Óglach Sean McCaughey

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Sean McCaughey was born in Aughnacloy but the family moved to Ardoyne when he was six years old (both Duneden Park and Heathfield Road are mentioned). He was IRA acting chief of staff when he was arrested in 1941 and sentenced to life in Portlaoise. He went on the blanket and was confined to solitary. After five years he went on a hunger and thirst strike, and died after 23 days, on May 11th, 1946. The background image in the board shown above is of McCaughey’s cortège moving through Dublin before he was buried in the republican plot in Milltown cemetery (Belfast). (An Phoblacht | RN | Bobby Sands Trust | 2008 mural)

“Fuaır sé bás ar son saoırse na hÉıreann.”

Replaces Free Tony Taylor.

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Cearta Teanga

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The Identity And Language bill is making its way through the House Of Lords. Here is the web page for the stages of the processes. The “report” stage – when it is open to the whole body for amendment – begins on July 6th; the bill drew criticism from DUP peers during the second reading (BelTel). The graffiti and stencil shown above in support of an Act is on the Falls Road.

The second image is from Divis Street. For Carl Hardebeck, see Music – Light In Darkness.

The third image is from the RVH wall, next to Victory To The NHS.

Previously from this year: A Tale Of Two Protests | Multicultural East Belfast; from earlier: Acht Anois | #AchtAnois.

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X10399 [X10400] X10702 X10495 [X10494] [X10496] Act now Cearta Teanga slí na gaeltachta belfast feıs cheoıl in 1898

Don’t Play England’s Game

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“No extradition! Don’t play England’s game” – after years of legal wrangling, Liam Campbell was extradited to Lithuania on charges of procuring weapons for the Real IRA (BBC | Saoradh). See previously: Silence Is Complicity. Cıarán Maguire was handed over to the PSNI by Gardaí in April 2021 (Donegal Daily).

The boards shown above and at bottom are in Braemar Street (Falls) and Brompton Park (Ardoyne). The small diamond version (also in Ardoyne) is mounted above one of the “Slow – Go mall” signs from Sınn Féın that were described as “intimidatory” by local DUP Assembly member and are perhaps also illegal under the Roads Order (NI) 1993 (Belfast Live).

For the Ard Eoın Kickhams mural, see The Heart Of Our Community.

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Tennent Street Young Guns

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The only references to TYG appear to be flags and graffiti in this street (Upper Riga Street) going back to 2012, though the stencils shown here claim the group was established in 2007. Please get in touch if you have more information.

There is a mural version of the speeding sign on the Shankill – see Kill Your Speed.

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Love After Hours

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Unfortunately we don’t have any information about this lettering in Hill Street. It looks a lot like a Laura Nelson (ig) production, but please get in touch if you can shed any light on it.

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Time To Decide!

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Here is a selection of anti-Protocol placards from the Caw, Londonderry and Newbuildings. Above: a PSNI officer with a Sinn Féin badge – “PSNI – destroying the loyalist community since 4th Nov. 2001. In the pocket of Sinn Féin.” (November 4th, 2001 is the date the PSNI was created.) For the farmer’s wife protecting the farm, see Deserted, well I can stand alone. Below: “Newbuildings says No to Irish Sea border”, “Loyalist Newbuildings will never accept a border in the Irish Sea”, “The Belfast Agreement has been broken – the deal’s off”, and “Our forefathers fought for our freedom and rights/No border in the sea or we continue the fight”.

For similar placards in Moygashel, see Belfast Agreement Null And Void.

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Copyright © 2022 Andy McDonagh/Eclipso Pictures (ig | Fb)
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Brexit Is Childish

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Here are four pieces of political commentary from Deptford and Rochester in London. “BoJo must go” – hounded by the Metropolitan Police over violating Covid lockdown, “Fuck Boris”, “We are all Daniel Blake – Conservatives kill disabled people” (by jellyjartist), and “Brexit is childish” graffiti on top of a portrait of artist Billy Childish.

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Copyright © 2022 Peter Moloney
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Legends Last Forever

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“Trophies come and go but legends last forever.” Scott Harvey and Lee Findlay have taken over as the management team of Northern Amateur Football League premier division team East Belfast FC (Fb) (Belfast Live) due to sequestration in connection with the UVF show of strength in Pitt Park in February, 2021 (Belfast Live). The club’s home field is East Park where the mural above stands to former greats (from left to right) Billy Caskey, Billy Humphries, Sammy McCrory, Ian Lawther, Walter Bruce, Roy Coyle, Tom Casey, and Warren Feeney.

Previously at EB FC: The Back Of The Net | Give Sectarianism The Boot

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Nothing about us without us is for us est. 1929

From The Shipyard To The Somme

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The 36th (Ulster) Division Memorial Association (Fb) put on a play called From The Shipyard To The Somme (Fb | watch on youtube) in Connswater Community Centre in 2013. It follows a group of men from east Belfast who joined the Ulster Volunteers in Belfast but are now training at Abercorn barracks in Ballykinlar (later an internment camp) as members of the 36th Division, before going to the Battle Of The Somme in France.

Belfast – with one tenth of the population – provided about a third of the Irish soldier to participate in WWI. In the shipyards, Harland & Wolff responded to the slow-down in production not by putting everyone on short time but by letting go of employees, particularly unskilled employees, for whom the wages of soldiering were competitive (particularly if married), while skilled men were reclassified as “munitions workers” needed to fulfill war contracts (History Ireland | Long Kesh Inside Out).

The Somme board, which dates to about 2015, is above Connswater Commemorates and The Glorious Dead.

The plaques are to John Cochrane of the Mersey Street Area Residents Association and Margaret Proctor ?of the Connswater Community Centre?

The industrial mural on the side perhaps features the Ballymacarrett rail crash of 1945, described previously in Step Back In Time.

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X10347 X10346 X10344 X10345 Oh, Belfast may boast and justly to the progress it has made and point with pride and pleasure to its vast and varied trade Your king needs you country 36th division ulster

The Six Counties

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Of some interest in this Mersey Street NI Centenary board is the use of St Patrick’s saltire (in the background). The saltire is an anglo symbol of Ireland and was included in the Union Flag when the union was between Britain and Ireland and thus – like the word “Ulster” – has been reduced to meaning Northern Ireland after partition.

There is also an anti-Irish Sea border board on the next house along – see An Act Of Betrayal. This features the Union Flag together with flags representing the “home countries”: the Welsh dragon, the English St George’s Cross, the Scots St Andrew’s Saltire, and the Northern Irish Ulster Banner.

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