PUL

Woodvale Connect

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Five steps to mental health – give, connect, be active, take notice, keep learning – and affirmations to live by, such as “This is me”, “You’re a superstar”, “I am what I am”, and “Simply the best“. Part of the Shankill SAFE (Safer Areas For Everyone) project in the Woodvale, with support from Alternatives and the Communities In Transition programme.

From the info board: “#ItsOKToTalk” “This art project was completed as part of Alternative – Safer Areas For Everyone (SAFE) project. The young people involved identified mental health as the theme for their art project and incorporated positive mental health messages & support numbers to highlight the issue. The group also identified the “Steps” area as the location for the art work, to help brighten up the area which had become unsightly, neglected and a focus for anti-social behaviour. This project also engaged with the residents through door to door surveys, provided information leaflets on support services and organised community clean ups to help improve community pride & spirit in the area. Special thanks to Jamie, Dylan, Kyle, Corey and Mason who showed positive leadership in their community, to street artist Emic & Sam from Signlink for the art work & graphics and to the local residents and young people who were involved in the clean ups. SAFE Shankill is supported by the The Executive Office through Communities In Transition programme.”

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Arrivals

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Here are two final pieces from the street-art make-over of Banbridge in 2022. Below is Holly Pereira (web)’s “Welcome To Banbridge” in Newry Street; above and immediately below is Decoy (web)’s piece in Downshire Place depicting how the town grew up around a coach stop at the eponymous “Bann bridge” on the route from Belfast to Dublin (ABC borough council). According to Connolly (Google Books) and History Ireland, a short-lived coach service c. 1740 from Dublin to Belfast stopped in Drogheda and Newry; permanent service did not begin until 1788. According to the Downshire Arms (web), a Georgian coaching inn built in 1816, Banbridge was the second stop along the route from Belfast.

The other paintings in the 2022 ‘Arrivals’ project, organised by Daisy Chain and the Council, are by Friz (The Jingler), FGB (Ernest Walton), and Rob Hilken (Damask For Dignity).

For a list of other borough council projects, see Visual History 11 on the rise of street art.

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Disintegration

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Ernest Walton was born in 1903 in Co. Waterford, graduated from TCD, and then worked in the Cavendish lab in Cambridge, England, and then at TCD. He and John Cockroft were together awarded the 1951 Nobel Prize in physics for their 1932 work at Cavendish that split apart the nucleus (specifically, of a lithium atom), verifying Rutherford’s conjectures about the structure of atoms (WP). He died in Belfast in 1995.

His connection to Banbridge, which is where this FGB (ig) mural can be found on Bridge St, is that he attended kindergarten in the town (DIB).

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Damask For Dignity

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This is a Rob Hilken (web) piece in Linenhall Street, Banbridge, and in connection with the location and the linen tradition of Banbridge, the piece features a chrysanthemum pattern (visible at Lisburn Museum) from one of the 1,600 glass plates found at the Ewart-Liddell weaving factory in Donacloney when it was dismantled in 2007 (Lisburn Museum), as well as holes from a Jacquard loom punch-card (Science & Industry Museum). (ig)

Commissioned by Armagh City, Banbridge & Craigavon Borough Council (web), with support from Daisy Chain (web).

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Pride Of Ardoyne

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The Pride Of Ardoyne flute band memorial site was overhauled in November. The silhouetted bandsmen (seen in Pride Of Ardoyne) are gone and the cross and wooden plaque at the top (see Billy Hanna) have been joined by two large boards, naming “J. Bailey, W. Hanna, S. Rockett, B. McClure” and, (on the drum) “Charlie Dunn (1957-2021)”, along with 20 small plaques of these five plus 15 more who are an “absent member”, “absent friend”, and “loyal supporter”.

For Bailey, see On This Day. For Rockett, see Essence And Space. For McClure, see UPI. For Dunn, see the band’s Fb Page.

2025-10 Update: the main board was damaged when a wreath was set alight – Belfast Live.

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Tullycarnet Family Project

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Here is a gallery of images from the Blaze FX art in the (western) Tullycarnet subway, which promotes various community organisations, including TagIt (Fb), Tullycarnet flute band (Fb), Tullycarnet Community Football Club, Tullycarnet Family Project, Helping Hands Autism Support Group.

The cartoon cats from Top Cat are featured – the eponymous Top Cat is featured above. Fancy Fancy is just inside the mouth of the tunnel – see this 2013 image for a close-up.

For a later survey of community groups in the area, see Tullycarnet Together.

Just on the north side of the subway: Samhain.

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