Alice Pasquini (web | Fb | ig | tw) from Rome, Italy, took part in this year’s CNBX/HTN18. She describes her Donegall Street piece with a quote from Italo Calvino: “Take life lightly, for lightness is not superficial, but gliding above things, not having weights on your heart”.
To the right is David Creative’s Nosey Cat.
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Copyright © 2018 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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The mythical basilisk is able to kill its foes with a glance, but this one – painted by Swiss artist Sonic Oner (Fb) for Culture Night/Hit The North – fights its eagle prey with the barbed name of his creator.
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Danni Simpson (web | ig) is a world-travelling Australian who has settled (for now?) in Belfast. Between trips abroad, she painted the piece below back in May for Wardrobe Jam near CS Lewis Square in east Belfast (Andrew Stewart has a gallery of pics of the wardrobes being painted) – the two lions’ heads on the corner walls are intended to look like wings – and for Culture Night 2018 she painted more wings, this time on the hoarding around the demolished 100-year-old buildings in North Street (Belfast Live | BelTel).
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Here are six panels from the shops in the Westwinds estate in Newtownards, which have replaced a UVF mural (Help Us To Help You).
Little is known about the omnibus called “The Pride Of Ulster”, except that this picture shows it at Newtownards Railway Station, Victoria Avenue, c. 1920. SAS soldier and boxer (and rugby-player) Blair “Paddy” Mayne, DSO, is portrayed in the second panel. (For more, see these posts about Mayne from 2013 and 2014.).
On the other side of the Ulster Banner in the centre is a WWII Douglas Dakota C-47, specifically “FZ692 of No. 233 Squadron, around the D-Day period in 1944. This aircraft, which was named “Kwicherbichen” by her crews, was involved in Para-dropping operations on the eve of D-Day and subsequently in re-supply and casualty evacuation missions into and out of forward airfields in the combat areas” (RAF).
Motorcyclist Joey Dunlop is on the far right (see Race Of Legends), and above them all is a WWI board from the 1st Newtownards Somme Society (based in the Somme museum in Conlig?).
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Keep On Truckin’ is a famous one-page 1968 comic by R. [Robert] Crumb, and the first panel in particular has become iconic. Dublin artist ADW (Fb | ig | tw) has adapted it here to show four spray-can street artists, each a different colour, truckin’ along.
Previously from ADW: Born To Create | Keep ‘Er Lit | Labelz Are For Jars
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Emmalene Blake (web | Inst | tw) painted her biggest piece to date for this year’s CNBX/HTN18, in support of same-sex marriage in Northern Ireland – it was approved in November 2015 but was blocked by a DUP petition of concern; the DUP now has only 28 seats but any new legislation is stalled by the current lack of a local parliament. The (Westsminster) Commons is scheduled to take up the matter on Friday (October 26th) for a second time – the bill was blocked in May (BelTel).
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Three members of the Miami Showband were killed in 1975 at a fake check-point set by members of the UVF’s Glennane Gang. The explosion during the incident did not kill the musicians (as the graffiti on the poster above in loyalist east Belfast suggests); they were shot. Rather, a bomb exploded prematurely as it was being planted on their van, killing two of the attackers – see Boyle & Somerville – prompting the shooting spree (WP) that left three of the five band-members dead.
For the mural in the background, see Please Pay Here.
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Copyright © 2018 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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This post updates a 2017 one (Always A Little Further) from Whitehill, Bangor, with the addition of “1912 UVF” between the two “East Belfast UVF” boards, suggesting a softening of message. Similarly, a long “Ulster Volunteer Force” has been blacked out directly across the street.
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Copyright © 2018 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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The ‘Golden Hare’ is a leucistic (WP) or albino (WP) hare (sources differ), with lighter fur than typical Irish hares. They are found on Rathlin island (Hare Preservation Trust) and now – in artistic form – in Belfast’s city centre, as painted by Birmingham artist Annatomix (tw | web | Fb) for CNBX/HTN18.
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Copyright © 2018 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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London artist Real1 (web | ig) in Kent Street, Belfast. Replaced in 2019 by KinMx.
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Copyright © 2018 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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Extramural Activity 