Belfast

Love The Arts

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Love Hearts turn 70 years old in 2024 – they were originally included in crackers for the Christmas season in 1954. Over the years, the messages on them have changed, and various specialty versions have been produced, including for Prince William’s 21st (in 2003) and a recent collaboration with YoungMinds with affirmative messages (Swizzels | WP). The messages on these “Love tHeArts” – imagined by FGB (ig) in North Street, Belfast city centre – are perhaps less “Marry me” and “Be mine” and more “Fund me” and “Follow me on Instagram”.

See also Eat To The Beat for another Swizzels sweet – the drumstick – by FGB.

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Copyright © 2024 Paddy Duffy
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Life Finds A Way

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Palestinian artist Taqi Spateen’s (web | ig) third piece in Belfast is in Crocus Street, in Beechmount, west Belfast, in conjunction with the Beechmount Residents’ Collective, which has images of the launch on June 23rd (ig). It replaces the vandalised-and-repaired lower part of the pro-immigrant mural seen in In Search Of A Better Life. In the mural, both an olive tree and slender Easter lilies emerge from the rubble. On these a new society can be built.

For Spateen’s first piece, in Kent Street in the city centre, see Anatomy Of Oppression.

For the second piece, in Palestine Street, see Women Carry The People.

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The Tea Bar

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The entry Old Carrick Hill shows the mural of ‘Carrick Hill in yesteryear’ from Stanhope Street. Around the corner in Regent Street there are the fifteen printed boards shown here. From left to right (top to bottom in this entry) they depict … Park Street; Rafferty’s Bar; The Tea Bar, Carrick House; Unity Flats; Alton Utd, FC (founded in 1921, played in the Falls League, won the 1923 Free State Cup Final – Bohs Sporting Life); All in a day’s outing; Playing marbles; Night-time camping; 1976 Mandiville dart team; Mary McCusker & Kitty Spotwoods; Burns family, Wall Street; Maggie Jane Largey & Mary Ann Largey; Carrick Castle public house; Richard & Alan Crean; The Old & The New.

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Swimming Upstream

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Salmon disappeared from the Lagan in the late 1700s. The river was restocked in 1991 (CFB) and some salmon have been seen and caught since then (Flickr | Fly Forums). (The angling season is March to October – NIDirect | DAERA.) A more reliable salmon sighting is the Big Fish, which has been in place since 1999 (Atlas Obscura), to which we can now add this Glen Molloy (ig) painting in Palestine Street, in the Holylands, south Belfast.

June 23rd:

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Loyalist Tiger’s Bay

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The large gable at the junction of the Limestone Road and North Queen Street in north Belfast – most recently the site of a celebration of Rangers’ 55th title – see We Are The People – is being repainted, beginning with the low wall in front, as shown above. The side wall on the right of the wide shot below dates back to 2017 (see Your Kingdom Will Endure Forever) and the scriptural references on it also appear in the new installation in Mervue Street – see I Will Plant Them, That They May Dwell In A Place Of Their Own. It’s possible that a King Charles installation is in progress here, too.

The final image is of another Tiger’s Bay territorial marker in Upper Canning Street.

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Crying, Sighing, Breathlessly

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“Ruby Murray (March 29, 1935 – December 17, 1996) was a popular singer born in Moltke Street and brought up in the village. Her characteristic hoarse voice was a result of an operation on her throat in early childhood. She toured as a child singer, and first appeared on television at the age of 12. Her first single was ‘Heartbeat’ [youtube], which reached the UK top 5 in 1954. The next, ‘Softly, Softly’ [youtube], reached number 1 in 1955, a year in which Murray achieved the rare feat of having five singles in the top twenty at the same time. Ruby still holds the record for the most hit records in the Top Twenty at the same time; beating Madonna and the Beatles.” “Our thanks to Donegall Road Primary School & especially all the pupils, whose images comprise this Photo-Mosaic.”

This is a copy of the board (or perhaps even the very board) that used to be in Maldon Street. It is (now) in the Village green, which cuts Moltke Street in two.

Other Murray boards: The Village Songbird | Top Of The Pops

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You Have The Power

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“You have the power to say “No!” to drugs.”

Carla Hodgson (ig) and kids from the Carrick Hill community centre (with support from the University Of Ulster) painted this mural at the junction of Trinity Street/Sráıd Na Tríonóıde and Regent Street/Sráıd An Leasrí, in Carrick Hill, a spot which is reportedly used by dealers to sell drugs (Belfast Media | 2018 BelTel | 2018 Belfast Live).

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Sweet Rockall

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Nigel Farage yesterday had a banana milkshake from McDonald’s thrown over him by a protester in Clacton (Guardian) as Farage launched his own and the Reform Party’s campaign for the Westminster election on July 4th. It was not Farage’s first milkshake – he was doused by a banana-and-caramel shake from Five Guys in Newcastle in 2019 (BBC).

He is shown here (above) in a Ciaran Gallagher painting in the courtyard of the Dark Horse bar in Belfast city centre (at the end of the Ship Of Fools saga), with pint and cigarette in hand, looming over the UK’s most recent (and perhaps final) territorial expansion: the annexation of Rockall in 1955 and with it a claim of a 12-mile exclusion zone of sea and airspace; it is also claimed by Ireland, Iceland, and Denmark (WP).

Included below are other ethno-nationalists on display in the courtyard, portrayed as the four horsemen of the apocalypse, Donald Trump (famine), Vladimir Putin (death), Kim Jong Un (pestilence), and Ruhollah Khomeini (war).

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Love Will Keep Us Alive

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“Love transforms”. In Chinese (Daoist) mythology, Lan Caihe, one of the Eight Immortals, is a sexually ambiguous character who carries a basket of herbs and flowers (depicted on the right of the image above) that symbolise or promote longevity (WP).

Electrical box by Ellymakes (web) in Carmel Street, Holylands, south Belfast.

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