Unfinished UVF mural on Broadway in the Village, south Belfast.
Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 1999 Paddy Duffy
T00428
We Will Never Be Defeated
Belfast
The Village Team
“Ulster Young Militants – The Village Team – South Belfast Brigade” with flags of the UDA and UFF.
Broadway, the Village, south Belfast
Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 1999 Paddy Duffy
T00265
South Belfast Volunteers
Along the top are the emblems of the Royal Inniskilling (27th) Fusiliers (featuring Crom castle), Royal Irish Rifles (featuring the Maid Of Erin harp), Royal Irish Fusiliers (featuring the barossa eagle).
Wrapped around the left column are “Ballykinler, Finner, Clandeboye” – three of the training camps of the 36th. Wrapped around the right column is “Lest we forget”.
The central text reads: “Ravenhill – Village – Donegall Pass – Ormeau Rd – Sandy Row – Lisburn Rd. 10th infantry battalion Royal Irish Rifles, 36th (Ulster) Division, South Belfast Volunteers”
The Union Flag appears in the lower left, next to an unidentified medal, while the flag of Ulster (rather than Northern Ireland, which did not yet exist) appears in the lower right, next to a Victory medal. (In a previous version of this painting, the Union Flag was a VC and the medal was a Distinguished Conduct Medal.) Between them is the emblem of the 36th Division.
The main image shows three graveside mourners standing in a field of barbed wire and in front of ?mis-shapen tombstones?, all against a background of sunrise over a mountain on which have been superimposed (left) a map of the Somme and (right) a large UVF emblem.
Painted by Ron McMurry on boards. Donegall Pass, south Belfast
Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 1999 Paddy Duffy
T00251
Leana An Dúın Unbowed Unbroken
The dying Cú Chulaınn (as portrayed in bronze by Oliver Sheppard, in a statue installed in the GPO in 1935) is used as a symbol for the locals from Lenadoon area of west Belfast who fought for freedom (“saoırse”): Tony Henderson, John Finucane, Brendan O’Callaghan, Joe McDonnell, Laura Crawford, Maıréad Farrell, Patricia Black, Bridie O’Neill (subsequently changed to Bridie Quinn).
There were originally portraits of all nine people in the apex when the mural was launched in 1996, but only three remain.
See also the Cú Chulaınn Visual History page.
Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 1999 Paddy Duffy (no date given)
T00109 T00160
Carrickhill Saoırse
A dove carries the keys that would unlock the chains that are already being rent asunder by their manacled captive in “Ceıs Fada” [Long Kesh]. Part of the “green ribbon” campaign to release republican POWs under the terms of any peace agreement.
Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 1998 Paddy Duffy
T00324
Remember Our Gibraltar Martyrs
The Gibraltar Three are IRA volunteers Maıréad Farrell, Seán Savage, and Dan McCann, who were executed by British crown forces in Gibraltar on March 6th, 1988.
Along the top is written a variation on the second half of Terence MacSwiney’s famous phrase: “[It is not those who can inflict the most but] “Those that endure the most will conquer in the end”
Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 1998 Paddy Duffy
T00320
Cuba – Ireland
Jim Fitzpatrick’s Che (Visual History) is the linchpin of this mural in Shiels Street, Beechmount, expressing solidarity between Irish republicanism and the Cuban revolutionaries. Fidel Castro appears on the right (and in the poster on the left), and Bobby Sands is seen on the right reading a collection of Che’s speeches and writings published in English in 1969 as Venceremos! (pdf).
Shiels Street, Beechmount, west Belfast
Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 1998 Paddy Duffy
T00323 T00321 T00322
Common Sense UDP
The Ulster Democratic Party (UDP) was the political wing of the UDA, and supported a policy of an independent Northern Ireland (as described in the policy document ‘Common Sense‘). It won a few council seats in the late 1980s and early 1990s (and dissolved in 2001) (BBC-NI).
The top-right panel is similar to this Victor Patterson photograph of the farmers’ protest at Stormont during the Ulster Workers’ Council strike that brought down the Sunningdale Agreement in 1974.
Bellevue Street, west Belfast
Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 1998 Paddy Duffy
T00260 [T00263]
1998 Ardoyne Fleadh Cheoıl
Sean Doran’s art for the cover of the programme for the 1998 Ardoyne Fleadh Cheoıl (Fb) was also produced on a large board in Ardoyne Avenue, north Belfast.
Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 1998 Paddy Duffy
T00313
Give Way
An Orange Order marcher (with skeletal face, glowing eyes, and a ‘Give way’ sign) is about to step on a protestor from the lower Ormeau who holds a sign reading “Peace – Justice” and has just released a dove that is sitting on top of the road-sign on the corner.
The scene is the Ormeau Road at Farnham Street, and the mural is in Farnham Street at the Ormeau Road; the mural thus includes a depiction of itself: the edge of the mural (with blue sky and grey pavement) appears on the wall to the left of the pizza shop with painted shutters reading “What part of NO don’t you understand?” (An image of the actual shutters, from the squire93 collection, is included below.)
In the top left is a smaller piece painted on a board: the words “Will there ever be peace? No.” are super-imposed on a grave.
Both the murals and the graffiti on the shutters were perhaps done by Troy Garity (ig), who did the Trade Off! Stand Off! mural in Artana Street.
Farnham Street, south Belfast
Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 1998 Paddy Duffy
T00319
