blanket/dirty protest

The International Wall 2008

Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

Here is a complete set of images of the International Wall (Visual History) some time in the first half of 2008 (the Nugent mural and the WBTA mural had been changed by July). From left to right:

“The first blanketman” Kieran ‘Header’ Nugent
Solidarity with Palestine “the largest concentration camp in the world!!! 33 million innocent people tortured, denied their freedom!
Maghaberry POWs “Not forgotten – segregation for Irish POWs”
Frederick Douglass
Guernica
The Manchester Martyrs
American’s Greatest Failure, with a “British support hook”
Taxi Trax, with a central image of the GPO, and with an internet address for the first time
Martin Meehan “A leader is gone, the legend forever lives on” + Askatasuna “not Spain, not France – self-determination for the Basque country”
Stop Plan Bush “Stop the crazy son of a Bush” 
Liam MacCarthy “Ireland’s forgotten son”

Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2008 Paddy Duffy
T00393 T00394 T00395 T00396 T00397 T00398 T00399 T00403 T00400 T00401 T00402

St James’s Support The Hunger Strikers

Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

St James’s supports the hunger strikes – in Long Kesh and Armagh and (on the right) in Turkey.

Various images and posters from 1980 and 1981 are reproduced. Along the top, we see (l-r) a soldier is confronted at the top of Springhill (image at Irish Times), “Wanted for murder [and torture of Irish prisoners]” (image at MSU), “Mothers hunger”, “Blessed are those who hunger for justice“, “Where there is oppression there is resistance”, Armagh hunger-striker Mary Doyle.

Along the bottom: “Stop strip searches“, “Save our children from plastic death”, “Support the hunger strike demands”, and portraits of 1981 hunger-strikers Bernard Fox and Pat Sheehan, both from the Falls Road.

For Turkish hunger-strikers, see F-Block Martyrs | Zehra Kulaksiz | Support The Turkish Hunger Strikers

Hugo Street, west Belfast

Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2008 Paddy Duffy
T00385

Patsy O’Hara

Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

“Years from now they will ask you where you were when your comrades were dying on hungerstrike. Shall you say you were with us or shall you say that you were conforming to the very system that drove us to our deaths[?]” INLA (sign the light-pole as well as the flags and red star in the mural) volunteer Patsy O’Hara, from Derry, joined the hunger strike on the same day as Raymond McCreesh (March 22nd) and died, 61 days later, later in the same day (May 21st, 11:29 p.m.) as him (2:11 a.m.).

Lecky Rd, Derry

Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2007 Paddy Duffy
T00420

H-Block/Armagh

Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

The sixth mural from the Bogside Artists commemorates the 1980 hunger strikes, first in Long Kesh and subsequently in Armagh Women’s Prison. The main figure is Raymond McCartney; the female figure is perhaps Mary Doyle (the other two female strikers were Maıréad Farrell and Maıréad Nugent).

Rossville St, Derry

Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2001 Paddy Duffy
T00356

Claiming Equality!

Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

Northern Ireland’s first Prime Minister, James Craig, said in 1934, that Stormont was “carrying on a Protestant Government for a Protestant People” (NI Parliamentary Debates), though the phrase has now been transformed into the doubly alliterative “A Protestant parliament for a Protestant people”. In the centre of a long mural at the waste-ground at the top of Mountpottinger Road, people carrying Irish Tricolours tear down the statue to Northern Ireland’s most prominent leader, Sir Edward Carson, that stands outside Stormont, “claiming equality”.

The main issue that has tested the resolve of governments both local and national to the equality declared in the 1998 Belfast (Good Friday) Agreement is Orange Order parading through nationalist areas, such as the Garvaghy Road below Drumcree church in Portadown, and the Ormeau Road in south Belfast.

“Short Strand people support Garvaghy and Ormeau Roads.” On the left: The spectre of intolerance – Drumcree.” Centre: “A Protestant parliament for a Protestant people no more!” On the right “1996: Ormeau residents battered; 1997: Garvaghy residents beaten; 1998: The third reich to march.” and “Fascism lives! in Portadown”.

The piece is next to a hunger-strikers commemoration piece with ten portraits on shaped wooden boards against a painted background with blanket-man Hugh Rooney in the center. Between the two is a “spirit of freedom” lark and the names of the ten deceased 1981 strikers.

Mountpottinger Road, Short Strand, east Belfast

Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2000 Paddy Duffy
T00426 T00427 T00417 T00416 T00418

Long Kesh 1981

Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

In the shadow of Long Kesh watch-towers, a blanketman draped in an Irish Tricolour is held in the arms of his father, with mother looking on, reminiscent of Michelangelo’s pietà (“pity”) in which Mary holds the body of her dead son after he has been taken down from the cross (and so it also echoes Oliver Sheppard’s statue of Cúchulaınn).

Painted by Con at the top of Donegall Road, west Belfast.

Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 1981 Paddy Duffy
T00052 [T00029]

Sacred Heart Blanketman

Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

The image of a blanketman on all fours was also seen in Ballymurphy, Ardoyne, and Finaghy (see the 1981 CNR Murals) but in this Beechmount version, the ‘sacred heart of Jesus’ appears above the prisoner, similar to the angel on the Whiterock Road and the ‘blessed virgin Mary’ in the Rock streets.

Beechmount Drive, west Belfast

Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 1981 Paddy Duffy
T00051 [T00031]