UVF mural showing the flags and insignia of the UVF and YCV (Young Citizen Volunteers), Ballyduff/Glengormley 1st East Antrim Battalion, alongside the flags of Scotland, Northern Ireland and Great Britain.
Previously, nearby: Absent Friends | Another UVF 1st East Antrim Battalion – in Glengormley
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Copyright © 2014 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X02108 For God and Ulster shamrock saltire
Surf- and skate-boarder Tony Alva (web) is the subject of this Psychonautes (web | Fb) stencil in Garfield Street. In addition to another Tony Alva, Psychonautes has also done portraits of two other skateboarding legends – Steve Caballero and Rodney Mullen – in the Frenchman’s adopted hometown of Cork. Some idea of the method used can be gathered from this video of the production of a piece for a tapas restaurant in Dublin.
Replaces David McClelland’s Take The Red Pill
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Copyright © 2014 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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Roles are reversed, compared to the first book of Samuel: the Israeli ‘David’ has become a ‘Goliath’ tank, while the role of underdog is filled by Palestinian teenager Faris Odeh who was shot and killed a few days after standing up to this tank (WP). The AP photograph on which the mural is based can be seen in this May 2012 edition of (the Pakistani) The Nation.
Previous Gerard Kelly (“Mo Chara”) murals from the same pro-Gaza set: Hellfire | Palestine Abú | Man Against Machine
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Copyright © 2014 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X02142 springhill
The stained-glass style of ‘Wolf’ by James Earley of Dublin, for Culture Night Belfast 2014, is perhaps due to the influence of the family business in ecclesiastical art (inputout.com). Wide shot of the whole below.
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Copyright © 2014 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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MTO (Fb) was in Belfast for Culture Night and painted a large piece entitled “Son of Protagoras”. The ancient biographer Diogenes Laertius reports that Protagoras was driven from Athens and his books burned because he wrote that it was impossible to know whether or not the gods existed. On Fb, MTO adds a description of the Northern Irish “peace” lines, perhaps suggesting that religious adherence continues to be an enemy of peace: in his painting, a dove has been pierced by arrows bearing the cross of the Knights of Malta and the Latin cross; or, as the wide shot below illustrates, the fences get in the way.
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Copyright © 2014 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X02246 X02245 modelled by Adam Turkington’s son
Above is a new mural on the Divis Street “International Wall” (Visual History) in support of travellers’ right, featuring horseshoes, musical notation, and a child looking out of a vintage caravan. Sponsored by West Against Racism Network (WARN – web | Fb) and Springfield Charitable Association (SCA – web)
The image that the artists were working from for central portion of the mural – a 2009 photograph by Mark Stedman – can be seen still taped to the wall.
Replaces the “Say No To Racism” mural from June.
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Copyright © 2014 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X02086 An Munıa Tobaır [Tober] Women’s Choir
KVLR’s massive (four storey high) work for this past weekend’s Red Bull Music Academy live music festival, painted just prior to Culture Night Belfast 2014, shows a boy sitting serenely on a speaker listening with headphones to a single-reel tape player plugged into a flue on the side of the building. On his knitted hat is the logo of the British Phonograph Industry’s 1980’s campaign against cassette taping.
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Copyright © 2014 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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A. E. Housman’s 1919 short poem “Here dead we lie” is featured, together with the poppies that grew on the Western Front in WWI, in this UVF commemorative mural. The 36th (Ulster) Division is not mentioned specifically; the plaque on the right-hand side (which pre-dates the mural) lists the names of five UVF members killed in the 70s who are depicted in the mural just out of picture but seen below in a wide shot of both murals (and by itself in C Coy Street). For a similar connecting of the two Ulster Volunteer Forces, see 100 Years Apart, Armed & Ready, Years Of Sacrifice, and others. Another wide shot is given in C Coy Street, taken from the main road and shows that the fish-and-chip shop on the Shankill is called “A Salt And Battered”.
“Here dead we lie, because we did not choose,
to live and shame the land, from which we sprung.
Life, to be sure, is nothing much to lose,
but young men think it is, and we were young.”
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Copyright © 2014 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X02177 X02178 recognition appreciation remembrance for god and ulster 1st battalion belfast brigade “c” company ulster volunteer force killed in action mcintyre 19-5-73 wadsworth 11-4-75 chapman 12-6-75 mcgregor 12-6-75 hannah 21-6-78 they shall not grow old as we that are left grow old age shall not weary them nor the years condemn at the going down of the sun and in the morning we will remember them in our hearts forever
Here is Inkie’s new piece on the side wall of the butcher’s in Gresham Street, done for Culture Night Belfast, 2014. It includes a shout-out to the Loko skate-shop, just across the street. There’s a close-up of the work below.
See also last year’s Lost Soul.
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Copyright © 2014 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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Extramural Activity 