Old graffiti doesn’t go away. It persists, witness to the aspirations and angers of years past.
Above, “Disband the RUC” in Bóthar Chaıtríona/St. Katharine’s, republican west Belfast. Below, “If the leaders are impotent… only the people can rise” – anarchist graffiti in Melrose Street and “B-Men not cowards” in Agnes St, Loyalist west Belfast. These are all late-2014 pictures of graffiti that are at least three years old.
Two Scottish street artists, Conzo Throb from Glasgow and Elph from Edinburgh, combined to produce the street art above. It features Elph’s distinctive psychedelic landscapes with Conzo’s Taps Aff, with Terror Cheb protruding. (A wide shot is below.) They also each did an individual piece for CNB14: see previously Fill Up On Colour (Conzo Throb) and The Imaginarium (Elph) as well as Elph’s work for the Menagerie bar in The Piano Has Been Smoking and Eyes Wide Shut.
The fairy-tale covering painted over an LVF “North Belfast Rat Pack” mural is fading away to reveal the previous work. For the original LVF mural, see D01199.
The graffiti on the wall (see the third image, below, of the whole wall) – Welcome to LVF Land – has itself been scored out. There is also anti-LVF graffiti in the street.
In Belfast, we like to get our kids started early with drawing in the street – see the gallery of images from Jacqueline Wylie’s CNB14 Rainbow Crossing – and one of them even took to the wall in North Street.
This graffiti on the hoardings around the building-site at the top of Woodvale Road is in reference to the on-going dispute at Twaddell Avenue, which is just to the right of the PSNI land-rover in the right of frame – each night Orange bands march up to the police line, attempting to march past the Ardoyne shops and finish a parade from the Twelfth (of July) 2013.
Pastor James McConnell, who denounced Muslims as “satanists” back in May at the Whitewell Metropolitan Tabernacle, is finally seeking help, attending “Despots Anonymous” in the company of a Muslim, a Jew, and a Sikh. The group meets next door to 1690, home to a football-loving boy from a family of immigrants who are under attack because the housing is for “locals only” – see the final image for just such a graffito in Pine Way. The bottle of Buckfast preaches “Love thy neighbour as thyself”.
This is another part of Ciaran Gallagher’s (web) “Belfast Stripped Bare” piece in the Duke of York/Dark Horse courtyard. The wide shot, below, shows Carl “The Jackal” Frampton in an upstairs window. There’s also, above the piece, an accompanying poem by Alice McCullough, “Belfast You’re Melting My Head”, which you can watch her recite in front of the piece.
Wood (Crimes Of Loyalty p. 202) gives the following quote, reportedly a transcript of remarks made by Adams at a Sınn Féın meeting in Meath, as, “Ask any activist in the North, did Drumcree happen by accident, and he will tell you “No.”. Three years of work on the Ormeau Road, in Portadown, and parts of Fermanagh and Newry, Armagh, and in Bellaghy, and up in Londonderry [other sources, such as the Irish Times, give the much more likely “Derry”]. Three years of work went into creating that situation and fair play to those who put the work in. They are the type of scene chances we need to focus on and develop and exploit.”
Extramural Activity 