What’s most unusual here is the tree cross-section (or “tree disk”) (on the left) that has been decorated with a hooded gunman and the insignia of the (east Belfast) UVF and YCV – the final image shows a close-up.
“The uniform may have changed but the cause remains the same. Ulster Volunteer Force. Fallen, not forgotten.” There is a very close variant of this wording on a mural in Bowtown (Newtownards).
The career of Belfast blues/rock guitarist Rab McCullough spanned more than five decades, beginning with the formation of Baraka back in the 1970s, and included opening for Jimi Hendrix and a 20-year residency in the Empire. McCullough died in May (of 2021) after suffering a heart attack while swimming in Andersonstown leisure centre (BBC | BelTel | Belfast Media | Love Belfast). McCullough’s family is maintaining his Facebook page.
The mural was painted in Owenvarragh Park/Páırc Abhaınn Bhearach near his former home by Glen Molloy (ig). (Belfast Media)
“Higgy – simply the best.” 2022 is the 50th anniversary of Alex “Hurricane” Higgins’s first World snooker title as a 22-year-old qualifier, and the 40th anniversary of his second World title in 1982, watched by a television audience of almost 11 million people (WP). You can relive the 1982 world championship on youtube.
This mural is outside the Royal Bar on Donegall Road in Sandy Row, where Higgins grew up. “A true legend of Belfast.”
RTÉ has video of James Callaghan touring the Bogside (9m 40s onwards) in August 1969, during which the crowd sings We Shall Overcome, originally a hymn in the US but by 1969 the anthem of the civil rights movements around the world. The white handkerchief waved by Edward Daly ahead of four men carrying the body of Jackie Duddy on Bloody Sunday has become emblematic of the day, as it was shown on televsion coverage and in the Fulvio Grimaldi photograph that was used for the Bloody Sunday/Civil Rights mural next to Free Derry Corner.
“Maggie smoothes and folds/A white cotton handkerchief/For a priest’s pocket.//Women have laid out/Their menfolk’s prized Sunday best/For Mass and the march.//Flocking in chapel/A last communion wafer/Soft-melts on their tongues.//Under blue-crisp skies/Voices rise in unison – /We shall overcome.//Silent coffins weep/What was the price of protest?/Only everything – Rosaline Callaghan”
Painted by Peaball (Fb) in Rossville Street, Derry.
No Amnesty For British State Forces: “Democide is the murder of any person or people by a government, including genocide, politicide and mass murder. Democide is not necessarily the elimination of entire cultural groups but rather groups within the country that the government feels needs to be eradicated for political reasons and due to claimed future threats. – No amnesty for British state forces”
Bobby Sands/IRPWA: “I’ll wear no convict’s uniform/Nor meekly serve my time/That Britain might brand Ireland’s fight/800 years of crime” [Francie Brolly song] (IRPWA (web))
Free All Political Prisoners! (IRPWA)
1981: 1981: “I am a political prisoner. I am a political prisoner because I am a casualty of a perennial war that is being fought between the oppressed Irish people and an alien, oppressive, unwanted regime that refuses to withdraw from our land.” [Bobby Sands’s diary, day 1] (IRPWA)
Unity Referendum Now!: “British occupation has been a disaster for the people of Ireland. A united Ireland is the way forward for all the people of Ireland.” (IRSP.ie)
40th anniversary of the 1981 hunger strike: described previously in For A Socialist Republic (IRSM/IRSP)
The re-painted mural to plastic-bullet victim Julie Livingstone was rededicated this past Saturday (October 15th). For the previous mural, see 2010. “The Stolen Child – Come away, O human child/To the waters and the wild/With a faery hand in hand/For the world’s more full of weeping/Than you can understand… – WB Yeats.”
Here is a complete set of images from the Bogside end of the Brandywell. From left to right: “Nasc” by NOYS (ig) for Gasyard Féıle 2022, Long Tower Community Centre (see Brandywell Past And Present), a new “Brandywell” stencil by Peaball (ig), the Ryan McBride Foundation (tw), a new version of the Derry Brigade IRA mural (see previously Brıogáıd Dhoıre), Peaball and local youth at work, various pieces of wild-style writing and graffiti in support of Jason Ceulemans.
On July 21st, 1972 – Bloody Friday – 19 IRA bombs exploded in the course of an hour, killing 9, six of them at the Oxford Street bus station, including 15-year-old William Crothers from Parker Street in east Belfast who worked for Ulsterbus as a parcel-boy. The others were three more employess – William Irvine, Thomas Killops, and John Gibson – and two British Army soldiers – Stephen Cooper (32 Squadron) and Philip Price (Welsh Guards). (BBC | WP | Paper Trail | BBC documentary)
“In memory of the fallen Friday 21st July 1972 Oxford [Street] Bus Station Belfast. Lest we forget”
Extramural Activity 