Extramural Activity

McCalmont Memorial

2017-09-102017-09-10Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

King Billy’s sword is tipped in blood, and he rides below a shamrock, rose, and thistle, uniting the kingdoms. Ballyclare Orange Hall is named after Hugh McCalmont, a major-general in the British Army Ulster Unionist MP for North Antrim in 1895. His Whiteabbey house was burned down by suffragettes in 1914 because it was used as a training ground by the UVF of the anti-franchise Carson.

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text: X04455 X04454 rashee rd

Bank Street

2017-09-082017-09-09Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

The old Bank Street (looking towards St Mary’s, Chapel Lane) is recreated in a new mural outside Manny’s fish and chips, though with some liberties taken. (Here is the street in 1915 and in 1924.) Kelly’s Cellars, for example, is where Bittles Bar is shown; Bittles Bar was the flatiron building on Victoria Street, recently sold.

Landmarks such as City Hall, the Titanic Centre, the H&W cranes, and An Chultúrlann are included. On the right side of the mural (see the wide shot, below) three murals are included: the one outside Madden’s Bar, the one on the West Belfast Taxi terminal and the Star Of The Sea mural at the bottom of Divis that hasn’t existed since about 2000 (you can see a pic in Tony Crowley’s collection).

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text: X04413 X04412

Whispering Winds Why Do You Weep?

2017-09-072017-09-07Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

IRA volunteer Francis Liggett was shot dead by the British Army during an attempted armed robbery at Royal Victoria Hospital, Falls Road in 1973 (Sutton) while local Sinn Féin member Paddy Brady was shot by the UFF while at work in 1984 (Sutton | An Phoblacht). They are commemorated in the St James memorial garden with the board shown above, featuring two verses from Bobby Sands’s poem Weeping Winds:Oh, Whispering [Whistling, in the original] winds why do you weep/When roaming free you are,
Oh! Is it that your poor heart’s broke/And scattered off afar?
Or is it that you bear the cries/Of people born unfree,
Who like your way have no control/Or sovereign destiny?
Oh! Lonely winds that stalk [walk] the night/To haunt the sinner’s soul/
Pray pity me a wretched lad/Who never will grow old.
Pray pity those who lie in pain/The bondsman and the slave
And whisper sweet the breath of God/Upon my humble grave.

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text: X04398

May You Live As Nobly As They Died

2017-09-062017-09-06Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

Strandtown and District Unionist Club used to be at 4 Belmont Road (Strandtown Hall) and it erected this memorial to local casualties in the Great War in Portland stone on the adjacent wall,(Lord Belmont in NI) which is now part of a Christian Fellowship church. “Hereon are recorded the names of those men and women who in serving voluntarily their King and country, laid down their lives. Pass not this stone sorrow but in pride and may you live as nobly as they died.” The building currently houses Bennett’s On Belmont, a UUP headquarters, and the Victoria Ulster Unionist Association upstairs.

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text: X04434

Embrace Change Together

2017-09-052017-09-04Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

A mosque rises between Samson and Goliath, the Harland & Wolff cranes, while in the lower third, people of different races and nationalities share the same streets of terraced housing.

Here are pictures of the launch on August 21st, part of the Active Communities Network‘s ‘Walk The Walls‘ event.

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text: X04424 X04423 northumberland st esmée fairbairn foundation belfast city council

The Men From Ballyclare & District

2017-09-042017-09-04Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

On 20 August 1943, second pilot Sergeant John Erskine and the Liberator crew of seven others failed to return from a convoy patrol of the west of Ireland (59 Squadron). Erksine and 28 others from WWII (and one from the Korean War) are commemorated in a new mural in Erskine Park, Ballyclare. It’s not known if the street name is connected to Sergeant John.

The soldier in the centre of the mural wears the emblem of the Royal Ulster Rifles, Parachute Regiment on his cap. William Johnston 7018189 and George Williamson 7022501 are listed (on the right) as riflemen in airborne battalions of the RUR, but this appears to be a reproduction of an original painting of an RUR major.

Like the WWI Ballyclare & District mural, the UDA are on the side wall – see the wide shot, below.

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text: X04450 X04453 lest we forget in honoured memory life or service

Your Friends At The Corner

2017-09-022017-09-01Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

Here are two images of memorials dedicated to local residents without any apparent connection to politics. The picture above shows a painting of poppies on the garden wall of Susan Davidson’s house in Tigers Bay, Belfast. The image below is of a plaque in Creggan, London-/Derry/Doire to Billy and Shiela Quigley, who died in a car cash in 2004.

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text: X04345 X04339 Mervue St Central Dr

I May Be Homeless But I’m Human Too

2017-09-012017-09-01Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

An pedestrian walks across chalk writing and drawings in Dublin’s O’Connell Street, oblivious to its message asking for help and respect. “I may be homeless but Im human too, once I had a family and home like you, people judge me and look down, please help me get a bed tonight, where I will be safe and sound.”

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text: X04310

Beir Bua

2017-08-312017-08-30Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

“Seize victory”. This is the third in a small series of nail-ups in London-/Derry/Doire using “classic” imagery, in this case, the phoenix. (Here is a representative mural from 1989: Out of the ashes arose the Provisionals). Previously: Sniper At Work | Join The People’s Army.

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text: X04288

The Gravel Walks

2017-08-302017-08-30Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

Poet Seamus Heaney died on this day 2013 and the gravestone erected in St Mary’s, Ballaghy, on the same day the following year. The epitaph is “Walk on air against your better judgement” from the poem ‘The Gravel Walks” in The Spirit Level.

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text: X03931 1939-2013

	Colin Brady on The Seedy Side Of Town
	McBrearty – Maguire… on Freedom Fighter For The R…
	King Billy At The Bo… on Cemented With Love
	Anonymous on Hit The East
	Lower Falls Memorial… on History Carved In Stone

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