other – N Ireland

Everything Is Going To Be All Right

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This is Ciaran Gallagher’s (ig) take on McBride’s pub in Cushendun. Around the outside are a verse from Moira O’Neill’s ‘To W.C.S.’ in More Songs Of The Glens Of Antrim (pdf at Google Books): “I dreamt of gentle Ireland beneath the northern light/The waves that broke on Ireland were callin’ me at night/Till back across the salt sea, back against the sun/I took the way the birds know, and woke in Cushendun.”

For the exterior of the pub, surrounded by famous individuals, see Kathryn Bannister’s painting from the Dark Horse pub, Belfast.

Below the painting (and shown below) is Derek Mahon’s poem ‘Everything Is Going To Be All Right’: “How should I not be glad to contemplate/The clouds clearing beyond the dormer window/And a high tide reflected on the ceiling?/There will be dying, there will be dying/But there is no need to go into that./The poems flow from the hand unbidden/And the hidden source is the watchful heart/The sun rises in spite of everything/And the far cities are beautiful and bright/I lie here in a riot of sunlight/Watching the day break and the clouds flying/Everything is going to be all right.”

Main Street, Cushendun

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Bound Together

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This Ruaırí Óg mural is on the side of the Lurig Inn (Fb), Coast Road, Cushendall, and features Ruaırí Óg superfan “Main Man” John McKillop (in the yellow bib).

The text in the centre reads “Main Man John McKillop Sept 2015”, which is when Ruaırí Óg senior hurlers defeated Ballycastle McQuillan for the Antrim title. “Image courtesy of Seamus Loughran” is the lower right-hand corner. For the photograph itself, see the Irish News.

See also Ruaırí Óg CLG and Laochra Gael.

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Copyright © 2023 Paddy Duffy
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Downpatrick Street Art

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Here is a gallery of street art in Downpatrick, roughly from the north of the town to the south, from Church Street to Irish Street to St Patrick’s Avenue. Many of these were done for Down Time 2022.

Girl From Mars by Friz (ig) and NRMN (ig), ?RAZER? , hands by emic (ig)
in the carpark: trio of NOYS, ?Razer?, Wee Nuls; fish by Verz (ig), “When life gives you lemons” by Zippy (ig);
on St Patrick’s Avenue: Friz, Kieron Black (ig), fighting birds by ?

See previously: street art for Down Time 2019 | Magnus Barelegs.

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The Future Of Football

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When this mural of Northern Ireland players from Killyleagh was originally painted in 2006 it featured only three players:

– Hugh Davey, from Shrigley, five caps for “Ireland” (that is, for the IFA team) from “1925-1928” (NI Football)

– Terry Cochrane, 26 caps for Nothern Ireland from “1975-1984”; he played in the ’82 World Cup qualifiers but was injured for the tournament itself (NI Football)

– David Healy, 95 caps from “2000” to 2013; he scored the winning goal against England on 7th September, 2005 – the first victory over England since the 2-0 victory in 1927 that Hugh Davey played in – a feat memorialised in two Belfast murals: Our Wee Country | We’re Not Brazil, We’re Northern Ireland (NI Football)

A space and a question-mark were left at the bottom of the rainbow for future stars, in particular for then-seventeen-year-old up-and-comer Trevor Carson (Glasgow Times) who indeed went on to win his first (senior) cap in 2018 and currently has eight in total. He was added to the mural in 2021 (tw).

Braeside Gardens/Frederick Street, Killyleagh. Carson’s mother lives in the estate (Sunderland Echo).

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Down Time

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The Downtime summer festival is held annually in Downpatrick in August (covid-permitting) (Fb). The 2019 event included street art at the junction of St Patrick’s Avenue and Market Street. From left to right (top to bottom in this post), the art is by DMC & JMK (ig), KVLR (ig), emic (ig), Dan Leo (ig), Friz (ig).

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Greyabbey Remembers

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“I am not an Ulsterman but yesterday, the First of July, as I followed their amazing attack, I felt that I would rather be an Ulsterman than anything else in the world. My pen cannot describe adequately the hundreds of heroic acts I witnessed, the Ulster Volunteer Force, from which the Division was made, has won a name that equals any in history. Their devotion deserves the gratitude of the British empire.” 

These are the words of Wilfrid (not “Wilfred”) Spender, Plymouth-born newspaper manager, quartermaster of the Ulster Volunteers, general staff officer of the 36th (Ulster) Division, winner of the Military Cross for actions at Thiepval, and Cabinet Secretary of the new “Northern Ireland” in 1921.

The Ulster Tower memorial is in the top left and the Thiepval Memorial To The Missing is in the top right. The emblems are of the Royal Irish Rifles.

Main Street, Greyabbey, Co. Down, on the outside wall of the Orange Hall.

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