“Suicide awareness and mental health initiative – Larne, stronger together.” With contact information for Extern (web), Lifeline (web), Childline (web), Samaritans (web). Possibly connected to Stronger Together NI (Fb).
Although only Bond’s Place now retains the apostrophe, all of the “Bond” placenames in the Waterside (Bond’s Place, Bonds/Bond’s Street and Bonds/Bond’s Hill) are named after the Bond family, one of whom – William – was a United Irishman (Derry Journal). Bond’s Field is the site of the former Ebrington factory – home to Young & Rochesters shirt factory (Smart Tour) – and now part of the Ebrington complex (Scrivener). Four other Ebrington institutions are included in this Ebrington Street mural: Ebrington Primary school (web) which was originally at the end of Roulston Avenue, Ebrington Presbyterian (web), the Waterside branch of the Royal British Legion (Fb), and (in the centre) Pages bakery, which is now the Ebrington Bake House (Fb).
Gertrude Star flute band (Fb) celebrated its 60th anniversary in 2021 and to mark the occasion this (2022) May, the two side-walls were painted with the emblems above and immediately below. For the mural, which was painted for the 50th anniversary in 2011, M08166.
For many years there were portraits of the hunger strikers (either the 10 deceased from 1981 or the 12 from the 70s and 80s) along the long wall in Bishop St Without – see 2009, 2004, and 1998 (before that time the wall was divided into a number of panels for a variety of republican imagery – see 1984 and 1982) but in the portraits – which were on boards – soon started coming off and over the next decade the wall began to fade and become covered in graffiti (as can be seen in Street View). For the 40th anniversary, the deceased hunger strikers were restored to the wall, as shown here: “40th anniversary of the 1980-1981 hunger strikes. Rededication of mural, by the Bogside and Brandywell Monument Committee.”
Brussels artist iota (ig) painted a mermaid in Larne, inspired by the local myth of Lí Ban (NI World), who was caught in nets in Larne Lough and baptised by Christian monks (WP).
With support from the Recovery Revitalisation Programme for town centres, administered here by Mid And East Antrim Borough Council (web) in consultation with Daisy Chain (tw), Seedhead Arts (ig), and FGB (ig).
There’s no official title to this set of overlapping masks by Shane O’Malley for HTN22. Shane’s piece replaces One Love Louis’s ‘Monkey’ from 2015. The five new pieces of wild-style that are also on the west side of Library Street are included below.
The Vault Artists’ car boot sale is this Sunday, from noon until five, in the car-park of their premises on Tower Street. The old Met building has served as a home for about 120 artists of all kinds since 2018 but they are now looking for new digs (Belfast Live) as early as March, 2023 – the site will be razed and turned into social and affordable housing. Here’s a 14-tweet thread on the impending move. Suggestions for new places are welcome, to future at vaultartiststudios.com.
The sale this weekend serves as a fund-raiser. The car-park is ringed by murals, including those included today, from FGB (ig) (the welder, mushroom, Oui Poutine, and Joy – with Rob Hilken), unknown (Show Some Love lettering, with “Love” having been painted over), NEUF and KVLR (ig) who painted the Lucha Libre wrestlers), and Leo Boyd (web) (L’Absurde and Belfast Kitty Hall).
? , ? , Ruth Cruthers, Kerrie Hanna, Hannah Smith, ?Ruth Cruthers?, Leo Boyd, Leo Boyd, Jonathan Brennan
(r) FGB, Rob Hilken, Sally O’Dowd
FGB, Dragoș Mușat, Conor McClure, ?Margaret Woods Moore? replacing an earlier Leo Boyd piece, FGB, Sally O’Dowd, Kerrie Hannah
The road in Glynn is painted with loyal emblems and slogans: on one side of a red hand in a six-pointed star, “God save our Queen” with the Union Flag, and on the other “No surrender – 1690” with the constituent flags of England (St George’s Cross), Scotland (St Andrew’s Saltire), and Ireland (St Patrick’s Cross). Above the road painting is the arch, on one side of which is the traditional King Billy and on the other a soldier (perhaps covering both WWI and the B Specials & UDR) standing in front of a cross.
The Bellevue steps lead from the Antrim Road to Floral Hall, which served as a concert and dance hall before closing in 1973 and since becoming dilapidated. There have been various plans and calls for redevelopment, even in the last five years (one | two | three) and there is a Facebook group dedicated to restoring Floral Hall, but nothing has happened. As the wide shot (below) shows, the famous steps too are overgrown; the facade at least has been painted with zoo animals, by London artist Irony (ig) (Belfast Media). The lion’s name is Quays (Zoo); the giraffe is called Ballyronan (BelTel); the flamingos’ names are unknown.
Extramural Activity 