In the shadow of Long Kesh watch-towers, a blanketman draped in an Irish Tricolour is held in the arms of his father, with mother looking on, reminiscent of Michelangelo’s pietà (“pity”) in which Mary holds the body of her dead son after he has been taken down from the cross (and so it also echoes Oliver Sheppard’s statue of Cúchulaınn).
Painted by Con at the top of Donegall Road, west Belfast.
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Copyright © 1981 Paddy Duffy
T00052 [T00029]
The image of a blanketman on all fours was also seen in Ballymurphy, Ardoyne, and Finaghy (see the 1981 CNR Murals) but in this Beechmount version, the ‘sacred heart of Jesus’ appears above the prisoner, similar to the angel on the Whiterock Road and the ‘blessed virgin Mary’ in the Rock streets.
Beechmount Drive, west Belfast
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Copyright © 1981 Paddy Duffy
T00051 [T00031]
An armed republican (IRA) volunteer with camo-jacket opened at the throat stands against an Irish tricolour attached to a poleaxe (pike).
Rockdale Street, west Belfast
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Copyright © 1981 Paddy Duffy
T00050 [T00032]
“Victory [to the] IRA”. Volunteers with RPGs and armalites in Rossnareen, kneeling over an outline of Ireland in green, white, and gold. The central trio comes from an IRA publicity photograph, included below.
Rossnareen Avenue, west Belfast
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Copyright © 1981 Paddy Duffy
T00049c [T00033]
The design for this mural comes from a poster sent by the Iranian Ayatollah Khomeini, which featured the head of Bobby Sands against a backdrop of skeletal bodies. The hunger-strike imagery is somewhat in contrast with the quote to the right, which advocates for armed resistance: “The Irish Republican Army is right: The British government does not listen to the ballot box in Ireland and the only thing they will listen to in Ireland is what they listened to in other colonies: agitation, rebellion, and armed forces”.
Oakman Street, Beechmount, west Belfast
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Copyright © 1981 Paddy Duffy
T00048
This Whiterock Road mural shows a blanketman/hunger-striker being watched over by a uniformed volunteer, on a large tricoloured bunting/drape at the feet of an angel holding a banner reading “blessed are those who hunger for justice“. Above are the words “Their hunger, their pain, our struggle“. The shields of the four provinces of Ireland and two shamrocks complete the mural.
Whiterock Road, west Belfast
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Copyright © 1981 Paddy Duffy
T00017 T00044 [T00016]
This is a difficult mural to interpret and might be incomplete. It appears to show an indigenous child, whose skin is marked with a Union Flag, feasting on the bloody arm of a human adult whose skull sits behind the child. It is perhaps a reference to the colonial exploits of the British in Kenya or in the Putumayo – please comment/get in touch if you can shed any light on the mural.
The mural is in the bricked-up display-window of a shop between Spinner Street and Leeson Street (on the eastern/Dunville Park side of the Falls Road).
Falls Road, west Belfast
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Copyright © 1981 Paddy Duffy
T00043 [T00022]
The first names of the ten deceased 1981 hunger-strikers — Bobby, Francis, Patsy, Raymond, Joe, Martin, Kiersn, Tom, Micky, Kevin — appear on a ribbon held by a tricoloured phoenix against a sunburst, flanked by Starry Plough and Tricolour and volunteers firing a final salute.
The ribbon was initially shorter, with the names of the first six to die – see the Peter Moloney Collection.
Painted by Con in Rockdale Street, west Belfast.
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Copyright © 1981 Paddy Duffy
T00042 T00026
A Long Kesh/H-Block blanketman is on his knees, protesting for (political) “status now”, surrounded by barbed wire and two flags on halberds: the Irish Tricolour and the Starry Plough.
The quote on the left (in the wide-shot, below) is from Sean O’Casey, not “Bobby Sands MP”: “You cannot put a rope around the neck of an idea; you cannot put an idea up against the barrack-square wall and riddle it with bullets; you cannot confine it in the strongest prison cell that your slaves could ever build.”
(The quote is reportedly from O’Casey’s prose lament for Thomas Ashe, either the initial pamphlet in November 1917 (?entitled “The Story Of Thomas Ashe”?) or the expanded version of 1918 (entitled “The Sacrifice Of Thomas Ashe” (auction site)), though no copy of this can be found on-line, only two poems ‘Thomas Ashe’ and ‘Lament For Thomas Ashe’ (eastwallforall).
Rockmore Road, west Belfast
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Copyright © 1981 Paddy Duffy
T00053 [T00030]
T00041 [T00015]
A hunger-striker lies in bed praying with rosary beads and bathed in beams of light coming from the hands of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
(Painted by Con, who describes the mural as an attempt to break through with nationalists (as distinct from republicans); though one source says “by a Ballymurphy man, named something like Tim Skillen/Skelly”.)
Rockmount Street, west Belfast
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Copyright © 1981 Paddy Duffy
[T00023] [T00028] T00039
Paddy Duffy Collection 
