The Who, the parka, the scooter with multiple mirrors … Mod life in Belfast.
Please get in touch if you can explain “113”.
Tamar Street, east Belfast
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Copyright © 2023 Paddy Duffy
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I’m One, At Least
Belfast
Thank You, NHS
This is an early (2020) Covid-era mural on the side of Ciggy Vapes expressing thanks “from all our management & staff” to workers in the NHS. The child in the image is playing with a doll of a nurse rather than the Batman doll in the basket.
Ribble Street, east Belfast
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Copyright © 2023 Paddy Duffy
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Shankill Drummer
Tomorrow (August 30th, at 12:30) there will be a family fun-day and the launch of a new mural of a colourful drummer boy. The mural is on Peter’s Hill; it takes the place of the “Original Belfast” murals (2009 and 2020) and before that a UDA emblem (M02480).
Painted by Glen Molloy (ig) with support from SAFE Shankill (see Woodvale OK), Alternatives (web), Executive Office, Communities In Transition.
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Copyright © 2023 Paddy Duffy
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Glen Knox
Glen Molloy’s (ig) tribute to friend Mark Knox, who died in 2021 (Funeral Times).
Woodstock Place, Belfast
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Copyright © 2023 Paddy Duffy
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Stand Off, Trade Off
This mural protests Orange marches along “traditional routes” in Drumcree (Portadown) and Lower Ormeau (Belfast). It’s been roughly 25 years since the tension over these marches was at its height, but the scars have yet to heal. The DUP made a motion in the House Of Commons to lift the ban on the Drumcree parade this year (News Letter | Irish Times | BBC).
This long-standing mural was perhaps touched up in 2021. Compare to the 2010 post.
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Copyright © 2023 Paddy Duffy
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Bright Eyes
The movie that made child-actress Shirley Temple a star was the December 1934 film Bright Eyes, in which she played an orphan, Shirley Blake, living with a wealthy and mean-spirited family but befriended by her godfather and pilot Loop Merritt (played by James Dunn in their third movie together that year, after Stand Up And Cheer! and Baby Take A Bow) (WP Bright Eyes | WP James Dunn). She was awarded a special Oscar for her performance the following year (WP).
The Strand Cinema in east Belfast opened a year later, on December 7th, 1935, and Bright Eyes was the first movie shown. The venue for a time operated exclusively as a concert hall (from 1984-1988); in 2013 it became the charity ‘Strand Arts Centre’, supporting a variety of arts in addition to a now-independent four-screen cinema operation (StrandArtsCentre History).
The 3-D mural by emic (ig) on the Pim’s Avenue side of the theatre reproduces a publicity photo from 1935.
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Copyright © 2023 Paddy Duffy
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Jim McCabe
A new mural was unveiled yesterday in memory of Jim McCabe, the husband of Norah McCabe who was hit by a plastic bullet in 1981 and died a day later. Jim went on to become a “lifetime campaigner for truth + justice” and a “founder member of Relatives For Justice [web] and United Campaign Against Plastic Bullets [web]”. (For a profile of Jim’s campaigning work, see Belfast Media.) Jim died in January of this (2023) year.
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Copyright © 2023 Paddy Duffy
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Big Ribbo Is On The Wall
“Big Ribbo” is David Conville, who died last year of injuries sustained in an assault by a friend (Bel Tel | Belfast Live). This memorial board shows him playing in the Ulster First Flute (Sandy Row) flute band (Fb).
For the bonfire mural, see Guiding Light.
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Copyright © 2023 Paddy Duffy
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Shankill Parade
The Shankill Area Social History (SASH) (Fb) celebrates the people and events of the Shankill Road with a new mural in Downing Street.
From left to right: girls wrapped in Union Flags watching the parade; boys on pallets; the Shankill Mission; Orange Order parade; the Summer festival in Woodvale Park (The Cabin); the former Belfast Savings Bank, now an undertaker’s; the Winter festival and switching-on of the Christmas tree lights, with Mrs. Claus, the Grinch in Santa costume, and last year’s (2022) celebrity guest Charlie Lawson (youtube); local band Casual Riots (ig). (SASH Fb Gallery)
For a mural of famous Shankill faces and places, see Save The Shankill.
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Copyright © 2023 Paddy Duffy
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The Earth Is Girdled With The Graves Of Our Dead
“O valiant hearts who to your glory came/Through dust of conflict and through battle flame//Tranquil you lie, your knightly virtue proved/Your memory hallowed [not “hollowed”] in the land you loved.” The hymn ‘O Valiant Hearts’ was a poem written during the first World War to commemorate the Allied dead, and was put to a variety of tunes during the 1920s, including arrangements by Vaughan Williams and Holst (WP); the most commonly sung tune, however, is that of Charles Harris (youtube, includes the full poem).
The memorial shown in the middle of the board is a Cross Of Sacrifice (see previously: One In Design And Intention) built on top of a German pill box at the centre of Tyne Cot cemetery, near Passchendaele, Belgium. The title of today’s post comes from remarks made by George V during a 1922 visit to the cemetery (History.org). The map in the background shows the area just south of Ypres (Canadian Soldiers).
The board is in Pim’s Avenue, Belfast, opposite the older YCV emblem shown below.
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Copyright © 2023 Paddy Duffy
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