“Liberty, equality, freedom – saoırse”. US President Bill Clinton visited Belfast and Derry on November 30th, 1995, and his visit included brief walk-abouts on the Shankill and the Falls (Clinton Library | BBC).
The stop on the Falls was at Dunville Park, where this painting on boards had been quickly (and briefly) erected on top of a mural (25 Years Of Resistance).
On the left is “Wolfe Tone 1798” and on the right “Abraham Lincoln 1865”: “Let us strive on to finish the work we are in: to bind up the nation’s wounds, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves”. (Lincoln’s second inaugural speech concludes, “With malice toward none with charity for all with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right let us strive on to finish the work we are in to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan ~ to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”)
The stencil on the lower wall – “25 years – time for peace, time to go. Demilitarise now!”, designed by Robert Ballagh – belongs to the previous mural.
Dunville Street, west Belfast
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Copyright © 1995 Paddy Duffy
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Paddy Duffy Collection 