The main panels commemorate 25 years of “unbowed, unbroken” resistance in east Belfast (probably dating to the Battle Of St Matthew’s (WP) in 1970) with portraits of 16 deceased locals (“I measc laochra na nGael go raıbh a naınmeacha”) and two verses from Bobby Sands’s poem Weeping Winds (see below), on either side of Érıu the mythological queen of Ireland/Éıre as designed by Richard J King/Rísteard Ó Cíonga.
On the right (in the second image) is a copy of the 1916 Proclamation.
Oh, whistling winds why do you weep/When roaming free you are,
Oh! Is it that your poor heart’s broke/And scattered off afar?
Or is it that you bear the cries/Of people born unfree,
Who like your way have no control/Or sovereign destiny?
Oh! Lonely winds that walk the night/To haunt the sinner’s soul/
Pray pity me a wretched lad/Who never will grow old.
Pray pity those who lie in pain/The bondsman and the slave
And whisper sweet the breath of God/Upon my humble grave.
Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 1998 Paddy Duffy
T00287 T00304
Paddy Duffy Collection 