 RacecourseRdWide+

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X02871 X02869 racecourse rd derry