This is the notice-board outside Cathedral Youth Club in Londonderry’s Fountain area (in August), inviting passers-by to express their loyalty in a ‘Relief of Derry fry’ – an Ulster fry with tea, coffee, or juice – to raise money for MacMillan Cancer Support.
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Copyright © 2015 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X02846 it’s a knockout summer activities big breakfast
A suggested cure for the winter-time blues, in waste ground off Milner Street: We need a bonfire. The pink plastic Barbie-mobile is not the best fuel.
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Copyright © 2015 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X03159 truck child’s toy barbie
This haloed madonna is Sandra Nestor (Twitter page with image on which the mural is based), a friend of street artist Dermot McConaghy or “DMC” (Fb), painted for CNB15. The piece is more than three storeys tall. It replaces last years Culture Night mural by DMC: We All Skream. DMC was the subject of a recent short film called Outsider by Rua Meegan and Owen Farrell.
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Copyright © 2015 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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In early August the RNU blacked out an Ard Eoın Kickhams GAA mural in Ardoyne (featured previously) and replaced it with a tarp calling for the RUC/PSNI to be disbanded (see this Belfast Live article for an image). After complaint from the local community, the tarp was removed and the central part of the mural was repainted, showing the celtic cross of Cumann Lúthcleas Gael, a football, sliotars, and hurleys. Members of the RUC were forbidden from GAA membership until “Rule 21” (WP) until 2001; they are now permitted to join and play Gaelic games, even if they not welcome in the area – see the image below.
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Copyright © 2015 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X02758 X03138 founded 1907 MI5 british army not welcome in this area gaelic athletic association GAA CLG
Here are three shots of the new Blaze Fx (web | Fb) “Belfast Giants” mural in east Belfast’s Lord Street. The Giants have been Belfast’s ice-hockey team for the last fifteen years, beginning in 2000. The detail above shows mascot Finn MacCool and the image of the full mural, below, includes the team motto, the (a)politically-motivated “In the land of the giants, everyone is equal.” The mural takes the place of a UDA mural (featured previously, Feriens Tego; see also the second info board, below, on “the re-imaging of Lord Street 2012-2015”) and is one of three large murals and various small murals to be replaced or painted out. (This News Letter article puts the total at nine.)
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Copyright © 2015/2017 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X03112 X03164 X03162 ice hockey stick jersey mobile phone go foam finger cheering taking picture skates X03370 junior and senior teams local media likes mark morrison nathan clements bradley scott kaitlyn morrison X04481
In the video profile included below, Keith Boe (Fb) expresses a wish to participate in CNB and for this year’s celebration he brought his “creepy stuff” to a car park in Kent Street in the form of skeletal head with a threateningly long tongue.
The artist of the boy statue below is unknown; perhaps JMK.
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Copyright © 2015 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X03060 X03062 skeleton face eyeball red culture night belfast mural streetart kjboe
Twenty-year-old William Frederick McFadzean from Lurgan won the Victoria Cross for throwing himself on top of a crate of hand grenades that fell into his trench on July 1st (WP), the first day of the battle of the Somme; July 1st and 2nd would see 5,000 of his comrades from the 36th (Ulster) Division killed or wounded. The portrait on which the image is based can be seen at CultureNI.
Here’s a recording of the song composed in his honour:
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Copyright © 2015 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X02867 36th Ulster Division (109 Brigade) 9th October 1895 – 1st July 1916 for valour for god and ulster UVF YCV ulster volunteer force young citizen volunteers
Here are three boards in Derry focused on HMP Maghaberry. The high security prison holds 1,000 prisoners and segregates loyalists and republicans, a situation described as “a festering sore” in a recent inspection. (Tele) Republicans say that the current crisis overlooks existing issues such as controlled movement and strip searches. (Irish News)
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Copyright © 2015 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X02822 X02821 X02819 justice for political prisoners end forced strip search in defence of the nation 32 county sovereignty movement IRPWA irish republican prisoner welfare association barbed wire
Here are the six posters created by Leo Boyd to accompany a poem by Nathaniel McAuley for CNB15. Four are photographs taken in situ; two others are from Leo’s instagram.
A City-wide Initiative
for the [mass] Production
of Lemons
Instead,
the city plants
for lemons.
Big men wail hammers
parting the streets
in search of earth
seeds grow in
the cupped hands
of patient children
and shoot
from inside pockets
out of sleeves and collars.
Every hole in the wall
is over-packed
with knots of root.
Within the year
the luminescent
cache of fruit
is promised
to be vast enough
to displace night.
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Copyright © 2015 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X03016 X03047 X03019c X03019 Belfast Harbour Commission for the Culture Night Almanac
The board above, on Derry’s Racecourse Road, commemorates two hunger-strikers from Derry, Patsy O’Hara and Michael Devine, both members of the INLA; the third INLA hunger-striker was Kevin Lynch, from nearby Dungiven. The seven others who died were members of the IRA, whose political wing was Sınn Féın, while the Irish Republican Socialist Party, who sponsored this board, serves as the political face of the INLA.
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Copyright © 2015 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X02757 irish republican army IRSP páırtí poblachtach sóısıalach na héıreann plough stars red star raised Armalite vol bobby sands francis hughes ray mccreesh joe mcdonnell martin hurson kieran doherty tom mcelwee belfast armagh tyrone
Extramural Activity 