Belfast – Page 31 – Paddy Duffy Collection

War And Peace

2024-09-212024-10-21Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

After a long spring and summer of inaction, a new tribute to UDA assassin Stevie “Top Gun” McKeag has been put in place in the lower Shankill, replacing the flat-capped version of 2016.

In Tolstoy’s War And Peace, the prince Andrei Bolkonsky at one early point remarks, “It is not given to people judge what’s right or wrong. People have eternally been mistaken and will be mistaken, and in nothing more so than in what they consider right and wrong.” But after he is wounded at the Battle Of Austerlitz in 1805 and again in 1812 at the Battle Of Borodino, he loses his admiration for the blood-thirsty Napoleon and for war in general, and comes to think that events are a function of many individual decisions.

Stevie McKeag, hit-man for the UDA’s second battalion (west Belfast) ‘C company’, killed at least a dozen Catholics between 1990 and 1998 (WP). The version presented on the left-hand side-wall (just below) begins, “It is not given to people to judge what’s right or wrong. People have internally been mistaken and will be mistaken …” which seems to be contradictory, and then continues “… and in nothing more than in what they consider right and wrong” which is difficult to parse so as to give the intended meaning.

The mirrored hooded gunmen on either side of the quote come from an old mural in the estate – see UDU-UFF-UDA.

The smiling McKeag is here shown in the main panel wearing a green beret (as is the anonymous volunteer in the side-wall) and commando jumper (with shoulder patches) as though he were a “military commander” in the Commandos or Royal Marines of the British Army. The UDU, the poppies, and the graveside mourners in the right-hand side-wall are used to put McKeag’s actions in the context of resistance to Home Rule and the British Army’s role in the Great War.

For the composition of the main panel, as well as its use of boards on top of the background, compare with the UDA piece in the Woodvale. The translation into English of the UDA’s, UFF’s, and UYM’s Latin mottos – [Quis separabit] / None shall separate us | Feriens tego / Striking I defend | Terrae Filius / Son Of The Soil – is unusual, as is the bouquet of flowers behind the poppy.

For more, including the mourning soldiers, see the entry at Extramural Activity.

“Land of the free because of the brave”. “Remember with pride”. “Those we love don’t go away/They walk beside us every day”. “Dedicated to our fallen comrade”.

April 25th, 2024: The boards were taken off, revealing an older version that stood 2010-2015.

[In the middle circle there were, over the years, a series of printed portraits of McKeag (and one painted version). For the version from 2014, see M11119; see also the image 2011, which links back to other versions from 2010, 2009, 2008, and 2007).]

May 3rd, 2024: Scaffolding in front of the wall

This layer of paint (and plaster?) was also taken off, to reveal the remains of the original King Rat mural on the wall – see X15041 in the Seosamh Mac Coille collection.

Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2024 Paddy Duffy
T05650 [T05651] T05652 T05653 T05654
T04447 T04466 they shall not grow old

Line Work

2024-09-20Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

As part of Tunnel Vision paint-jam that added street art along the sides of the underpass at York Street station, a poem by Niamh McNally (ig) – Line Work – was added to the ceiling.

Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2024 Paddy Duffy
T05619c T05624 T05621 [T05620] T05623 T05622
In that golden hour, when timed-/Light is softened through glass/Piles of railway sleepers rest above/Sailortown’s underpass. A beacon blinks/As ghost seamen spot the shine of docklands./Indigo shadows shape form and shade pages/That are pressed in heritage of place./The last train breaks – halting about us./Our echoes dance then reverberate,/Deep within the underpass, deep within/The heart of north Belfast./Magic whispers to mystics in this piece./Artist voices converse from marginalia./Brushed, spraying, and dipping York Street …

Cosy Somme Association

2024-09-182024-09-29Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

Compared to the image (from 2021) seen in The Sacrifice Remains The Same, a blue background and a new wall of Poppy Trail plaques (for the Poppy Trail see this 2017 entry on the board) have been added to the Cosy Somme Association’s tribute to British Army soldiers from the 36th (Ulster) Division in WWI and the modern-day Royal Irish Regiment. (See also the image in Alain Miossec’s collection from earlier this year.)

Ogilvie Street, east Belfast, with a bonus image below of the milkman just around the corner, next to Piccola Parma.

Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2024 Paddy Duffy
T05632 [T05633] T05634

Deadly Pints, Deadly Tunes

2024-09-172025-01-21Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

“Deadly” here means “excellent” or “terrific”, perhaps from the idea of “hitting the (living!) target” (Stack) – it is a piece of southern slang that artist and print-maker Leo Boyd (web) perhaps picked up on his journey from Bristol to Dublin to Belfast (Boyd | Atom) where he is one of the Vault Studios artists (Vault).

Below the windows are “Ar scáth a chéıle a mhaıreann na daoıne” and “More Blacks, more dogs, more Irish.”

The new work shown here is at the American Bar (web) in Sailortown.

Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2024 Paddy Duffy
T05629 T05630 T05628 T05627 T05626 T05631

If Necessary, We Must Shed Blood

2024-09-012024-09-14Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

Here is a selection of placards from the Village in south Belfast, many on the theme of the fight against Home Rule in 1912 and the creation of Northern Ireland in 1921.

The most interesting is perhaps the small placard sandwiched (in the image below) between the UVF territorial marking (see e.g. Welcome To The Village) and the “warning” to landlords (see Not A Dumping Ground). The quote form Salisbury – “Parliament has a right to govern the people of Ulster; it has no right to sell them into slavery” – comes from a speech made in 1892 (Launceston Examiner) and Spencer was addressing the Lords in 1893 when he said, “We feel like the Americans when the integrity of THEIR country was threatened, and, if necessary, we must shed blood to maintain the strength and salvation of THIS country” (Hansard). Both statements, that is, were made in connection with the second Home Rule bill (of 1893) rather than the third as the “1914” crest of the “South Belfast regiment” of the Ulster Volunteers would suggest.

Below is a reproduction of a stamp featuring Edward Carson, described in the Notre Dame collection. These stamps were sold as a fundraiser; they were not used for postage.

For the “brothers in arms” placard, see Ulster & Israel and below that, Stand Firm.

For the Craig placard, see What We Have We Hold. The final three were seen previously in The Red Hand And The Winning Hand.

Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2024 Paddy Duffy
T05558 T05559
T05557 [T05556] [T05555]
T05554 [T05553] [T05552]
T05560 T05561 T05562 T05563 T05564 T05567

Windsor Park

2024-09-012024-09-03Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

This is a gallery of the boards along the lane to the east of Windsor Park where Linfield and Northern Ireland play their soccer matches. Five describe “historical games” played by Northern Ireland at the ground (from 1958, 1975, 1981, 2005, and 2015) and five describe Linfield FC (the “7 trophy” teams of 1921 and 1961, ‘the blues in Europe’, a history of the club, the 2005-2006 season, and Captains).

To the left and right of these boards are the murals seen in Football For All.

Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2024 Paddy Duffy
T05569 T05570 T05571 T05572 T05573
T05574 T05575 T05576 T05577 T05578

Flying High

2024-09-012024-09-05Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

Here are four species of bird flying in convoy through Belfast city centre. From left to right we see dunlin, lapwing, godwit (above), and Arctic tern (below). The art was painted by Annatomix (web), with support from Daisy Chain (web), as part of the “Great Expectations” project from the Linen Quarter Business Improvement District (web).

Great Victoria Street, Belfast, adjacent to Belfast Has The Reason.

The in-progress shots, below, are from October and November, 2023.

Football For All

2024-09-012024-09-05Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

Greater Village Regeneration Trust (Fb)

‘Football For All’ is a programme from the Irish FA Foundation aimed at stamping out discrimination and encouraging inclusivity among supporters (web). The new mural, above, is in the lane-way that runs down from Donegall Avenue to the footbridge. There are also reproductions of drawings by kids in the spaces below the footbridge.

Between the two are the boards about Linfield and recounting the role the ground has played in the history of the Northern Ireland team – see Windsor Park.

A Bigger Picture

2024-09-012025-01-22Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

“‘Creativity, like society, thrives when the individual elements fit within a bigger picture’ – Ernest Hemingway”

There’s no record of this statement being written or uttered by Hemingway. Instead, it appears to come from Will Gompertz’s 2015 book Think Like An Artist (wikiquote gives “Creativity, like society, thrives when the individual elements fit within, and add to, a bigger picture.”).

Hope Street, Belfast city centre, on the side of the Ginger Bisto on Great Victoria Street.

Preserving Identity

2024-08-282024-09-03Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

“Promoting Culture, Preserving Identity”. Here are a pair of new boards Mount Vernon Park, north Belfast, launched on August 11th, 2024, celebrating three Scottish bands and the local Fifes And Drums. Each of the bands’ emblems includes the Roman numeral “III”, which also appears in the bottom corner of the ‘Band Of Brothers’ board. It stands for the 3rd Belfast (i.e. north Belfast) battalion of the UVF, “Tiger’s Bay”. The St George’s Cross in the top-left corner and the purple background (of the ‘Band Of Brothers’ board) come from the UVF flag, which typically also has an orange star in the bottom right, here replaced by a swirling musical staff and Union Flag.

“Band Of Brothers. This artwork is a tribute to the unbreakable bond that we in North Belfast, share along with the following bands: Craigneuk [Scotland] True Defenders flute band, formed 1947 [Fb]; Andrew Murphy Memorial flute band [Scotland], formed 1988 [Fb]; City Of Belfast Fifes And Drums, formed 2003 [Fb]; Bellshill [Scotland] Defenders flute band, formed in 2017 [Fb]. For decades, these bands have remained faithful, and been a credit to the loyalist cause that binds us. When on parade, the honour and dignity displayed by each band, is impeccable. In timeless memory of the Fallen, each band proudly and respectfully bears the Colours and Emblems of: the Ulster Volunteer Force, the Young Citizen Volunteers, the 36th (Ulster) Division. ‘More than friends, comrades’.”