CNR

Crash Blossom

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In 2008 thick metal walls were added to both sides of the Finaghy railway bridge in order to prevent the possibility of a car falling onto the tracks (BelTel | BBC | Belfast Media), as had happened in Yorkshire, England, in 2001, causing ten deaths (WP). The result was a “brutalist eyesore” (Belfast Live) that was often covered in tags (there is a good picture at the top of this Belfast Media article from 2024).

The bridge been given a floral facelift by Visual Waste (web) but not everyone has the same interpretation of the new art: one local resident complained that the background was “Sınn Féın green” and that the “graffiti” would lower property values (Belfast Live).

Finaghy Road North. Also included below are painted electrical boxes by Danni Simpson (web) from 2023 at the nearby junction of the Finaghy roads and the Upper Lisburn Road.

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Copyright © 2025 Paddy Duffy
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With My Body Or Without It

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This is a giant image of Padre Pio painted by Cha Cha (Carla Hodgson) (ig) inside the Harcourt Drive gates of what is now St Columban’s – Sacred Heart Boys primary school merged with Our Lady’s Girls to form St Columban’s primary last year (2024) (Belfast Media).

The prayer on the left – “Pray, hope, and don’t worry.” – continues “Worry is useless. God is merciful and will hear your prayer.” The Capuchin friar is wearing gloves to cover his stigmata, and he was also thought capable of being in two places at once. (WP) His feast day is September 23rd.

Harcourt Drive, north Belfast

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Dying For Justice

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These are just four out of the scores of placards that lined the Falls Road on August 24th for the National Hunger-Strike Commemoration march to Milltown Cemetery, where Sınn Féın president Mary Lou McDonald gave the address (available at Belfast Media | video of the march is available on youtube).

Many of the placards show front pages from Republican News and An Phoblacht/Republican News, perhaps thanks to the Irish Republican Digital Archive (web), which has lately added scans of the newspapers from 1970 to 1984.

Seventy-six images are available on the gallery page for 2025 West Belfast CNR.

See previously: the board announcing the commemoration.

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Bobby Sands MP

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The Bobby Sands mural in Sevastopol Street, on the side of the Sınn Féın offices, is perhaps Belfast’s most famous mural and in general second only to Free Derry Corner in Derry. The main wall of the mural has just been touched up, in time for the march that took place in Belfast on August 24th as part of the national hunger-strike commemoration.

The first mural of Sands was painted on the wall in 1989 and the most recent re-painting prior to this one was in 2015 – see the wall’s Visual History page.

August 23rd:

August 20th:

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Seasaımıd Le Lıam Óg

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“We stand with Lıam Óg”, that is Lıam Óg Ó hAnnaıdh (on the left of the image above), a.k.a. Mo Chara, a member of the rap group Kneecap who appeared in court (in London) on Wednesday August 20th on “terrorism” charges and was bailed for a further month while the judge rules on a technical issue about whether the trial can go forward (BBC). (See previously The Magic Within and Seasaımıd Le Kneecap.)

The night before (the 19th) this board featuring images of the band-members and the band in its early days was unveiled on the Whiterock Road. (Video of the launch can be found on the Glór Na Móna instagram account.)

In the background is a Palestinian flag and “Saoırse don Phalaıstín” [Freedom for Palestine] is written along the bottom.

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12 Men Dead

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Michael Gaughan and Frank Stagg are presented along with the ten deceased 1981 hunger strikers on the cross-beam of a large wooden “H” at the top of Turf Lodge.

IRA volunteer Michael Gaughan died in Parkhurst prison in 1974 after 64 days on hunger strike. Gaughan’s coffin was draped with the Tricolour used to bury Terence McSwiney in 1920. He was force-fed seventeen times during the strike and his family alleged that he died from food stuck in a punctured lung. The practice was ended after Gaughan’s death.

Frank Stagg was on the Parkhurst hunger strike with Gaughan, and another in Long Lartin prison, and a third in Wakefield in December 1975. He died after 62 days on February 12th, 1976.

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Do You Care?

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James “Jim” Doherty was six years old when he was shot while playing in the front garden of his Turf Lodge home in 1972. Relatives For Justice and the family launched the board shown above at the entrance to the estate ten years ago – in October 2015 – in order to push for an inquiry into the death due to the insufficiency of the original investigation and the disappearance of the bullet taken from the body. (Belfast Media Group)

Monagh Road, west Belfast

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Free Palestine

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The number of dead Palestinians in Gaza has now reached 64,000 (WP | Al Jazeera | PBS), famine has been declared by the IPC (Guardian), and Israel is calling up tens of thousands of reservists for a new offensive in the strip (AP).

This new mural by Peaball (web) and GCR [Galliagh Community Response (Fb)] shows a blind-folded child in a war-torn landscape.

Fairview Road, Galliagh, Derry

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