Martin O’Neill took Celtic – and about 80,000 fans (ESPN) – to the UEFA Cup in 2003, losing in extra time to FC Porto of Portugal. This mural off Friendly Street in the Markets – which shows the Champions Cup rather than the UEFA Cup – is still rolling in 2022. Peter Moloney took a picture of it in 2006.
Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2022 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X09063 X09062
‘Peace Players’ is an organisation that runs cross-community sporting events, including the basketball “interface league” that Noah Donohoe took part in – he is pictured here wearing his Peace Players shirt. It renamed one of its annual awards as the ‘Noah Donohoe Spirit Award’ (tw). He also played U-14 basketball at Belfast Phoenix (Fb) and the club created a scholarship in his name (Belfast Media). The mural is at the Shaftesbury rec centre in lower Ormeau.
Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2022 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X09048 X09046 [X09047] X09049
The Ballyhackamore mural by Ed Hicks (ig) – painted along with murals by emic and Alana McDowell – is on the eastern side of Eastleigh Crescent, so that when looking at it the viewer is looking away from the city and towards the … hills – perhaps Scrabo country park.
Previously by Hicks in east Belfast: California Dreamin’
Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2022 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X08984 X08983 X08985
Here are five images from Duncairn Gardens, along the “peace” lines separating the New Lodge and Tigers Bay, in particular of a Noah Donohoe mural (below) and a pallet hut erected on the pavement (above) at the old Adam Street and site of the bonfire that was removed in 2021 – see Move At Your Own Risk.
Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2022 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X09019 X09017 X09018 X09021 X09020
The cult of the Great Pumpkin seems to be spreading from the US but it’s not clear that in fact the Great Pumpkin loves unconditionally: in the Peanuts universe, Linus believes that on Halloween night the Great Pumpkin rises from the pumpkin patch and delivers toys to good and believing children (Peanuts wiki). Paste-up in Belfast city centre.
Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2022 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X09003
The arrow of the Dance Addiction (Fb) mural points to a cat in the grass (above) and/or to Parkgate Avenue Gospel Hall (below).
Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2022 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X08976 X08975
Benjamin West painted The Battle Of The Boyne in 1778 and his composition – with William moving from left to right on a white horse and Marshal Schomberg dying in the bottom-right corner – has become the standard representation in loyalist culture, perhaps due to versions of it appearing on the covers of songbooks for the Orange Order and the Apprentice Boys soon after (Belinda Loftus 1982 Images In Conflict). It appears here on the wall of Whitehead Orange Hall, along with a board connecting service by Irish soldiers in British forces in WWI and Afghanistan (see previously: Time Changes in east Belfast).
Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2022 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X08958 X08955 X08956 [X08957]
The trial has begun, before Londonderry Crown Court, of three men accused of the murder of Eddie Meenan, who was stabbed 40-50 times in November, 2018 (Derry Journal | BBC). The graffiti above is on the electrical box at the bottom of Fahan Street, next to a Lasaır Dhearg (web) ‘Don’t join the PSNI’ poster (shown below), with the Che Guevara Lynch mural visible on the left.
Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2021 Andy McDonagh/Eclipso Pictures (ig | Fb)
X09009 [X09008] X09010
“South Belfast – time for truth – exposing collusion – Ormeau Road – ‘Bullets do not only travel distance but also through time'” [Based on a quote by James Kennedy’s father: “The bullets that killed James didn’t just travel in distance, they travelled in time. Some of those bullets never stop travelling.” (Irish Times)]
Police Ombudsman Marie Andersons’s report into various murders and attempted murders in south Belfast was released yesterday (February 7th, 2022) and presented a list of “collusive behaviours” between the RUC and loyalist paramilitaries. Among the incidents investigated was the killing of five people “murdered for their faith” at the Sean Graham bookies’ office on the Ormeau Road in February 5th, 1992; the report found that one of the two UDA gunmen was a Special Branch informant and that a Browning pistol used in the attack had been supplied by the RUC (as had previously been revealed in the 2010 HET Inquiry report) and that records relating to the weapon had been withheld from investigators (Irish Times | Belfast Live). For the 30th anniversary, relatives of the five men killed and of five more who were injured displayed their portraits next to the small memorial garden, which itself was updated to mark the third decade since their deaths: “1992-2022” (Belfast Live).
The plaque on the far left is to Charles Jospeh McGrillen, shot by the UDA/UFF in 1988 at his work in Dunne’s on the Annadale embankment (Sutton). Next to the bookies’ parlour is a plaque to Fian Jim Templeton.
Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2022 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X09015 X09014 X09013 X09012 hatfield st go ndéana Dıa trócaıre ar a n-anamacha
Dawn Aston’s (ig) wolf in High Street, Larne, is inspired by the dire wolves in Game Of Thrones (BelTel) and ties that to the disappearance of wolves from Ireland: “Local legend claims that the last wolf in Ireland was found dead in 1712 near a village near Camlough and that the locals rejoiced to be finally rid of the beast, which had taken their livestock and given their children nightmares.”
Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2021 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X08656 [X08657] larne renovation
Extramural Activity 