The Terror, Threats, And Dread

Extramural Activity3 Comments

Kipling’s 1912 poem Ulster is not often quoted in loyalist muraling, despite it being an angry denunciation of Home Rule and the sacrifice of loyalists, as in the lines quote here: “The blood our fathers spilt/Our love, our toils, our pains/Are counted us for guilt/And only bind our chains./Before an Empire’s eyes/The traitor claims his price./What need of further lies?/We are the sacrifice. … The terror, threats, and dread/In market, hearth, and field/We know, when all is said./We perish if we yield.” Specifically, the sacrifice is six North Antrim/Londonderry UDA volunteers: Lindsay Mooney, Cecil McKnight, Ray Smallwoods, Benny Redfern, Gary Lynch, William Campbell. (See also: a RHC mural in the Shankill with a few lines from the poem.)

Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2019 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X06660 X06659 Carnany estate, Ballymoney

To Be Continued

Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

Castlebrooke Investment’s Tribeca Belfast team have revealed(!) dates for a new plan and public consultation on their redevelopment project in the “triangle beside the cathedral”/North East Quarter/Royal Exchange. Here is Save the Cathedral Quarter’s description of the problems with the previous plan. In response to feedback, it seems the new plan will reduce the tower from 27 to 10 storeys and retain a redeveloped North Street arcade, among other changes (BelTel).

Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2018 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X04891

Welcome To The Shankill Road

Extramural Activity1 Comment

This is the new ‘Welcome To The Shankill (Road)’ mural in Gardiner Street, which replaces the one that had been there since (at least) 2009 (see Welcome To The Shankill).

The mural is a version of the old Beverley Street ‘welcome’ mural (by Blaze FX), with the same four panels (parades/bonfire, blitz, sports, murals) and the same three hands. But instead of “Proud, Defiant, Welcoming” we now have “Proud, Resilient, Welcoming”. (I Am Not Resilient in the lower Shankill complains that the word is used to justify neglect and/or maltreatment.)

It escaped no one’s notice that, although the number of languages expressing a greeting is now much greater than the original ten, Irish is not included among them. Also Ulstèr Scots. (Also French, for some reason. Polish is included – “Witamy”). (See similarly “No Irish” in the lower Shankill estate but also All Flags Are Welcome in Divis, which omitted the Union Flag.)

The claim that the Shankill area dates back to AD 455 is used in The Original Belfast. The claim was made by the Greater Shankill Partnership.

Despite the appearance of bricks, the main panel is not in fact a mural but a board.

Held over from the old mural are the two strips of ‘famous faces’ on the left and right (see below).

Images of the July 10th launch from sponsors Alternatives.

Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2019 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X06703 X06704 X06705 SignLink NI with local youth; norman whiteside baroness may blood william conor henry montgomery wayne mccullough jimm wornock james cunningham johnny mcquade

Virtute Et Opera

Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

Clifton House was originally opened in 1774 as a poor house run by the Charitable Society. The extensions were badly needed by the growing city when they were opened in 1872 (BCS). The funding came from brothers Edward and George Benn. “This and the corresponding wing were erected by Edward Benn Esq. of Glenravel House and presented to the Belfast Charitable Society 1872.” Glenravel estate was in the Antrim glens; there used to be a Glenravel Street just west of Clifton House (where the motorway now is).

Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2019 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X06641

UVF Band 50th Anniversary

Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

The UVF Regimental Band (tw) this year celebrates its 50 anniversary with a banner in My Lady’s Road. For the 50th anniversary mural, see They Said We’d Never Last. See previously: 40th anniversary banner at the site of the mural – Belvoir Bar. The view is from Roseberry Road.

Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2019 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X06693 X06692

Pinky And The Brain Share A New Domain

Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

Arlene Foster (Pinky) and Michelle O’Neill (The Brain) in the grasp of Theresa May (Elmyra Duff). The two genetically modifed mice are hell-bent on world domination but being only mice lack the power to implement their plans. Elmyra is obsessed with pets while being oblivious to their needs (WP), an allegory for what Brexit is doing to Northern Ireland politics. Mural by Paul Doran, Mark Ervine, and Naomi Ervine in the no man’s land between the security gates on Northumberland Street. With sponsorship from Springboard Opportunities (tw | Fb).

Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2019 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X06508 X06509

Idols Of The Tribe

Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

A holy trinity of Liverpool FC flag, the west Belfast “peace” line, and the Blessed Virgin Mary. Finn Square, Belfast.

Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2019 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X06645

The Octopus’s Garden

Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

Watery work by NOL (Fb | tw) for HTN 2019 in Kent Street (replacing the Kryat Dragon).

Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2019 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X06681

It’s Fun In The Sun

Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

Ian Paisley Jr’s foreign trips were back in the limelight in June with a new Spotlight investigation into their funding (BBC iPlayer). This time, the allegation is that a government minister from the Maldives paid for a family holiday; last year, he was suspended from parliament over two trips funded by the Sri Lankan government. He is shown here taking video of Tamils killed (perhaps in 2009) by government forces, laid out on a beach in a row (the image of Paisley is in fact from 2007, at Stormont). Work (presumably) by TLO (web) in Garfield Street, Belfast.

Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2019 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X06667

Past, Present, For All Time

Extramural Activity2 Comments

The North Antrim/Londonderry UDA has existed in the “Past, present, for all time”, or at least from 1972 to 2016 (and into 2019). “The blood our comrades shed shall not have been in vain. We honour Ulster’s dead and staunch we will remain.” The same quotation was used in Cloughfern.

Carnany estate, Ballymoney

Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2019 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X06661