Belfast – Page 46 – Paddy Duffy Collection

Painting For Palestine

2024-01-202024-08-27Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

In January 2024, in response to the prolonged Israeli attack on Gaza, many murals on the “International Wall” on Divis Street were painted out and work began on reproductions of artworks by artists from Palestine and elsewhere in the region. The project was called Painting For Palestine and a Facebook page and GoFundMe page were launched.

According to Bill Rolston (Fb) (who can be seen in the second image, below), there was a plan last Autumn that Palestinian artists would create their own “international wall” and include murals designed by CNR artists. The Hamas attack on October 7 and the subsequent Israeli invasion on Gaza – now ongoing for 108 days – put paid to that project, and instead art by Palestinian painters is being painted in Belfast in support of Palestine. (Here is an NVTv segment on the project.)

All of the following were painted out: Operation Pagoda, #Unblock Cuba, Jim McCabe, Black Taxi CIC, Springhill-Westrock Massacre, Falls Commemoration Committee, Lenár Lınn, Hunger Strikers (1916). The Nugent-Hughes-McKee, the museum bookmark, Stop The Slaughter In Gaza, and the two anti-Agreement panels (Khader Adnan and Republican Prisoners Still Exist!) remain.

This entry shows images of whitewashed panels and early progress on the first seven of the new murals, taken on January 14, 15, 17, and 20.

Here are links to the originals:

The Land Is Ours – Mohammed Alhaj, Abdullah Al Najar, Rami Al Safadi, Abdel Hamid Fares
(man holding child) – Saïd Hassan
(soldiers standing over children) – Saïd Hassan
(family group) – Ahmad Shaweesh
(Soso and Omar Ashour) – Raed Qatanani
(child and phoenix) – ?
(cooking in front of tent) – Saïd Hassan

The first (left-most) panel will reproduce a mural called ‘The Land Is Ours’ by Mohammed Alhaj, Abdullah Al Najar, Rami Al Safadi, and Abdel Hamid Fares that once stood in a Gaza school; the second, next to the first, is currently blank (see the image above).

The grid and cartoon for a mural from digital artist Saïd Hassan (web):

Another image by digital artist Saïd Hassan, showing soldiers standing over dead children:

Four murals are being painted over what were previously Lenár Linn and Hunger Strikers (1916). The originals for these were designed by Ahmad Shaweesh (ig), Raed Qatanani (ig), ? [please get in touch], and Saïd Hassan (web).

Shaweesh’s piece is a deliberately unfinished image of a group of people, perhaps a family, in distress. Qatanani’s image is a portrait of Soso and Omar Ashour as they sat in a Gaza hospital during the first week of the Israeli invasion.

The original artist of this figure with a phoenix is unknown.

The last of these four murals is by Hassan and shows a woman cooking over an open fire in front of a tent in a refugee camp.

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Copyright © 2024 Paddy Duffy
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The Specials

2024-01-062024-08-27Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

Jack Nicholson and Noel Gallagher have disappeared from Glen Molloy’s (ig) Corporation Street gallery, replaced by Amy Winehouse (above), who died in 2011 (Guardian), and Terry Hall (below) of The Specials and Fun Boy Three, who died in December 2022 (BBC).

For Nicholson, see God Of Madness; for Gallagher and others, see Runner & Hunter On The Wild Frontier.

Update 2024-03: Carrie Fisher, in Princess Leia guise, is being added – see final images.

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Pádraıc Fıacc

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Patrick O’Connor was born on this day in 1924 on the lower Falls but after his father emigrated he spent his early years – until age 5 – with his grandparents in East Street in the Markets. It was as a high-schooler in New York that he adopted the name Pádraıc Fıacc (“fiach dubh” is “raven”) and began writing poetry. He settled in Glengormley upon his second and final return; it is not clear that he ever saw East Street lined with British Army soldiers, as shown in the mural above. He wrote of his early life in ‘First Movement’:

Low clouds, yellow in a mist wind
Sift on far-off Ards
Drift hazily …
I was born on such a morning
Smelling of the bone yards
The smoking chimneys over the slate top roofs
The wayward storm birds
And to the east where morning is, the sea
And to the west where evening is, the sea
Threatening with danger
And it would always darken suddenly

Some of Fıacc’s poems are in the TroublesArchive. He was interviewed by NVTv’s Bernard Conlon (Vimeo); he also appears in a reception in Belfast City Hall (youtube).

Lower Stanfield St, Markets, south Belfast

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A True Red

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Here is a 2014 mural in the Markets area of south Belfast celebrating the achievements of local boy George McMullen, who played youth football for St. Malachy’s and St. Matthew’s before joining Cliftonville in 2011 age 20.

On the left is the familiar Cliftonville huddle (see previously: The Red Army). The two poses in the centre and on the left are reproductions of Belfast Telegraph images. The first is from Cliftonville’s 2013 Dankse Bank Irish League-clinching win over Linfield, which the Reds won with a McMullen penalty in the dying seconds; the second in from the same moment in the 2014 campaign: Chris Curran has just scored to put the Reds two-nil up in a game against Portadown that would win them the League for the second year in succession.

Other Cliftonville players have been featured in murals: Joe The Goal in Ardyone and Rory Donnelly in the Bone.

Lower Stanfield St, Markets, south Belfast

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End The Siege On Gaza

2024-01-022024-10-27Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

“Free Palestine”. Tears of blood flow from a face that is shrouded by a Palestinian flag and behind barbed wire. The writing at the bottom is a quote from Malcolm X: “If you’re not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the oppressed and loving the oppressor.”

Lower Stanfield St, Markets, south Belfast. Almost a decade old – this mural was launched 2014-07-29.

Smothered In Kisses

2023-12-272024-08-27Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

Here are matching “KAH” (Kill all Huns/Protestants) and “KAT” (Kill all Taigs/Catholics) graffiti from Broadway roundabout – the interface between Iveagh and the Village – that have been plastered over with paper hearts.

With Transformation Comes Change

2023-12-242025-07-16Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

“With growth comes transformation, with transformation comes change.” This is a 2012 piece – now much the worse for wear – by Chuck Hoffman (Genesis Art) and a team of five students from Kansas (including Sam Fine) in the Bridge End tunnel (east Belfast).

At The Eleventh Hour

2023-12-242024-08-27Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

The portrait on the right is probably William McFadzean, familiar from murals such as in the Caw, Londonderry, and in Cregagh, Belfast (though the photo is unknown). The face on the left is John Travers “Jack” Cornwell, “the boy hero of Jutland”, who was awarded the VC for staying at his post as a sight-setter on the HMS Chester (the picture is from an earlier posting, on the HMS Lancaster) when it was hit by German light cruisers on May 31st, 1916. Cornwell died from shrapnel wounds on June 2nd (Mary Evans).

It’s not clear why Cornwell is included here, as he was from, and is buried in, east London, rather than Belfast or Ireland, and does not seem to be associated with the 36th Division. Please get in touch if you can explain his inclusion here. See also: Battle Of Jutland and HMS Caroline.

Dee Street, east Belfast, on the fence seen previously in My God-Given Right To Rule.