This painting of James Connolly in ICA uniform is perhaps based on Harry Kernoff’s woodcut, though with a wider head and background changed to show two flag-bearers standing on a high wall.
Berwick Road/Paráıd An Ardghleanna, Ardoyne,Ard Eoın, north Belfast/tuaısceart Bhéal Feırste
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Copyright © 1998 Paddy Duffy
T00288
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.
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Copyright © 1998 Paddy Duffy
T00287 T00304
A trail of skulls flows from the base of Carson’s statue, which is adorned with an Orange sash. “No internal settlement” means a settlement among the northern parties only, but rather that there should be an all-Ireland dimension to any agreement.
“No return to Stormont rule – no internal settlement. In the history of Stormont the unionists exercised absolute power in order to keep nationalists subjugated and on their knees. Nationalist MPs only succeeded in passing one act – The Wild Birds Act! In 1969, the nationalist people got off their knees. In the past 30 years we have resisted numerous attempts to force us back down. Neither will we be conned nor duped back down! We demand nothing less than equality!”
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Copyright © 1998 Paddy Duffy
T00286
“Not Spain, not France. Free Catalonia. Since 1714 the Catalan nation is military [sic] occupied for the Spanish and French states. Catalonia has their own culture, language, and history. Our country have [sic] more than 1000 years of history as a nation. The Catalan flag is the first European flag. Our fight flag is the “Estelada”. The white star means the freedom, and the blue triangle stands for the sky of humanity. Free Catalonia! United Ireland! El nostre dia arribarà! Tıócfaıdh [sic] ár lá. 11/8/97″
Beechmount Avenue, west Belfast
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Copyright © 1998 Paddy Duffy
T00285
This is a trio of murals along the New Lodge Road to William Steel Dickson, William Drennan, and Mary Ann and Henry Joy McCracken. What the three have in common is that they were all Presbyterians and Irish republicans, and members of the Society Of United Irishmen.
William Steel Dickson was adjutant-general of the County Down Irishmen (see the blue plaque in Portaferry M08948) and was arrested a few days before the insurrection (WP). Like the McCrackens, he is buried in Clifton Street Cemetery.
William Drennan, 1754-1820, was a doctor, poet, a founder of the Society of United Irishmen, and the first person to refer to Ireland as “the Emerald Isle”, in his poem When Erin First Rose. The words in the mural are the epitaph on his stone in Clifton Street Cemetery: “Pure, just, benign. Thus filial love would trace the virtues, hollowing [sic] this narrow space. The Emerald Isle may grant a wider claim and link the patriot with his country’s name.”
Mary Ann McCracken (“What a wonderful clamour is now raised at the name of union, when in reality there has always been such a union between England and this country, as there is between husband and wife by which the former has the power to oppress the latter.”) and her older brother Henry Joy McCracken (“These are the times that try men’s souls … the rich always betray the poor.”) are the best-known of the figures. Henry led the Antrim uprising of the United Irishmen in 1798 and was executed for it; Mary Ann was an abolitionist and social reformer.
Ludlow Square/New Lodge Road, north Belfast
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Copyright © 1998 Paddy Duffy
T00282 T00283 T00284 [T00305]
A collage of image from the previous 30 years, including banging bin-lids on the ground, Maıréad Farrell in Armagh prison, men on the blanket, the cages of Long Kesh, marches in support of the hunger strikers, and reproductions of various posters, against Margaret Thatcher, plastic bullets, internment, and censorship. There’s a quote from Bob Dylan in the middle, “How many times can a man turn his head and pretend that he just doesn’t see – the answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind, the answer is blowing in the wind.”
Ludlow Square, New Lodge, north Belfast
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Copyright © 1997 or 1998 Paddy Duffy
T00292 [T00310]
“Peace with justice”, “Fáılte go dtí Bóthar Garbh Achaıdh”, “Re-route sectarian marches”.
Three murals were painted by three Belfast artists (DD, Marty Lyons, Mo Chara Kelly) in 1997 in Hurson Park (renamed from Churchill Park), Portadown, along the route of the Orange Order parade to and from Drumcree, in order to support the local residents who were attempting to block the march through the CNR Garvaghy Road.
In 1996, an initial decision to block the parade was overturned at the last minute, and 1,200 Orangemen marched down Garvaghy Road. The 1997 march also went ahead and “sit-down” protesters were physically removed from the road. (Here is 90 minutes of news footage from 1997 (youtube). There are brief clips of the muralists at work, at 20m44s, 28m48s, 35m16s, 37m32s, 43m26s, 53m23s, and 58m44s. The images of protestors being removed begin at 1h02m)
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Copyright © 1997 Paddy Duffy
T00306 T00307 T00308
“Our rulers will stop at nothing to attain their ends. They will continue to rule and rob until confronted by men who will stop at nothing to overthrow them.” The quote is from James Connolly on Conscription. Local volunteer Joe McDonnell is portrayed between the names of the ten deceased 1981 hunger strikers.
Lenadoon Avenue, west Belfast
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Copyright © 1997 Paddy Duffy
T00303
“Old Labour 1969 – new Labour 1997 – nothing has changed!” Members of the Orange Order march with a large Union Flag on the backs of the RUC (with an Orange accent on their helmets) who are holding back the protesting local Catholic residents – particularly of the Garvaghy Road in Portadown and the Ormeau Road in Belfast.
The party in power (of the UK government) was the Labour party under Harold Wilson; in the general election of May 1st, 1997, Tony Blair’s Labour party regained power from the Conservatives. The mural hopes to pressure Labour into taking definitive action on the issue of parading – see (e.g.) Approved Parade Route, No Consent, No Parade and Not All Traditions Deserve Respect.
The mural in the distance to the left is the 1994 Fleadh mural.
Ardoyne Avenue/Ascaıll Ard Eoın, north Belfast
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Copyright © 1997 Paddy Duffy
T00300
An Gorta Mór is the Great Famine, or the Great Hunger among those who point out that there was plenty of food in Ireland in the late 1840s, just not made available to peasants. Of a population around eight million, a million people died and a million more emigrated.
“They buried us without shroud or coffin” is a line from an unrelated Seamus Heaney poem Requiem For The Croppies.
The mural comprises three images from Illustrated London News: (left) Bridget O’Donnel And Children (ILN) and (right) Funeral At Skibbereen (ILN).
Ardoyne Avenue, north Belfast
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Copyright © 1997 Paddy Duffy
T00299
Paddy Duffy Collection 