The Royal Victoria Hospital was the first public building in the world to have air conditioning, developed by Sirocco Works. Fans drew in outside air and passed it over mats of wetted coir (Cooling Post | images at HEVAC-Heritage). The qualifier “public” is necessary perhaps because Carrier invented the general process for a printing factory in New York (ASME) in 1902 and the New York Stock Exchange installed a system in 1902 (6sqft)
The image above is only one of many panels in College Street Mews by Ed Hicks (ig) on the general theme of Belfast and its industry.
A new braille plaque bearing the now-iconic saying “You are now enterting Free Derry” was unveiled last Tuesday (January 24th) by the founder of Children In Crossfire Richard Moore (featured previously in The Derry Lama) who was blinded in 1972 when he was hit with a rubber bullet.
In his Letter From A Birmingham Jail, Martin Luther King Jr wrote, “I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states. I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” The marchers portrayed in the poster above carry placards supporting immigrants (“No human is illegal”), the poor (“Poverty is the worst form of violence”) and Palestine. The poster calls for participants in the annual march, which retraces the route taken on the fateful day in 1972, beginning at Creggan shops and proceeding to Free Derry Corner. Yesterday’s march concluded a week of talks and other commemorative events. Today – January 30th – is the fifty-first anniversary of Bloody Sunday in Derry.
“Moss side” is probably Scots, with “moss” meaning “marsh” or “(peat) bog” (DSL) and this mural is appropriately on Ballybog Road (in Dunmurry), “bog(ach)” in Irish meaning “soft (ground)..
In the mural, “QFB” is Queensway Flute Band – they used to have a mural in Seymour Hill – and “LOL 136” is a lodge in the Derriaghy District (Fb). It’s not clear if there is a specific referent for the dolmen in the centre. The mural is at least 12 years old and it is not clear what functions the hall currently serves; it previously (2017) was home to a men’s shed and in 2018 a Youth Hub opened in the building next to the hall (NIWorld).
BUILD Shankill now has a website that promises to provide (in the future) “a full inventory of vacant and derelict land in the area”. In the meantime, the campaign to bring attention to housing issues in the area continues with placards and tarps:
“Our children deserve more than dereliction – Better Understanding In Local Development (BUILD)”
“Did you know? The Shankill has over 80 waste sites the size of 62 football pitches with the space to build 3300 homes. #BuildShankill.” For a mural-sized version of this tarp (in the third image) over one of the pieces of waste ground, see #BuildShankill.
All three major WWI memorials with relevance to Ulster – Thiepval Memorial, Menin Gate, Ulster Tower – are brought together in a gallery in Londonderry’s Fountain as part of a tribute to the “Men from the Fountain who made the supreme sacrifice in the Great War.”
“Thiepval Memorial: The Thiepval Memorial to the missing of the Somme is a war memorial to 72,195 missing British and South African servicemen, who died in the battles of the Somme of the First World War between 1915 and 1918, with no known grave. It was built in red brick and limestone between 1928 and 1932. It is near the village of Thiepval, Picardy in France. A visitors’ centre opened in 2004.”
“Menin Gate: The Menin Gate memorial to the missing is a war memorial in Ypres, Belgium, dedicated to the 54,395 British and Commonwealth soldiers who were killed in the Ypres salient of World War I and whose graves are unknown. The memorial is located at the eastern exit of the town and marks the starting point for one of the main roads out of the town that led Allied soldiers to the front line. The Menin Gate memorial was unveiled on 24 July 1927.”
“Ulster Tower: The Ulster Tower is Northern Ireland’s national war memorial. It was one of the first memorials to be erected on the western front and commemorates the men of the 36th (Ulster) Division and all those from Ulster who served in the First World War. The memorial was officially opened on 19 November 1921 and is a very close copy of Helen’s Tower which stands in the grounds of the Clandeboye estate, near Bangor, County Down, Northern Ireland. Many of the men of the Ulster division trained in the estate before moving to England and then France early in 1916. The Tower is staffed by members of the Somme Association, which is based in Belfast.”
He collected songs, both Orange and traditional Irish, and played the harp. He went on to record 156 records, act in at least eight movies and write 11 travel books, the most popular of which was In Praise Of Ulster, with drawings by the landscape artist James Humbert Craig – some images from the book can be seen here.
The mural, in Larne’s Main Street, was designed by emic (ig) and painted by Dee Craig (Fb). Since 2021 you can also follow a trail around Richard Hayward’s East Antrim .
A memorial stone has been added to the fading mural of soldiers of the 15th battalion heading to France in 1915, beginning a list of former members of the Rathcoole Friends Of The Somme (Fb). For the names of the five portraits, and the mural in better condition, see Many Did Not Return.
The title of today’s post is the title of Jonathan Evershed’s book (youtube).
There is now a mural in Stanhope Street of “Carrick Hill in the old days”, of two women talking in the street, to complement the four printed boards.
Below are two of the fifteen boards around the corner in Regent Street, showing the Carrick Castle public house and the old Unity flats.
Other boards in the collection (not shown) show street games, street parties, and Alton United football club, a team founded in 1921 that played in the Falls League and won the 1923 Free State Cup Final (Bohs Sporting Life).
Extramural Activity 