Christmas decorations can still be found on poles around Belfast in late January. In some cases, as here, they are joined by Union flags.
Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2013 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X00909
An Ulster Christmas
McCurrie & Neill
A banner and board reminding people of the deaths of Jimmy McCurrie and Bobby Neill, next to their memorial garden (in the right of the shot) on the Newtownards Road, with the cranes Samson and Goliath in the background. The two civilians died in the course of rioting and a gun battle around St. Matthew’s that was “the first major confrontation to occur in east Belfast during the troubles” (McKittrick et al., p. 50). It is not clear at what time each died. McKittrick (Lost Lives, ISBN 978-1840185041, amazon.co.uk, .com) gives the death of both as the 27th, and puts Neill’s death at 2 a.m. (and so strictly on the 28th??). Matt Baggott is the current Northern Ireland chief of police.
Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2013 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X00900 Investigate these murders. Where is their justice? murdered 27/28th june 1970; still no truth, still no justice
Please Pay Here
A UVF mural featuring three masked paramilitaries over the car park of Iceland (a supermarket chain) on the Newtownards Rd. The line “We are the pilgrims, master; we shall go always a little further” comes from a 1913 poem by James Flecker. This mural was painted in May 2011, at a time when, in contrast, paramilitary murals were being replaced (BBC-NI). The in-progress shot below is from 2011-05-28.
Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2011 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X00905 X00506 for god and ulster, east belfast
Let Your Union Fly Flag
Graffiti in east Belfast concerning the on-going dispute over the union flag on Belfast City Hall: Be proud to fly your flag. No surrender!
Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2013 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X00906
Piece Process
Walk over the Albert Bridge onto the Short Strand and just before you turn into Mountpottinger Road on your left there is a little park known as ‘An Glas – The Green’; these jigsaw pieces can be seen there, hanging on the wire fencing facing out onto the main road. See the wide shot and text below for more about the project. Launched 2008-11 (BBC-NI).
Frankie Quinn of the Red Barn Gallery has a a photograph of the two little boys in the bottom left of the board as adults. Also in the background (proceeding anti-clockwise) one can see MickeyMarley’sRoundabout and the old Scirocco Works factory, as well as the Harland & Wolff cranes Samson and Goliath, Belfast CityHall, and the wire sculpture next to the Waterfront.
Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2013 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X00907 X00908 final piece to the jig-saw; this artwork came about by the working in partnership with a number of community groups schools and agencies namely the lower castlereagh community group short strand community forum beechfield primary school st. matthews primary conflect resolution consortium the core project northern ireland housing executive and the relations council; had the idea of an interface art project involving that are situation along the interface; also approached the artists for the project who are two east belfast artists; worked with the young people involved to come up with the idea as to what the artwork should look like with the end result being a picture taken of all the smiling and laughing together and then their eyes and moths taken out of the picuture and portrayed on the big pieces on the interface wall
A Short Treatise On The Ephemerality Of Art
Q: Praise’s piece in North Street has been …?
(a) vandalized
(b) improved
(c) replaced
(d) all of the above
(e) other
Explain your answer in the comments. Also on Extramural Activity: An Essay On The Necessity Of Art | Fuck Art | A Dialogue On The Nature Of Art
Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2013 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X00886
For Freedom Alone
This is the fourth version of the UFF mural on the first gable in “Freedom Corner” along the Newtownards Road but the changes are minor compared with the 2009 version: the jacket and skyline are darker in colour. The mural shows a balaclava’d volunteer with assault rifle and a modified version of the Declaration of Arbroath: “For as long as one hundred of us remain alive we shall never in anyway consent to submit to the Irish for it’s not for glory, honour or riches we fight but for freedom alone which no man loses but with his life – U.D.A./U.F.F”
Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2013 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X01545
The Queen’s Golden Jubilee
Lord Street mural the ERII’s golden (50th) jubilee in 2002. The Beaconsfield Arms is on the left (perhaps the name of the Cock & Hens in 1952) and the previous Ledley Hall school (now Ledley Hall youth club) is on the right.
Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2013 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X01544
Big Brother
A 3-D/plane-breaking board/collage from the courtyard of the Duke Of York, featuring King Kong on the Empire State building (1933), Atlas (Metropolis 1927), a zombie (also from Metropolis?), riot police controlled by a puppet-master, Hokusai’s Great Wave Of Kanagawa 1830, WWI biplanes, a steamer/cruise-ship with searchlight? and something that looks like the Giant’s causeway?? (Leave a comment if you can correct these, or recognise the car with L plates (Death Proof 2007 – thanks Bob) or Hollister on the document folder.)
2013-02 Update: Artists Ciaran Gallagher and Kathryn Bannister have a gallery of pictures of the piece being constructed and installed. The piece, they say, is inspired by “classics of the silver screen” and was part of Culture Night 2011.
Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2013 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X00894
Cultural Apartheid
North Belfast Against Cultural Apartheid. Mount Vernon in the rain, January 17th, 2013. (Previously: Mount Vernon Welcome You)
Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2013 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X00904
Extramural Activity 