printed board/placard

1 Pill Will Kill

Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

Jamie Burns collapsed at the Queen’s Student Union last November after taking an ecstasy tablet. His parents, William and Lesley Burns, are at the forefront of a new drug awareness campaign, #1PillWillKill, which was launched on April 11th (UTv | Tele). The campaign includes this new board at the top of Twaddell Avenue, former site of the protest camp, where it is joined by two further boards urging people to send tips about drug dealing to the police.

“This artwork is dedicated in memory of Jamie Burns, 27 June 1993 – 20th November 2016. “We do not measure his life in years but by the endless love and joy he brought to us.” Officially unveiled on June 1st 2017 by Frank Mitchell and Vinny Hurrell. Commissioned by Unite The Union in recognition of the Burns family.”

Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2017 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X04184 X04185 X04183 X04182 returned home 4 days later in a coffin. today’s the day our only son leaves the only home he’s ever known such a waste of young life

A Hive Of Glass

Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

The Ulster banner with “Village – No surrender” in (UVF) orange-on-purple. For other small UVF boards in the Village, see  South Belfast Volunteers | Welcome To The Village | Village UVF | For God And Ulster.

Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2017 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X04190 X04191 lecale st

To The Memory Of One Million Dead

Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

These two wide shots are from the junction of Northumberland and Beverly streets, where the new Kitchener board joins poppies for soldiers of the the 36th (Ulster) Division on the 100th anniversary of the Somme and the (repaired) John Henry Patterson – godfather of the Israeli army – board.

Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2017 Extramural Activity
X04200 X04203

To All Foreign Nationals Across The Empire

Extramural Activity1 Comment

“Are you one of Kitchener’s own?” asks a new mural in Northumberland Street: “We here pay grateful and everlasting tribute, to all foreign nationals across the empire, who courageously and passionately fought side by side with their British counterparts, for King and country, during the First World War.” The left-hand side (second image) features images of soldiers from the West Indies and India, including “The Flying Sikh”, Hardit Singh Malik and a French lady as she “pins flowers on a regiment containing Muslims, Sikhs, and Hindus.” On the right, images of the “presentation of Colours to the 51st Battalion Canadian expeditionary force” and of Canadian “bluebird” nurses in the Canadian Army Medical Corps.

Replaces (part of) Welcome To The Shankill. See Belfast Live for an image from the launch.

Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2017 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X04199 X04201 X04202 India Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Newfoundland, and the Union of South Africa. one million dead in the great war rest in France “A la gloire de dieu et a la memoire du million de morts de l’empire britannique tombes dans la grande guerre 191401918 et qui pour la plupart reposent en France.” Greater Shankill ACT

Remembering Our Fallen

Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

Here’s the left-hand side of the UDA mural in Disraeli Street being launched today (June 3rd, 2017). As can be seen most clearly in the final, sideways-on, image, both pieces are a combination of printed poster and attached boards. Lines from Laurence Binyon’s poem For The Fallen of WWI are used: “They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old/Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun/And in the morning we shall remember them.”

Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2017 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X04167 X04166 X04169

Invictus

Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

Here is the main part of a new printed mural in the Woodvale area of west Belfast (to be officially launched on Saturday, June 3rd). It celebrates the creation of the Woodvale Defence Association as “Defenders of our community since 1969” which in 1971 merged with other associations to form the UDA, whose youth wing is the UYM (lower middle, “terrae filius” = “sons of the soil”) and which uses “UFF” (upper left, “feriens ego” = “attack to defend”) as a cover for military operation. The final emblem is of the LPA (Loyalist Prisoners’ Association, “quis separabit” = “none shall separate us”). The mural replaced by this one is in the bottom left, while the bottom right contains an image of Long Kesh in 1979. The main photograph is of a 1972 march on the Shankill.

For the side-wall, see Remembering Our Fallen.

Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2017 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X04167 disraeli st

Continuing Conflicts

Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

Here are two panels and a wide shot of the memorial garden in Frenchpark Street. Above is a verse from John McCrea’s In Flanders Fields. Below is a plaque “to the memory of all those Ulster men and women from the south Belfast area who died during the great wars 1914-18 and 1939-45, and to all those who have lost their lives during the recent troubles and continuing conflicts.”

Previously: They Gave A Lifetime

Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2017 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X04159 X04161 X04158

Fight For Your Rights

Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

The UK general election takes place Thursday week (June 8th). Here are two Sınn Féın boards, both at the junction of the Falls and Glen Roads (site of the former Andersonstown police station), the first featuring the image of Michelle O’Neill and exhorting people to “register to vote now!” (Claragh chun vótáıl anoıs) and the second a quote from Gerry Adams’s oration at the graveside of Martin McGuinness: “If you want freedom, go out and take it. Organise. Mobilise. Unite for rights” (Más saoırse atá uaıt, gabh amach agus beır greım uırthı. Eagraıgh, gríosaıgh, troıd ar son do chearta.) A copy of Latuff’s Ireland-Palestine hunger-striker solidarity cartoon (which he also painted as a mural in Northumberland St) has been added to Michelle’s lapel.

Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2017 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X04136 X04137

It’s OK To Talk

Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

Fifteen football teams from west and north Belfast are involved in a new Suicide Awareness and Mental Health Initiative (SAMHI) in order to combat a recent increase in suicides, including two players from Belfast Celtic (BBC).

Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2017 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X04163

Free Marwan Barghouti

Extramural Activity1 Comment

Palestinian leader and secretary-general of Fatah during the 90s, Marwan Barghouti joined the Second Intifada (2000) and was arrested by Israeli forces in 2002 and sentenced to five life sentences for attacks by al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades. Barghouti laid out the rationale for the current hunger strike of 1,000 prisoners in a New York Times op-ed. He was reportedly caught eating in May.

Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2017 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X04149 IRPWA havana st solidarity with palestine free the hunger strikers