Here are two images of the remnants of a poster left over from January’s Bloody Sunday March, one from Creggan with a “Boycott Israeli goods” stencil, the second from the Bogside.
US Americans go to the polls today to choose between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton for President (as well as many House and Senate elections). The poster above (in a shop window in Royal Avenue) offers some radical advice: “Nobody will keep election promises. Nobody will represent you. Nobody will help you. Nobody cares! If Nobody is elected things will be better for everyone!”
The bus turnaround at the entrance to Taughmonagh estate has been turned into a Somme Garden (see the third image, below). The “Welcome to Taughmonagh” sign at entrance has been covered over with a Union flag board with “Taughmonagh remembers” and the three figures in the sculpture in the middle have each been given a union jack cap.
Writing has appeared alongside the “Show No Mercy Expect None Back” mural in Ballyclare. On one side : “We will never accept [was originally “except” but this was quickly changed] a united Ireland – Feriens Tego [the UFF motto]” and “Now entering loyalist Erskine/Rashee Park – Quis separabit [the UDA motto]” and on the other: “Ballyclare heartland of south east Antrim – Simply the best [used with both UDA and UFF]”
The final image is from July, when the wall had been ‘booked’ for the UDA.
On the side of the hair salon on the lower Shankill: an array of flags and a board “in glorious memory” to the 36th (XXVI) Ulster division: Somme, Messines, ypres, Cambrai, Thiepval, Somme (1918), St Quentin, Lys, Courtrai
The night before he was executed for his part in the Easter Rising, republican leader James Connolly (5.6.1888-12.5.1916) penned a brief statement calling the British presence in Ireland “a usurpation and a crime against human progress” and declaring “The British government has no right in Ireland, never had any right in Ireland, never can have any right in Ireland”. Here are two images of Free Derry corner with Connolly’s quote, including The Petrol Bomber by the Bogside Artists and and “SFRY” (Sinn Féin Republican Youth) banner on the railings.
“The Memorial Plaque (Death Penny [or Dead Man’s Penny]) was issued after the First World War to the next of kin of all British and Empire Service personnel who were killed as a result of the war.” The “penny” was in fact five inches in diameter and cast in bronze. It showed Britannia with a trident and two dolphins swimming around her, and a lion on oak, along with the name of the deceased (here, Ronald Mitchison) without indication of rank. (Here is a close-up of a plaque from WP.) The board shown above contains other information about WWI, centrally including the statement that “The 16th Irish Division, the Connaught Rangers [7th battalion] and the Irish Rifles [7th battalion], all fought side-by-side throughout World War I.”