And The Cry Was “Keine Kapitulation”

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The third (and surely not the final?) season of the popular UK drama Brexit is keeping people guessing. This week, it looks like Boris might betray the ever-loyal Arlene and agree a Northern Ireland-only backstop with EU before time runs out on October 31st. In Belfast, lower Shankill residents are not amused by this potential turn of events and have invoked the classic “No surrender!” catch-phrase from 1688’s Siege Of Derry, painted on the wall between the security gates dividing Catholic and Protestant west Belfast. (Just kidding, of course; this is serious stuff. But the twists and turns are worthy of a telenovela. As Belfasters have always said, “If you’re not confused, you don’t know what’s going on.”)

Other recent messages below the Imagine mural: Victory To Isreal | Your Wall, Your Border

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Pola Negri

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Polish actress Pola Negri (born Apolonia Chałupec) was the first European actor to be given a long-term contract by the Hollywood movie industry, becoming its first ‘femme fatale’. She was signed to Paramount Pictures and starred in 20 silent movies between 1923 and 1928, before moving back to Europe (WP). She is paid the tribute of a Belfast electrical box painting by KVLR (tw | Fb).

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Break Free, Belfast

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New graffiti art – artist unknown – at the bottom of loyalist Conway Street, next to the Cupar Way “peace” line.

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Derry, Aughrim, Enniskillen, And Ardoyne

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Martin Meehan joined the IRA in 1966 and was one of a few IRA volunteers defending Catholics in Ardoyne (Ard Eoın) in August 1969. Rioting did not cease there until the 16th, when British troops were finally deployed to the Crumlin Road to block mobs coming from the Woodvale and Shankill. Meehan resigned after the failure of the IRA to defend Ardoyne, Clonard, and Divis. This Magill article from the time summarises the IRA’s actions as “late, amateur and uncertain”. (Meehan would later rejoin the IRA and PIRA.)

After a few years honoring Seán McCaughey (see Chains And Bonds Have No Part In Us), Martin Meehan’s image (along with an RNU phoenix) is back on the Ardoyne Avenue gable that bears his plaque. The title of this entry post is based on the song “The Night We Burnt Ardoyne“.

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Pat And Dan Duffin

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The IRA shot dead two members of the British Auxiliaries, Ernest Bolan and John Bales, in Donegall Street in Belfast city centre on April 23rd, 1921. Just before midnight, Pat and Dan Duffin were shot to death by men who entered their Clonard home.

Another brother, John, was upstairs and not harmed and when he approached the scene he found not only his dead brothers but the station dog of the Springfield Road RIC barracks (“GB Kenna“, real name Fr John Hassan).

DeValera led the funeral cortège along the Falls. Joe Devlin would include the Duffin murders in a Westminster speech in June, following the killings in a single night of Alexander McBride, Malachy Halfpenny, and William Kerr (Hansard). The RIC in west Belfast under CI Harrison, DI Nixon, and in this case DI Ferris (Aiken et al.), would continue their killings into 1922 – see The RIC Murder Gang.

“In memory of volunteers Pat and Dan Duffin, murdered by the RIC in their home at 64 Clonard Gardens 23rd April 1921. Erected the by the Greater Clonard Ex-Prisoners Association.”

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Stormont Can’t Deliver

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“Stormont can’t deliver” is a campaign from Lasaır Dhearg (web | tw) with an emphasis on social issues such as child poverty and public housing, to be addressed by a 32-county socialist republic.

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Sydenham For Jesus

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“This is a neighbourhood watch area”, says the small sign sandwiched between the UVF East Belfast battalion flag and the “Jesus is alive” placard.

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Loyalist Prisoners Of War

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This UVF LPOW mural in Inverary Drive, east Belfast, probably dates back to the years after the Agreement, when the release of prisoners from both sides was being implemented between 1998 and 2000. That would make the mural about 20 years old.

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Cui Cui

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A budgie sings in overgrown Donegall Square (friends with a toucan and a dove) – work by STO (ig) next to restaurant 44 Hill Street.

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End Apartheid

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15 year-old Fıan Gerald McAuley was the first member of the IRA to die in the Troubles. He was shot in Waterville Street by a loyalist sniper while helping people move from burned-out homes in Bombay Street, along which the “peace” line separating the Falls and Shankill now runs, overlooking the Clonard Memorial Garden, site of the service for the 50th anniversary of McAuley’s death. In the windows of a nearby house we also see a poster in support of Palestine and a Bobby Sands-Che Guevara hurl.

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