Pay the £5 “door tax” and you can attend the Fernhill Flute Band’s “Full night of loyalist culture” including “Blood And Thunder, Melody, DJ, disco, ballots, prizes, and more”.
(We’ll start posting images from that other culture night — #CNB16 — tomorrow.)
The Christian missionary Colm Cılle (in Latin, Columba), born in Donegal, founded a monastic settlement on the banks of the Foyle (then still part of Donegal) around 540 AD. The “Doıre” part of the name means “oak grove” and perhaps refers (as the information panel suggests) to “a sacred grove of trees, which may have pre-dated the monastery.” The mural above shows a reconstruction of the Derry monastery c. 700 AD. The name “Londonderry” dates to 1662.
Columba moved on to Scotland circa 563 and founded an abbey on the island of Iona. Among his reputed miracles is the banishment of a great water beast from the River Ness in 565.
“Is athchuthú é seo ar an mhainistir luath-Chríostaí i nDoıre thart ar 700 AD a bhunaigh Naomh Cholm Cıille thart ar 546 AD. D’fhág Colm Cille a phobal ı nDoıre thart ar 563 AD le dáréag eıle le mómhaınıstır oıleán Í a chur ar bun. Níor fhill sé go hÉıreann ach uaır amháın agus fuaır sé bás in AD 593. Cé gur bhunaigh Naomh Cholm Cille roınnt maınıstreacha eıle ı nÉırınn, shocrıgh sé ı nDoıre de réır cosúlachta go dtí gut ımıgh sé. Déanann an t-aınm ‘Doıre Cholmcılle’ tagaırt do dhoıre naofa, a bhí ann roımh an mhaınıstir.”
William III of England, commonly known as William of Orange, led his troops to victory on July 1st, 1690 at the Battle of the Boyne against the forces of James II, the deposed English monarch and the father of his wife. The Williamite campaign began with successful resistance against the Siege of Derry in 1689 and James’s final defeat came a year later on July 12th, at Aughrim.
Lıú Lúnasa is an Irish language festival, held this year on 24-28 August. The mural above shows rocks taken from the wall separating Palestine and Israel being used to build a gaelscoıl (an Irish-language school). The mural was painted by Jımí Mac Fhlannchadha.
The repainting of the Mountjoy ‘Breaking The Boom‘ in the Siege Of Derry is the second of three recent works in the Waterside. (The first of the three to be featured was City Of Temperance.) The work has been retitled ‘The Brave Thirteen’ and extended to include the closing of the gates by 13 Apprentice Boys, whose surnames are given here as Sherrard, Morrison, Steward, Campsie, Cunninghman, Sherrard, Conningham, Cairns, Hunt, Crookshannks, Irwin, Harvy, Spire (for first names and alternate spellings, see Apprentice Boys).
The four banners shown above are on the front of the Rebels’ Rest in west Belfast: “Cothaıgh meon na saoırse/Nurture the spirit of freedom”, “Decolonise your mind”, “Welcome to west Belfast, poverty capital of the six counties”, and (visible below) “PSNI/MI5/British Army not welcome in this area” (one of several of these boards placed in various republican areas – the one at the end of the International Wall is included below). For previous stencils from 2014, see The Rebel’s Rest.
The covenant was signed in September 1912 (as captured in another famous image from Belfast’s City Hall — see Betting Office). The mural above uses the text of the Covenant as a backdrop to a composite of Edward Carson speaking and a row of Ulster Volunteers, formed in January 1913 (see the similar mural First World War).
Alain Miossec/Murals Irlande Du Nord has a post comparing this painted version with the previous plastic version, which is almost identical, apart from Stormont as a backdrop rather than the text of the Covenant.
The third panel of three new paintings outside Casement Park continues the quote in the second, both coming from the end of Casement’s speech during his trial on charges of treason against the UK. “It is only from the convict these things [i.e. human rights] are withheld, for crime committed and proven and Ireland, that has wronged no man, has injured no land, that has sought no dominion over others — Ireland is being treated today among the nations of the world as if she were a convicted criminal. If it be treason to fight against such an unnatural fate as this, then I am proud to be a rebel, and shall cling to my “rebellion” with the last drop of my blood.”
The speech was unsuccessful; Casement was hanged in Pentonville prison, England on Augst 3rd, 1916.
Since 1982 (and perhaps earlier) Beechmount Avenue in west Belfast has been known as “RPG Avenue”, after the rocket-propelled grenade launchers used by the IRA. The tarpaulins shown in the first two images (from a recent dedication at the memorial garden across the street) here recall the 80s, with images of armed volunteers and of the support for the blanket men and hunger strikers from “Beechmount/Iveagh H Block-Armagh Committee”.
The first (above) was previously used in 2001 – see J1054. The final image, taken in June of this year, shows that the street still retains its unofficial name and also gives the names of various volunteers from A Coy, 2nd Battalion, including Pat McGeown, a hunger striker whose family intervened when he lapsed into a coma, and who was elected to Belfast City Council in 1993 and died in 1996 of a heart attack.