Images from the west side of the Strand underpass in Holywood, including a parade of dogs by Verz (ig). There is a separate post for the east side of the tunnel.
See also: images from the Priory Park tunnel.
Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2023 Paddy Duffy
T02831 T02832 T02833 T02834 T02835 [T02854] T02836 T02837 T02838 T02839 T02840 T02841 [T02842] T02843
Here are images of street art in the green space off Queen’s Parade, (following on from Sharon Regan’s boards along the street – Nature Is Healing). The works are:
Friz’s (ig) Snow Patrol ‘Wildness’ cover for their “Ward Park 3” festival,
unknown artist “As they reach for the heavens/They forget to be earthly good”.
local artist Carla Hodgson’s (ig) “Rock, Paper, Scissors” octopus,
Codo (ig) x Jimbo Slice (ig),
FGB’s (ig) “Don’t look wack in Bangor”,
HM Constance’s (ig) stag.
Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2023 Paddy Duffy
T02442 T02447 T02443 T02444 T02445 T02446 T02857
Lí Ban became a mermaid – half-human, half-salmon – after a year spent living in an underwater bower, taking shelter from the family’s uncovered spring that overnight formed Lough Neagh. Three hundred years later (circa 558 A.D.) she told an envoy of Saint Comgall’s who was on his way to Rome, that she would come ashore at Larne a year later. She forwent another 300 years of sea life in favour of being baptised and dying immediately. She was baptised by Comgall, the abbot of Bangor, and christened “Muirgen” (sea-born) and was buried in the Lough Derg (Donegal) abbey (O’Grady | WP). Muirgen’s feast-day is January 27th (Sacred Sisters).
Painted by Friz (ig) for the Bangor Seaside Revival Festival, with support from Seedhead Arts (ig).
For a different style of presentation of Lí Ban, see Shaped By Sea And Stone in Larne. The end of the story is similar to the fate of the children of Lear, who spend 900 years as swans before a monk hears their song, puts them (willingly) in chains, but in protecting them from others touches them, which restores them to human form only for (baptism and) death to follow immediately. (See The Children Of Lear.)
Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2023 Paddy Duffy
T02451 Quay Road
After centuries of pitiless exploitation by Bangor locals, a new hope is taking the knife into its own hand and striking back – revenge of the crustaceans. Work by Irony (ig) on Mill Row.
In Belfast: a lobster is boiled.
In Bangor: an octopus plays rock-paper-scissors.
Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2023 Paddy Duffy
T02450
The Priory Park tunnel goes links Priory park with Seapark Bay in Holywood by going under the A2. On the one side are images from the countryside (with a few lines from Frost’s ‘Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening‘) and on the other are images from the seashore. “The creation of these works has been supported by NIHE and the Holywood Residents Assoc.” “urbanartsni.com” is a dead link.
Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2023 Paddy Duffy
T02311 T02318 T02312 T02317
T02313 T02314 T02315 T02316
At the end of 2016, Dee Stitt of Charter NI and the UDA was criticised for remarks describing his North Down Defenders (Fb) as the “homeland security” of Bangor’s Kilcooley estate and describing working-class estates as “jungles” in which there is always a “big guy” (Guardian video 8 min mark ff.| BelTel | ITv) .
The mural above does not directly indicate ties to the UDA/UFF, except for the red fist. For a more explicit NDD board further down the estate, with UDA, UFF, UYM, and LPA flags, see North Down Defenders.
Orlock Gardens, Kilcooley, Bangor
Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2023 Paddy Duffy
T01942
The day before he met his end, Captain James Samuel Davidson, Brigade Captain in the machine gun company of the 108th infantry brigade, 36th (Ulster) Division, wrote to his mother, “Only a few minutes to tell you I am well. The dawn of tomorrow will be the critical time for us but I hope good luck will attend us. Mother dearest, I don’t want you to be too anxious about me but if I should have bad luck, will you give [fiancée] Eileen [Rogers] any of my little personal things she would like to have. I will send a postcard just as soon as I can if all goes well.”
Staff Officer Wilfrid Spender wrote to the family at Seacourt, Bangor, “I am told that your son fell after gallantry which deserved the Victoria Cross and was killed when his men had at last persuaded him to consent to letting them carry him back. Though badly wounded, he had insisted on carrying on. If I may say so, I value the friendship of your son and hope that I may be worthy to renew it later in another and better life.” He had initially been shot in the knee and was shot again while being carried back.
Before the war, Davidson had been a director at Sirocco and a member of the North Down battalion of the Ulster Volunteers.
(Military Images | Men Behind The Glass)
12 panels in Clanmorris Avenue, Bangor.
Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2023 Paddy Duffy
T01964 T01962 T01963 T01965 T01966
Tommy Herron was kidnapped and executed in September 1973, probably by members of his own East Belfast UDA brigade in a dispute over money from a robbery (Irish Times | Lost Lives 938 | Holland | BelTel) though others allege it was by the security forces (BelTel), perhaps the SAS or MI5. These BBC News videos (one | two) give a sense of the perplexity of the case; a HET inquiry years later was inconclusive (Irish Times). His 18-year-old brother-in-law, Michael Wilson, had been killed by the UDA at their shared house in June, perhaps in a case of mistaken identity, perhaps as an informer (WP | Lost Lives 877).
Despite the internal conflict over Herron’s position and profiteering, 25,000 people attended his funeral and hearkened to the words of the Reverend Ian Paisley (AP video | Patterson images). The AP video shows ranks of UDA volunteers marching in the procession; the mural was launched with (two) masked UDA volunteers flanking speaker Dee Stitt (BelTel).
Orlock Gardens, Kilcooley, Bangor
Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2023 Paddy Duffy
T01944 [T01945]
“It is not for glory or riches that we fight but for our people” (based on the Declaration Of Arbroath) is familiar in loyalist murals – see e.g. For Freedom Alone) but “As poppy petals gently fall/Remember them who gave their all” here makes a very infrequent appearance. It comes from The UDR Soldier, by John Potter. The mural thus links together the UDR (1970-1992) and D Company of the North Down Red Hand Commando.
Owenroe Drive, Kilcooley, Bangor
Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 1999 Paddy Duffy (no date given)
T01181
Young Newton is the Newtownards Road division of the Ulster Young Militants (UYM) and formerly a Tartan Gang. This mural, however, is in Kilcooley estate, Bangor, indicating the close connection between the UDA in the estate and in east Belfast.
The wall to the right reads “Freedom Corner II” – again a connection to east Belfast and the series of walls called “Ulster’s Freedom Corner“. See J0475 for a wider image.
Drumhirk Drive, Kilcooley, Bangor
Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 1999 Paddy Duffy (no date given)
T01180
Paddy Duffy Collection 