“No extradition! Don’t play England’s game” – after years of legal wrangling, Liam Campbell was extradited to Lithuania on charges of procuring weapons for the Real IRA (BBC | Saoradh). See previously: Silence Is Complicity. Cıarán Maguire was handed over to the PSNI by Gardaí in April 2021 (Donegal Daily).
Havana Way, Ardoyne, and Springfield Park, Springfield
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Copyright © 2022 Paddy Duffy
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Londoner Stephen Lawrence was murdered by stabbing in 1993 and, although arrests were made, no charges were brought. A 1998 public inquiry found that the Metropolitan Police Service was “institutionally racist”. In 2012, two of the original suspects were found guilty of the murder (WP). Catholic Robert Hamill was beaten to death by loyalists in Portadown in 1997 while police in an RUC land-rover looked on (WP).
Brompton Park, Belfast. The same board (in slightly different colours) appeared in Artana Street, south Belfast.
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In the Workers’ Republic of February 12th, 1916, James Connolly posed the question “What is a free nation?” and, further, whether the Home Rule bill would make Ireland free in the requisite sense. “No” was his answer to the latter, and instead sovereignty would have to be reclaimed, by force if necessary: “There can be no perfect Europe in which Ireland is denied even the least of its national rights; there can be no worthy Ireland whose children brook tamely such denial. If such denial has been accepted by soulless slaves of politicians then it must be repudiated by Irish men and women whose souls are still their own. … A destiny not of our fashioning has chosen this generation as the one called upon for the supreme act of self-sacrifice – to die if need be that our race might live in freedom.”
For the previous Connolly quote in this location see A Word Of Conjure With.
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Various of the posters along the bottom of this Ardoyne Fleadh Cheoıl (tw | Fb) mural have themselves been murals: Cú Chulaınn on the 1999 poster to the left was painted in Ardoyne Avenue the same year; Fleadh Érıu on the 1995 poster, under the go-kart’s left wheel) was painted on this wall in 1994; the Ardoyne Fleadh Cheoıl emblem (on the go-karter’s t-shirt) was used in Maıreann An Spıorad.
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“A little boy of fifteen years/was chosen thus to die./As a British soldier aimed his gun/And never questioned why!/The shots rang out, the echo[e]s still/Young Danny fell, shoot to kill./They shoot to kill & kill & kill/Oh please God stop them/But no one will.” Danny Barrett was shot and killed on July 9th, 1981 – a day after Joe McDonnell’s death and on evening of the same day as the shooting of Norah McCabe – by a single shot from a British army observation post on top of Ewart’s Mill. The mural in his memory is in Havana Way, close to his Havana Court home, where he had been sitting on a garden wall talking to a friend. For a full account, see Free Ireland or watch video of his sisters in front of the new mural. For the Lawrence/Hammil board in Brompton Road, see Same Story, Same Bigotry.
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Kickhams is the local Cumann Luthchleas Gael (GAA club) (Fb | tw), founded 1907, named for republican writer Charles Kickham. The mural shows a football, hurleys and sliotar, and a handball.
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mural featuring (from left to right in the image below) Ardoyne Youth Club, Ard Eoın Kickhams, and the John Paul II Youth Club as alternatives to bullying, racism, homophobia, addiction, and other social ills. This panel shows Irish dancing, soccer, and Gaelic games; there are also images of young people practicing martial arts, DJing, and boxing on a side wall.
Havana Way, Ardoyne
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“Fáılte Go Dtí Ard Eoın. Ardoyne – a confident, colourful, creative community, and the people who made it so” particularly the local schools, whose insignia are shown on the left: “Thnx 2 all r teachers past and present.” The previous mural in this spot (M01783) is invoked by the banner across the top: “Everyone has the right to live free from sectarian harassment” and the inclusion of Holy Cross Girls among the schools.
Whitney Houston and Bobby Sands are invoked on the right “We believe the children are the future – value the laughter of our children“.
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For this year’s Twelfth, the famous UVF “Prepared for peace, ready for war” mural that has stood over the entrance to Mount Vernon for twenty years was retouched. The most obvious change is in the apex, as a different UVF symbol – with flags – has been included, along with the words “3rd Battalion” which had been in the much earlier version of this mural on another wall.
For the previous version (and a link to the original wall), see Prepared For Peace, Ready For War.
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This metal gate of poppies opens onto a cluster of blue metalworks showing scenes from WWI and a map of the area around Messines. The silver emblems are of the 36th and 16th divisions.
For more, including the panels to John Cordon and William McFadzean, see M07770.
Mount Vernon Gardens, north Belfast
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Paddy Duffy Collection 