“Ulster Day” is September 28th, the day in 1912 that the Ulster Covenant was signed, pledging to use any means necessary to defend “our cherished position in the United Kingdom” and defeat Home Rule. The first signatory was Edward Carson. The Ulster Volunteers were subsequently formed in January, 1913.
Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2017 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X04680 donegall rd
The story of the lead image is told in the images below. First, Paul Doran and Mark Ervine paint a mural of two “Chuckle Babies” (images 2 and 3 – see also Mark’s baby for Hit The East) between Imagine and the Frederick Douglass mural with its recently Xed out Aung San Suu Kyi and obscured by the recently-painted lower gates of the war wall (a.k.a “peace” line) on Northumberland Street (image 4).
Secondly, the mural is covered in French posters from the 1970s – which visitors were encouraged to sign and leave messages on – as “Act 1” of the No Walls project involving KRM (Cherif and Geza, a couple from France and Germany), Paul Doran, and Londoner John Costi, and which also included an exhibition in the Titanic museum (pdf of the full project).
Some of the posters and writing were ripped off (to be used in Act 2) on the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall in 1989 (video at the Irish News) to reveal again the babies (final image).
Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2017 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X04643 X04588 X04651 X04642 1000 words
Year 10 GCSE student Terri Nıc Poılín imagines what the view would be like if the “peace wall” were removed, using cardboard as a canvas. The piece was part of the Coláıste Feirste art show in An Chultúrlann.
Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2017 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X04553 X04552
This is a 32 County Sovereignty Movement (32CSM) poster from west Belfast, asking people to “Dismantle partition – reject British rule”. The organisation describes itself as “a republican pressure group”. The Belfast cumann (Fb | web) is named after Wolfe Tone and Henry Joy McCracken (of the 1798 Rebellion).
Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2017 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X04507
We go beyond the North for today’s post: November 2014 protests over water charges (and austerity measures in general) in Tallaght, Dublin blocked in Deputy Prime Minister Joan Bruton’s car for 2.5 hours (some video | broader account). A teenager was convicted of false imprisonment but conditionally discharged in 2016 (Irish Times). The placard shown above relates to the trial of a first group of (adult) protesters, including TD Paul Murphy, at the end of June, 2017 which ended in their acquittal – which led to an internal inquiry by Gardaí of their handling of the case. Yesterday, charges were dropped against the remaining accused. For yesterday’s events see journal.ie; for a timeline, see the JobstownNotGuilty site.
Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2017 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X04265
The inspiration for the new installation outside Coláıste Feırste entitled “Athbheochan” (“renewal”) is the area’s previous life as the site of spinning mills, established in the 1800s to take advantage of local rivers (Forbaırt Feırste). The Bog Meadows nature reserve down beside the M1 is the only part of the Blackstaff’s flood plain that remains in an undeveloped state.
The launch was on August 11th during Féıle by Maırtín Ó Muılleoır, but the piece is also part of Irish-language festival Lıú Lúnasa (tw | web) which is going on this week. Artist Aodán Monaghan can be seen on the left in the final image of kids climbing all over the artwork.
Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2017 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X04407 X04405 X04408
Here are the first three pieces from the Bloomfield Avenue end of last weekend’s Hit The East street art festival. Above is a quartet of elephants by Falko One (Tw | Inst | Fb). (He painted elephants in other places, too.)
Below is printmaker Leo Boyd mounting his poster ‘This Machine Kills Machines’. (Lots of previous work by Leo.) The finished work also included ‘Turn Off, Tune Out’.
Next to that is work by Dublin artists ESTR (Emmalene Blake web) and Lanni Powder (ig).
(The next piece in the alley is one by Esther O’Kelly.)
Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2017 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X04355 [X04356] [X04357] X04358
X12993 X12994
X04391
X04392
“Hungerstrike & North West Volunteers Commemoration. 1:30 pm Sunday 21st May, Rosemount Factory, Derry.” The march will go from Rosemount to City Cemetery (Derry Journal).
IRSP placard on railings in Foyle Road, Derry
Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2017 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X04344
The Boyne Bridge joins Durham Street and Sandy Row. Translink plans to demolish the bridge to make way for a new Transport Hub costing 150 million pounds. The Boyne Bridge Defenders (web | Fb) are organising a petition against it on the basis of the bridge’s age (parts of it were built in 1642) and long history. More info from the Tele.
Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2017 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X04319
Tyres for the Conway Street/Cupar Way bonfire were removed from the site in June (Belfast Live | image at Alternatives) but some might have recently been put in the middle (Belfast Media). In any case, there are still plenty of pallets, not to mention Sinn Féin election posters featuring Alex Maskey, John Finucane, and Michelle O’Neill, as well as the flag of ISIS, and IRA and INLA lettering.
Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2017 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X04278 X04277 road closed
Extramural Activity 