Ronnie’s hardware shop in east Belfast, vacant for many years and the site of Our Brave Defenders, was finally torn down last year and a pocket park created with murals commemorating east Belfast volunteers who died in the Great War and the UVF Regimental Band (tw), this year celebrating its 50 anniversary (video of the launch). See previously: 40th anniversary banner at the same spot (Belvoir Bar).
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Shepard Fairey used Mannie Garcia’s AP photo of Barack Obama for his ‘Hope’ poster of the 2008 US Presidential election (WP). The three-quarter profile, faraway look and four-tone shading have been repurposed for the board, shown above, in east Belfast: a boy gazes beyond Samson and Goliath, backgrounded by a sunburst: “Dream, Seek, Achieve, Educate, Achieve!”
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This is the repainted version of this wall in Pitt Park. Previously (see Peter Moloney Collection) it featured VC winners but now it commemorates WWI soldiers generally.
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Four members of the East Belfast UVF are commemorated by a new mural in Fraser Pass, Ballymacarrett. The four named are: Robert Seymour, shot dead by the PIRA in 1988; James Cordner and Joseph Long, who were killed in a premature explosion in 1977; Robert Bennett, killed by the British Army during a riot in 1973.
In a previous version of the mural, Seymour and Long were featured alongside Crawford and Craig (of the Home Rule era) – see God, Give Us Men! (which also includes a close-up of the small plaque embedded in the front wall).
These same four are commemorated in the controversial 2013 mural featured in Years Of Sacrifice.
In-progress image:
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“The dead we honour here made the noble sacrifice for a cause that should never be forgotten.” A new board has been added to the memorial to the Ulster Volunteers on the Newtownards Road at St Leonard’s Crescent (the old Newcastle Street) over the bricked-up windows of the Belvoir Bar (see previously Not For Sale). The annual parade of the Belvoir Somme Association took place at the end of September (youtube)
The portrait of Carson was previously on the corner of Welland Street. The UVF Band mural is to the right of the memorial: see The Great War and They Said We’d Never Last.
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Ulster’s VC Heroes david nelson ernest wright alexander william mcfadzean edmund de win richard annesley west hugh colvin james somers jams duffy robert morrow edward barry stewart bingham thomas hughes robert hill hanna robert quigg john spencer dunville eric norman frankland bell james crichton geoffrey st. george shillington cather james anson otho brooke john alexander sinton dedicated to the women of east belfast that served in wwi and wwii
Three months after it was initially whitewashed (mid June, 2022), the repaint of so-called “Freedom Corner” was completed, with a new mural on each of the 11 panels that make it up. Here is a gallery of fifteen images from the wall. The main gables reproduce photographs of the UDA (and more specifically the East Belfast brigade) during the 1970s. The side walls celebrate the formation of the UDA/LPA/UFF/UYM in 1971-1974 and the role of women in supporting prisoners.
By Blaze FX (Fb | ig) on the Newtownards Road. Here is a small gallery of in-progress images: Waiting For The Wall.
Newtownards Road, east Belfast
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Tower Street in east Belfast is (unofficially) renamed “Ulster Tower Street” to complement the mural at the corner with Beechfield Street. The work was created in 2016 and is now (2022) showing its age. The image of the Ulster Tower at Thiepval, in the centre of the main panel, is fading, though the list of battles in which the 36th (Ulster) Division participated remain legible.
There is also some fading and peeling paint on both the main wall and side-wall. The smaller board on the side-wall features a poem from local children: “The Great War took a lot of Pray/It’s hard to say w[h]ere all these brave men lay/A lot of souls still waiting to be found/Buried deep below the ground.//In the fields w[h]ere the bright red poppies grow/Stood men so brave of fight and foe/Some men so young they just didn’t know/A journey with friends they all wanted to go.// When they got there what a different tail [tale] they did tell/Many letters home describing it as hell/Young men put to front to fight/We can only imagine the awful sight.//Fighting beside their mate to keep Britain great/And we still remember them till this date/Nearly one hundred years on/A lot of these great men have gone/Forget them we will not as a thought is not a lot.”
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Dee Craig updated the Victoria Crosses mural in Cregagh, honoring G[eoffrey St. George Shillington] Cather, W[illiam Frederick] MacFadzean, R[obert] Quigg, and E[ric] N[orman] F[rankland] Bell. Five more were included in a board on the Shankill and another in Willowfield Street. (For the previous Cregagh version, see M03390)
Cappagh Gardens, Cregagh, Castlereagh
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“The past is behind, learn from it. The present is here, live it. The future is ahead, prepare for it.” 2016 mural and board-cut diamond (which is lit from behind at night) in Lord Street, replacing the old LPA mural which lasted from 1997 to 2015.
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Here are three shots of the new Blaze Fx (web | Fb) “Belfast Giants” mural in east Belfast’s Lord Street. The Giants have been Belfast’s ice-hockey team for the last fifteen years, beginning in 2000. The detail above shows mascot Finn MacCool and the image of the full mural, below, includes the team motto, the (a)politically-motivated “In the land of the giants, everyone is equal.” The mural takes the place of a UDA mural (see, Feriens Tego) and is one of three large murals and various small murals to be replaced or painted out. (This News Letter article puts the total at nine.)
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Paddy Duffy Collection 