Coronavirus places ordinary people such as health-care workers and employees of essential businesses in extraordinary times. This new Mount Vernon mural thanks NHS staff by depicting them as supermen and -women in disguise.
The Royal Air Force was established on April 1st, 1918 and in 1925 the 502 (Ulster) Squadron was formed at Aldergrove as a Special Reserve squadron (and later as an Royal Auxiliary Air Force squadron). The squadron flew bombing raids against enemy submarines and ships during the second World War, from a succession of bases, including Limavady, Norfolk, Cornwall, and Stornoway (WP). (The plane depicted is perhaps a Halifax from later in the war. The officer depicted is perhaps Robert Oxland, the first commanding officer.) The mural above, in Main Road, Glynn, was unveiled on August 20th, 2018 (Roy Beggs) to commemorate the Force’s 100th anniversary.
Some communities, because of their previous piety, have the ear of the Lord, and need only pray when the Lord sends drought or locusts or pestilence in order to be granted relief (2 Chronicles 7: 14). This mural suggests that the people of Tiger’s Bay are one such people, but that they need to start praying if they want to be freed from the Coronavirus.
Three of the six Marines who raised an American flag on Iwo Jima in February 1945 – made famous by a photograph Joe Rosenthal – were killed in the battle. The soldiers in this new Glynn mural are planting the flag (a real flag) into a mass of coronavirus molecules, hopefully protected by their surgical masks and gloves. “NHS heroes. Sending a <heart> to all our key workers.”
All three of these murals in support of NHS staff and key workers – from the Waterside, Irish Street, and Caw areas of Londonderry – are the work of brothers Dee, Mark, and Peter Logan (Derry Now).
“In this together. No one left behind. Ireland thanks you.” Essential workers – “NHS – Store Workers – Call Centre Workers – Transport Workers – Factory Workers” – have carried on working for the last seven weeks despite the lockdown to slow the spread of the coronavirus.
“Victory to the workers. Victory to the NHS.” Republican graffiti from Lasaır Dhearg (tw) on the wall of the RVH, across the street from the NHS Blue post box. (And, in a different colour, “CIRA thanks NHS.”)
Letter-boxes in nationalist west Belfast have sometimes been painted green (e.g. 2016), though blue and not green is the official colour of Ireland. The box shown above, across from the Royal Victoria Hospital, is blue not for Ireland but in support of NHS workers during the coronavirus pandemic.
A home-made sign on cardboard “NHS – stay safe” has been attached to the mural to IRA volunteers Bobby McCrudden, Mundo O’Rawe, and Pearse Jordan, and the wall below it painted with the message “Stay home – Protect the NHS – Save lives”.
“We salute our key workers.” The Irish saying “Ar scáth a chéıle a mhaıreann na daoıne” means “the people abide in each other’s shadow”. This version of Free Derry Corner shows an NHS doctor and nurse in the shadow of a pair of wings, hence our title: “scıath” = wing or shield.