The tribute to the new UK monarch King Charles III at the northeastern corner of Tiger’s Bay has been completed, with Ulster Banner and Union Flag on either side of a circular board showing a crown with the flowers of the “four nations” – thistle, shamrock, daffodil, and rose – both inside (in blue) and out (in red).
There is another piece using the same central board inside the estate – see I Will Plant Them.
The title of this entry comes from Charles’s coronation service, on May 6th, 2023 (pdf).
For ‘Loyalist Tiger’s Bay’ on the front wall, see the Stop The Boats; for the Orange Order symbols on the side wall (in the final image) – including the crown and Bible in the apex of the main wall – see Your Kingdom Will Endure Forever.
Here are three ‘Four Loko’ hand-painted ads in Belfast, specifically Islandbawn Street, west Belfast (above), Little Donegall Street, city centre (immediately below) by Shane Ha (web) in August, and (final image) Legann Street, Ligoniel, north Belfast.
Four Loko was originally contained caffeine, taurine, and guaraná (as well as being 12% alcohol), and was marketed as an energy drink (or, “blackout in a can” (GrubStreet | Campus Times)). Now, it just has the alcohol and the fruit flavour (Four Loko FAQ | WP page on the 2010 ban).
A mural celebrating the success of the film An Irish Goodbye has been painted in Belfast city centre. The film won both the BAFTA and Oscar for best Short Film in 2023. The quartet depicted at the top in their best gear for the Oscar ceremony in March, 2023, are (above) actors James Martin and Seamus O’Hara, and (below) directors Ross White and Tom Berkeley (BBC); in the bottom left is actor Paddy Jenkins as he appears in the film, as the priest, Father O’Shea (BBC). (IMDb | WP)
By Peaball (web) in Winetavern Street, Belfast city centre.
Van Morrison was born in 1945 at 125 Hyndford Street in east Belfast and recalled the sights and sounds of his early life there in the spoken-word track ‘On Hyndford Street’ from the 1991 album Hymns To The Silence (youtube). (The song also concluded his 70th birthday concert in Cyprus Avenue – youtube).
This painted tribute is by Glen Molloy (Fb) in the alley between Abetta Parade and Hyndford Street, roughly behind 135 Hyndford Street (and close to The Hollow – see Days When The Rains Came).
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.
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.
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.
“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).
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.
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.
Paddy Duffy Collection 