Belfast’s first maternity hospital – the Humane Female Society For The Relief Of Lying-In Women – was in Donegall Street, perhaps in the building that sat over the Exchange Place entry, from 1794 to 1830, when it moved to Clifton Street (Mcafee). It was run entirely by women (info board in I Was Sick And Ye Visited Me).
The illustration is by Peter Strain (web) in Exchange Place.
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Copyright © 2023 Paddy Duffy
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A “walking poem” in Exchange Place by Graffic Belfast (ig): “I’ll say, you were here once, & will be here again. I’ll say hello, hello, hello, hello, hello.” The verse seems to be original to the piece.
“Cathedral Quarter / Smithfield & Union”
See the Visual History page for the Belfast Entries.
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Copyright © 2023 Paddy Duffy
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“Where is our Alternative Ulster? – download paused.” Alternative Ulster was a fanzine (Fb | Musical Revolutions) and later a magazine (Issuu) and radio show covering the Belfast music and arts scene until March 2012; the name was then used for the Stiff Little Fingers’ song (youtube) in 1978.
By Verz (Fb) and Belfast One (web) in Fountain Street, Belfast.
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Copyright © 2023 Paddy Duffy
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The Malojian (Fb) mural (shown below) on the Oh Yeah Centre was the idea of Lyndon Stephens, founder of Quiet Arch records, and when he died in January 2020 after a long illness (Hotpress), Stevie Scullion returned the favour by organising the painting of a mural by Jonny McKerr (JMK) & Dermot McConaghy (DMC) the following November (Dig With It).
Gordon Street, Belfast city centre
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Copyright © 2023 Paddy Duffy
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“”As you lived you must die/An’ your last gasp or cry/Will be heard very likely by none/Not one/You unfortunate devil, Maglone.” – Barney Maglone Robert A. Wilson.”
Wilson was a Donegal man who, after some time in America, worked for newspapers in Enniskillen and Belfast. He was most famous under the pen-name “Barney Maglone” as the author of ‘To My Cousin In Amerikay’ and ‘Barney Maglone’s Notions Of Things’ (DIB).
The poem from which these lines come can be found in the [Belfast] Morning News obituary reprinted in the Portland Guardian And Normanby Advertiser (Victoria, Australia) for November 2nd, 1875 (though it gives “misfortunate divil” in the final line).
The paste-up is by Peter Strain (web) in Wilson’s Court, one of the Belfast Entries. Other pieces by Strain in the entries can be seen in Handsome, Easy-Going, And Utterly Untrustworthy | The Blots On The Page Are So Black | Trust Women.
The piece below, in Joy’s Entry, shows a sign for “R. A. Wilson’s philosophical instruments labyrinthine sale!” It is probably by Leo Boyd – see The Farset Voice.
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Copyright © 2023 Paddy Duffy
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Here is the CNB15 piece by MELS2 (Fb), showing four bloody hands, with blood red nails, belonging to a blonde-haired, black-lipped woman looking askance at the viewer. The inspiration for the work is Dublin photographer Monika Lejman/Mona Leymann.
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Copyright © 2023 Paddy Duffy
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The Universal Declaration Of Human Rights was declared 70 years ago, on December 10th, 1948. emic (web) and the Northern Ireland Human Rights Council teamed up to mark the occasion with this CNBX/HTN18 piece of street art.
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KVLR’s massive (four storey high) work for 2014’s Red Bull Music Academy live music festival, painted just prior to Culture Night Belfast 2014, shows a boy sitting serenely on a speaker listening with headphones to a single-reel tape player plugged into a flue on the side of the building. On his knitted hat is the logo of the British Phonograph Industry’s 1980’s campaign against cassette taping.
Church Street, Belfast
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Copyright © 2023 Paddy Duffy
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Enniskillen singer John Garrity (ig | Fb) is a familiar face in Belfast city centre, often seen busking in Castle Place and Cornmarket. He drew criticism in September 2021 for singing the ballad ‘Grace’ – about the hours-long bride of James Plunkett, executed after the 1916 Rising – while an Orange Order parade passed by. Garrity claims he was already singing the song when the parade happened to come by (Belfast Live). (Here is a rendition from another occasion – youtube.) He then gained a persistent heckler (Irish News). Now he is the subject of a mural by Glen Molloy (ig) in Donegall Street, Belfast, on the wall of the long-ago burned-out North Street Arcade, where Matt Sewell’s Carnival Of The Animals was.
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Copyright © 2023 Paddy Duffy
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In a letter in 1859 to Dr Richard Madden, a fellow abolitionist (and historian of the United Irishmen), Mary Ann McCracken wrote, “America, considered the land of the great, the brave, may more properly be styled the land of the tyrant and the Slave.” (McNeill)
Also given an abolitionist bent are some lines from section 16 of Louis MacNeice’s Autumn Journal, describing Belfast as “A city built on mud; / A culture built upon profit; / Free speech nipped in the bud, / The minority always guilty. [Why should I want to go back / To you, Ireland, my Ireland? / The blots on the page are so black / They cannot be covered with shamrock. / I hate your grandiose airs / Your sob-stuff, your laugh and your swagger, / Your assumption that everyone cares / Who is the king of your castle. / Castles are out of date, / The tide flows round the children’s sandy-fancy; / Put up what flag you like, it’s too late / To save your soul with bunting.]
The illustrations are by Peter Strain (web) in Joy’s Entry and Wilson’s Court. See also by Strain Handsome, Easy-Going, And Utterly Untrustworthy and Trust Women.
On McCracken, see The World Affords No Enjoyment Equal To That Of Promoting The Happiness Of Others.
On abolitionism in Belfast, see Olaudah Equiano and If There Is No Struggle, There Is No Progress.
See also the Visual History page on The Belfast Entries.
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Paddy Duffy Collection 