Strabane

Strabane

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Four local landmarks are featured in this recent (2025-07) mural in Strabane. From left to right/top to bottom: one of the five Tinnies (TripAdvisor) (officially known as the ‘Let The Dance Begin’ sculpture), the pedestrian/cycle bridge (with a heart drawn around it), the pig sculpture (WikiMedia), and the boat in Abercorn Square (Geograph).

Painted by Peaball (web) and young people from SPARYA (Fb), with support from DC&S council (web), and the Housing Executive

Springhill Park, Strabane, next to the Good Vibes piece.

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Copyright © 2026 Paddy Duffy
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Cuımhníonn An Srath Bán Orthu

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Ceannasaíacht [sic Ceannasaíocht] Iarthar Thír Eoghaın – Cuımhníonn an Srath Bán ortha [sic orthu]. [West Tyrone leadership – Strabane remembers them]”. This large tarp replaces another one that used similar language – Cuımhníonn An Srath Bán Orthu Go Deo – but where that tarp remembered the dead of 1916, this one commemorates Sands and Guevara (who are also painted together just to the viewer’s right on a yard wall – see Revolutionaries) and the hooded gunmen of the Troubles-era armed struggle.

Fountain Street, Strabane

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Copyright © 2026 Paddy Duffy
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The Western Front

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“Cuımhníonn an Srath Bán orthu go deo [Strabane remembers them forever]”. The names of the ten deceased 1981 hunger strikers appear on ten white crosses that are set in a “H” formation in front of a tarp bearing their portraits.

The image on the tarp was originally on Divis Street in west Belfast – see the Peter Moloney Collection and the wall’s Visual History page. And in that mural, the protesters on the left date back to a 1981 poster which was reproduced for the very first mural – see I’ll Wear No Convict’s Uniform.

Townsend Street, Strabane

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Copyright © 2026 Paddy Duffy
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Strabane Wildlife

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Here are a tiger from Jam2 (ig), a pair of toucans from Junk Graff (both from June 2025) and (on the other side of the street) seals and ?a largemouth bass? from HMC (web) in November 2025. None of the animals are native to the Strabane rivers or countryside, though there are sometimes seals in Lough Foyle.

Painted for Love Strabane (web) in Castle Place, Strabane.

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Copyright © 2026 Paddy Duffy
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Remember The Hunger Strikers

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In a classic image from the period, a blanketman/hunger striker looks down over the towers of Long Kesh. The image has appeared in a number of murals, going back at least to the mid-1980s in Ardoyne (Belfast); see also New Lodge (Belfast) in 1993 | Letterkenny in 1996 | Derry in 1998 | Springfield (Belfast) in 2004 | Divis St (Belfast) in 2006 | a portable board in Bellaghy in 2010 | this same spot in 2012.

Melvin Road, Strabane, close to the giant Proclamation.

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Copyright © 2025 Paddy Duffy
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Poblacht Na hÉıreann

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On April 24th, 1916, Patrick Pearse stood on the steps of Dublin’s General Post Office and read out a proclamation declaring an Irish republic; the proclamation had been prepared by the military council of the Irish Republican Brotherhood – Thomas Clarke, Seán Mac Dıarmada, Patrick Pearse, James Connolly, Thomas MacDonagh, Eamonn Ceannt, Joseph Plunkett – and their (printed) signatures were included at its end.

Copies of the proclamation were handed out on O’Connell Street and perhaps as many as 2,500 were printed in total (NMI) but now only about fifty copies remain (Irish Central). This giant copy of the proclamation was mounted in Melvin Road, Strabane, for the centenary of the Rising, reproducing (as the note at the bottom says) “a reproduction of the poster”. (For a discussion of attempts to recreate the Proclamation, as well as images of originals, see Type Foundry.)

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Copyright © 2025 Paddy Duffy
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Inár gCroí Go Deo

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“West Tyrone Brigade, Óglaıgh Na hÉıreann. Vol. Charles Breslin, Vol, David Devine, Vol. Michael Devine”. The three were killed on February 23rd, 1985, in a hail of 100-200 SAS bullets, as they returned arms for an aborted mission to a dump near the Fountain area of Strabane; their families were later (2002) awarded compensation. (An Phoblacht | WP | UTv)

The board shown above is in the Fountain Street memorial garden, which centrally features a stone-wall enclosure to the trio. Individual stones have also been added to the garden, to Danny McCauley (TPQ | An Phoblacht), Tobias Molloy (An Phoblacht), and Eugene Devlin (An Phoblacht) (shown below). The local SF cumann is named after Molloy/Devlin/McCauley (Fb).

For the gravestones of many of the volunteers, see Strabane’s Republican Graves.

Fountain Street, Strabane

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Anocht a théam sa Bhearna Bhaoıl

Revolutionaries

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Bobby Sands and Ernesto “Che” Guevara, together in Fountain Street, Strabane. The image of Che is Jim Fitzpatrick’s iconic interpretation of Alberto Korda’s “Guerrillero Heroico” photograph of Che – see the Visual History page on The Influence Of Jim Fitzpatrick.

This mural has been in place since (at least) 2008 – see Bobby & Che in the Peter Moloney Collection.

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