East Meets West

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2015-01-13 Lenadoon2012Detail+

The Anti-Racism World Cup is a seven-a-side soccer tournament held annually at the grounds of Donegal Celtic in west Belfast. East Belfast artist John Stewart painted a mural of east Belfast imagery in 2012, complete with Titanic museum, H & W cranes, Titanic, firemen, and shipyard workers. Being on the side of Ryan’s Newsagents, the mural also features confectionery, vintage brands in old money: Cadbury’s peppermint creme for 2d, 1.4 lb of Fry’s milk chocolate for 4d, Terry’s milk chocolate 5d, Rolos “delicious toffee” for 2d and KitKat chocolate crisp.

See also: 2014 Anti-racism World Cup banner at Donegal Celtic.

More by John Stewart: A Better Future | On That Journey

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Pizza Pipe

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2015-01-13 PizzaPipe+

A string of melted cheese from a pizza and the curve of the stem of a pipe together form an arc in this new work by Kev Largey (tw | Fb) on the rear fence of the Sunflower.

Also at the Sunflower: No Topless Bathing – Ulster Has Suffered Enough (includes Malarky street art) | Wolf (James Earley)| Sleep Sweetly (Inkie). KVLR also has a piece across the street: The Men Who Stare At Bikes

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Machine Guns & Mortars

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2014-08-28 36thUlster+

Monkstown WWI mural in four quadrants showing the emblem of the 36th (Ulster) Division, a soldier at the cross in the Thiepval Cemetery, soldiers feeding a belt of ammunition into a Vicker’s machine gun, and others loading a Stokes mortar.

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Blowing My Mind

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2015-02-14 DevlinGrenade+

Stencil street-art from Patrick Devlin outside the Red Barn Gallery in the city centre: a man in suit and tie is about to pull the pin on the grenade that is his head.

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Better Days

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2014-10-03 FallswaterIRA+

Here are three “nail-ups” from west Belfast, all showing their age.

The first is “IRA – Brits out, not sell out. Join RSF” in Fallswater Street.

The second is a “Lower Shankill UFF C Coy” board high above the “Shankill Protestant Boys UVF” mural at the junction of Northemberland Street and the Shankill.

The third is the phoenix in the apex above the mural in AMCOMRI Street.

The images were taken in late 2014; the phoenix goes back at least to 2003 and the others are at least six years old.

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Ian Jong-un

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2015-02-05 KimJongPaisley+

Here are two shots of the mash-up which has appeared in various city-centre locations, of Ian Paisley Jr’s visage superimposed on the bust of Kim Jong-Un. The first (above) is at the junction of Corporation St and Dunbar Link; the second (below) is in Hill Street, and is pasted over the torn remains of the previous generation of Paisley paste-up: Ian senior with a face filled in with the harp-side of pre-Euro Irish coins (see TLO’s “Doctored Paisley” web-site). For other versions of last year’s Paisley posters, see: Three Studies Of Ian Paisley | Demonizing Paisley

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Fifty Shades Of Belfast

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2015-02-07 UpstairsMidCrop+

Jamie Dornan (from Holywood) and Gillian Anderson are stars of the BBC series The Fall. He plays a serial-killer terrorizing Belfast and she the detective leading the investigation. Anderson is not shown here as she appears in The Fall, but in the style of Fifty Shades OfGrey, the BDSM-explicit novel by E. L. James, which has now been made into a movie, starring Dornan. It goes on general release tomorrow, Valentine’s Day, February 14th.

The panel above is one of a dozen from the new “upstairs” part of the Belfast Windows piece by Ciaran Gallagher (web) in the courtyard of the Dark Horse/Duke Of York. As Ciaran himself warns on his Facebook page, the “upstairs” material is adult and “not for the faint-hearted”. Below you can see the middle quartet: in the attic, a semi-nude woman behind bars with a menacing face in the background; on the left, Romper Room is on the TV and the skinhead sports a Mr. Do-Bee tattoo, but this is a UDA romper room, not kid’s playtime: two hoods take baseball bats to a victim; and in the middle, a pot-smoking policeman (in RUC/early-PSNI uniform) stands under the grow-lights of a cannabis factory.

For the “downstairs” part of the work, see Belfast, You’re Melting My Head | Belfast Stripped Bare.

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Glenfield Community Association

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2015-02-11 JoinTheUDAFull+

The 2010 work of Jade, Andi, Katie, Leigh, Ellen, Lyndsay, Shannon, and Hannah on the substation at the top of the Glenfield estate’s Oakfield Road has been replaced this week by a new UDA mural sporting a hooded gunman facing the viewer with a slogan borrowed from Mexican revolutionary Emiliano Zapata: “Better to die on your feet than live on your knees in an Irish republic. Join the UDA.”. The two wide shots below allow you to compare the scene this week with last week.

The mural has been criticized by both DUP and Alliance councillors (Newsletter). The final words – Join the UDA – have drawn particular ire, as in other respects it is similar to other murals in featuring hooded gunmen, such as these two other Carrickfergus murals: Inclusion | Eternal Vigilance. 

Nolan Show discussion of the mural on 2015-02-11: Part 1 | Part 2

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The Flag That’s Never Furled

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2014-08-25 BallyduffMemorial+

Translations of Psalm 60.4 vary, but it is something like “You (the Lord) have given those who fear you a banner so that they will not flee before your arrows”, which might work quite well alongside a Union jack. But in fact, only one source claims the poetic lines on the side of this Ballyduff electrical sub-station come from Psalm 60.4; they are rather the first stanza of a 1902 poem (earliest found mention), The Union Jack, by Edward Shirley, in Little Poems For Little People: 

‘Tis thy flag and my flag, the best of flags on earth;

Oh, cherish it my children, for ’tis yours by right of birth.

Your fathers fought, your fathers died, to rear it to the skies;

And we like them will never yield, but keep it flying high.

For the other three sides of the structure see Absent Friends | The Ultimate Sacrifice. For the mural in the distance (of the wide shot, below), see 1st East Antrim Ballyduff

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X02110 X02113 at the going down of the sun 1914 1918 uvf ycv rir ulster volunteer force young citizen royal irish rifles so cherish it my children it’s yours by right of birth to raise it to the skies must never yield john stewart

Eternal Vigilance

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2015-01-23 EternalVigilenceFull+

“Audemus jura nostra defendere – We dare to defend our rights”. The UDA/UFF/UYM/LPA mural above shows hooded gunmen standing either side of a view of Carrickfergus castle. The phrase “The price of peace is eternal vigilance” is associated with British politician Leonard Courtney (who also said “Lies – damned lies – and statistics) though it probably goes further back. As can be seen from the second image, the mural watches over Woodlawn primary school. The third image shows the memorial garden off to the right-hand side; the plaque is shown fourth: “This memorial is dedicated to the memory of the officers and members of our organisation who were murdered by the enemies of Ulster and to those who paid the supreme sacrifice whilst on active service during the present conflict. Quis separabit.”

For the previous mural (Ulster’s Call 1893 – Boer War), see Murals Irlande du Nord.

2015-01-23 EternalVigilenceSchool+

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