CNR – Page 2 – Paddy Duffy Collection

You Have No Power To Make Me A Criminal

2026-08-312026-09-05Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

“”You have the power to send me to gaol but you have no power to make me a criminal” – Seán Milroy, IRB” The words were reportedly (ig) spoken by Milroy in June, 1915, as he was being sentenced to three months hard labour for an inflammatory speech. He fought in the Easter Rising (see p. 27 ff of his testimony in the Military Archives) but voted in favour of the Treaty, believing that Northern Ireland could not survive politically or economically (DIB | RTÉ).

This is the latest work by Saoradh (web) and Éıstıgí Dhoıre on the wall of the Lecky Road flyover, adding on to the pieces seen in Our Present Fight.

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Copyright © 2026 Paddy Duffy
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Apartheid-Free Zone

2026-08-312026-09-02Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

“You are now entering Derry, an apartheid-free zone.”

Placards like this one have been mounted in Derry by the Pat Finucane Centre (web) and the Bloody Sunday Trust (web) – whose emblems are the top corners – in connection with their work with local businesses and organisations in conducting a “BDS audit” to ensure that they are not working with Israeli companies (Bloody Sunday Trust | Fb).

The words are in the triangular shape of Free Derry Corner (Visual History), though the word “free” is missing”.

Lone Moor Road, Derry

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Copyright © 2026 Paddy Duffy
T09749

Things Can Only Get Better

2026-08-312026-10-09Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

Peter Cunnah was the singer in D:Ream, which had a number-one hit in 1994 with “Things Can Only Get Better” (youtube). Cunnah was born in Belfast but adopted by parents in Derry (BBC).

This new mural was painted (by Karl Porter of UV Arts (web)) at the junction of Northland and Clarendon streets (in the Clarendon Conservation Area (pdf)), next to Cunnah’s home at 46 Clarendon Street, where he formed his first band, Tie The Boy (Derry Journal).

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Copyright © 2026 Paddy Duffy
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Coınnıgh Saor!

2026-08-232026-09-01Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

Dual-language (Irish and English) traffic signs and road-markings have been mounted/painted on the Falls Road in the Gaeltacht Quarter (specifically, between Springfield Road and Whiterock Road) by the Department Of Infrastructure/An Roinn Bonneagaır.

Shown in this entry are signs and markings reading, “Tacsaıthe atá ceadaıthe,” “Lána bus”, “Glanbhealach uırbeach, Luan go hAoıne [agus] ın am ar bıth ar an chosán”, “Deıreadh an lána bhus”, “Coınnıgh saor”, “Ceamaraí lána bus”.

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Copyright © 2026 Paddy Duffy
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The Park Of The Dead

2026-08-162026-09-16Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

“The Park” is the name of the new beer garden/courtyard at the Hatfield on Ormeau Road in south Belfast. “Mex” (web) is a brand of flavoured tequila-based cream liqueurs, which had its Belfast launch in Thompson’s last week (Aug 8th) (ig). Mex’s symbol is the skull-painted face worn for the Day Of The Dead, on November 1st/2nd – see La Calavera Catrina.

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Copyright © 2026 Paddy Duffy
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The Phoenix Arose In ’81

2026-08-092026-10-28Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

The phoenix in Clowney Street was first painted in 1981 and has been repainted periodically in the same form. (For a brief history, see The Oldest Murals.) In this update, the only noticeable changes are the quotation-marks around “69” and the golden feet on the phoenix.

For the WBTA board above the phoenix (which itself goes back to at least 2012), see Alternative Transport, Alternative Location.

Clowney Street, Beechmount, west Belfast

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Copyright © 2026 Paddy Duffy
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Fight Racism, Not Races

2026-08-092026-10-28Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

The chalk grid-lines are still visible but work appears to have ceased on the latest Kneecap-sponsored mural in Hawthorn Street (though an apostrophe was later added – see SMC). It joins the four that have been added to the facing walls, one in each of the last four years and all at the time of Féıle (see T07533 and T00841). The new addition likewise accompanied this year’s performance, at the Uppa Falls concert in the Falls Park on Thursday (August 6th) (BBC).

For the Gibraltar 3 board, see T00840; for the plaque see the Peter Moloney Collection.

Hawthorn Street, west Belfast

A Call To Young Irishmen

2026-08-022026-08-08Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

These are close-ups of the boards along the bottom of the D Company IRA board next to the Falls memorial garden. The two information boards at the extremes give brief biographies of the fourteen deceased IRA volunteers whose portraits flank the large map: Charlie Hughes, Jimmy Quigley, Daniel McAreavey, Patrick ‘Maguire’ Pendleton, Joseph McKinney, John Donaghy, Mundo O’Rawe, Michael Marley, Teddy Campbell, Martin Skillen, Bap Kelly, Billy Carson, Pat McBride, Paddy Loughran.

On either side of the large central plaque are two pairs of small boards. On the left are the Proclamation and the old information board (“Out Of The Ashes Of ’69”); on the right are an image of lilies and a reproduction of an “April 1933” “Call To Young Irishmen”, giving six reasons why they should enlist in the Irish Republican Army/Óglaıgh Na hÉıreann. The call came in response to sustained economic hardship in the country and Fıanna Fáıl’s wins in the general elections of 1932 and 1933. (Here is a pdf of the poster. And here is the IRA manifesto of 1933 (pdf).)

These boards were added c. 2020. Compare to 2013.

Falls Road, west Belfast

His Free Will No Thing Can Kill

2026-07-302026-08-11Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

New portraits of the twelve dead Troubles-era hunger strikers (including Frank Stagg and Michael Gaughan) have been mounted next to the Falls Road Memorial Garden, with a quote from Bobby Sands’s ‘H-Block Trilogy’ on the cross-bar: “There is no source or foreign force/Can break one man who knows,/That his free will no thing can kill/And from that freedom grows.”