A few changes have been made to the Sam Rockett mural (compared to the 2023 original): Rockett’s hair has been lightened, the “Prods out” graffiti on the row of burned-out houses has been brightened, a simple “B Company” has replaced the smaller “1st Belfast Brigade, B Company”, and “Murdered by cowards 21.06.79 – 23.08.00” has been added on the left.
Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2025 Paddy Duffy
T07023
Boombox-head, computer-head, and light-bulb-head are having a good time in this new piece by Leo Boyd (web) on the Cupar Way war-wall (or: “peace” line), riffing on a vintage Keith Haring piece, 1986’s Crack Is Wack.
See also: other recent work by Leo in the same style and the same characters; Don’t Look Wack by FGB in Bangor.
Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2025 Paddy Duffy
T06915 T06914
The faces in two wall-paintings in the lower Shankill estate have been painted out. It is not known if there is a specific point to this or whether it is simple vandalism.
For the unmolested paintings, see Summer Of ’69 and Heal The Harm.
Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2025 Paddy Duffy
T06886 T06885 T06884
Here is a selection of art from the Cupar Way section of the west Belfast “peace” line. Some of the artists were visitors who were in town for Hit The North 2025 (Roo, Philth, Sky High – all of which were immediately blacked out). We also see work by Ohhi Ohno, SNAK, NOTA, KAYOS, Junk Graff, and others.
There is also a gallery of art on the wall at about the same time in 2024.
Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2025 Paddy Duffy
T06842 T06843 T06844 T06845 T06846 T06847 T06848 T06849 T06850 T06851 [T06852]
T06860 T06861 T06862 T06863 T06864 T06865 T06866 T06867 T06868 T06869 T06870 T06871
These are images of a new concrete relief-work in progress on the Cupar Way “peace” line (war wall) at the North Howard Street gates. The creator is Debbie Hutchings, a member of the New Life City church (Fb) (Belfast Media); the piece is on top of the ‘repent’ version of the New Life mural, and it contains a scriptural quote John 3:16: “For God so loved the world He gave His only begotton [begotten] son so that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”
There is video of Hutchings at work in this Irish News video on Fb and at the BelTel. Work began at the beginning of April and the piece is perhaps still unfinished – see the incomplete text of John 3:8 in the third image: “The wind blows as it chooses, you can hear it’s [its] sound but you do not know where it came from or where it is going; so it is with the hearts of those born of the spirit”.
May 1st:
Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2025 Paddy Duffy
T06854 T06855 T06856 T06857 T06858 T06859
T06853
Copyright © 2025 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X15391 X15392 [X15393]
The lyric, “With hatchets and hammers, Stanley knives and spanners, [we’ll show the bastards how to fight]” comes from a Linfield FC song (youtube | lyrics only). The team won the 2024-2025 (Northern) Irish Premiership league title in April, coasting to an easy win before the split (the final five games against the other top six teams) and thus secured their 57th league title – hence the emblem in the shape of a Heinz (ketchup) label at the centre of the banner above.
Linfield have two matches remaining in the 2025-2026 campaign, against Coleraine and Cliftonville, but are currently in fourth place and out of the running to be champions.
On the railings outside the Rangers’ Supporters’ Club on the upper Shankill Road.
Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2025 Paddy Duffy
T06841
The “Loyalist Lower Shankill” (a UDA stronghold) welcomes you – if you are aligned with the United Kingdom, the crown, and Northern Ireland; to all others who might have wandered in, “no surrender”.
Hopewell Square, lower Shankill, west Belfast. (Possibly the same banner as seen in nearby Hopewell Avenue in 2024.)
Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2025 Paddy Duffy
T06840
“The ‘Ulster Military Memorial Arch’ was funded by the generosity of the local business community, local residents, and our friends from Scotland. The arch was designed entirely by the people of the Greater Shankill, and erected to coincide with the 80th anniversary of VE Day 8th May 1945 – 8th May 2025. Our servicemen and women are proudly remembered.” For images of the VE Day launch, see the BelTel.
Pictured on Peter’s Hill side of the arch (bearing the quote “With pride and loyalty they served this land”) are (left to right) …
Private Bernard McQuirt (a VC winner in 1858 during the Indian Rebellion) and Lt Colonel John Henry Patterson
Monica De Wichfeld (raised in Fermanagh and Danish resistance member), Jessie Roberts (a nurse for the Ulster Volunteers and (in WWI) for the Volunteer Aid Detachment, serving in Birmingham and in Wimereux, France; she gets a very long entry on the info panels (see below), as her biography is not available on-line), a (unidentified) nurse, Corporal Channing Day (a medic killed in Afghanistan, 2012), Princess Elizabeth
Private William Frederick McFadzean and Sergeant Robert Quigg
the tomb of “the unknown warrior” (central panel)
Leading Seaman James Joseph Magennis and Lt Colonel Robert Blair ‘Paddy’ Mayne
Field Marshal Alan Francis Brooke and Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery
Field Marshal Sir Henry Hughes Wilson and Sir James Craig
On the other/Shankill side of the arch, bearing the quote “Throughout the long years of struggle … the men and women of Ulster have proved how nobly they fight and die”, the ‘WWII’ panel includes (top right) Warrant Officer David O’Neill, a Canadian Air Force pilot hailing from Ballymena, lost in 1943, and the ‘Northern Ireland’ panel features (left) Corporal Heather CJ Kerrigan, a UDR Greenfinch killed by the IRA in 1984. These two are also profiled in the info panels around the legs of the arch, along with Corporal Bryan James Budd, a 3rd Para soldier killed by friendly fire in Afghanistan, 2006.
Also included is JF Willcocks’s poem Poppies (sometimes called The Inquisitive Mind Of A Child): Why are they selling poppies, Mummy? Selling poppies in town today./The poppies, child, are flowers of love. For the men who marched away./But why have they chosen a poppy, Mummy? Why not a beautiful rose?/Because my child, men fought and died in the fields where the poppies grow./But why are the poppies so red, Mummy? Why are the poppies so red?/Red is the colour of blood, my child. The blood that our soldiers shed./The heart of the poppy is black, Mummy. Why does it have to be black?/Black, my child, is the symbol of grief. For the men who never came back./But why, Mummy are you crying so? Your tears are giving you pain./My tears are my fears for you my child. For the world is forgetting again.”
At Conor’s Corner, and next to the (increasingly incongruous) Geisha street-art, on the Shankill.
Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2025 Paddy Duffy
T06818 T06937
T06819 T06820
T06938 T06939 T06940
T06829 T06830 T06831
info: T06821 T06822 T06823 T06824 T06825 T06826 T06827 T06828
[T06811] [T06812] [T06813] [T06814] [T06815] [T06816] [T06817]
“Óglach Bobby Sands 9th March 1954 – 5th May 1981”. Sands was the first of the ten IRA and INLA prisoners to die in the second hunger strike. For the 44th anniversary of his death, a statue was unveiled in Twinbrook, near the Sands family home and next to the memorial garden in Gardenmore Road (Peter Moloney Collection).
The statue was created by Packy Adams (Belfast Media | Irish News) and appears to be based on the photographs by Gérard Harlay – discovered in 2019 – of Sands carrying a United Irishmen flag in a march that took place a few months before his (final) arrest in 1976 (Bobby Sands Trust). The new statue (which does not have planning permission) has a built-in flag-pole, to which an Irish Tricolour was added for the launch on May 4th.
May 3rd:
Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2025 Paddy Duffy
T06666 [T06665] T06664 [T06663] T06662c T06661c T06660c [T06659]
T06617
World War II ended in Europe at 11 p.m. on May 8th, after Germany’s unconditional surrender to the Allied forces. The date was dubbed “Victory In Europe Day” or “VE Day” and this year (2025) marks its eightieth anniversary.
The text at the bottom of this Shankill Road poster reads: “‘My dear friends, this is your hour. This is not the victory or of any class, it’s a victory of the Great British people as a whole. We were the first, in these ancient isles, to draw the sword against tyranny.’ – Prime Minister Winston S Churchill”. The lines come from brief remarks Churchill made to the crowds assembled at the Ministry Of Health in London – the text can be found at Forces News; Pathé newsreel of Churchill’s earlier radio announcement of the end of the war can be found on youtube.
Shankill Road, west Belfast
See also: VE Day | VE Day Celebrations | From D-Day To VE Day
Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2025 Paddy Duffy
T06769
