This is a complete version of Bobby Sands’s poem The Rhythm Of Time, along with the names and portraits of the ten deceased 1981 hunger strikers, and Michael Gaughan and Frank Stagg, who died on hunger strike in England.
Rockdale Street, west Belfast
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Copyright © 2000 Paddy Duffy
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Jim Fitzpatrick’s Che (Visual History) is the linchpin of this mural in Shiels Street, Beechmount, expressing solidarity between Irish republicanism and the Cuban revolutionaries. Fidel Castro appears on the right (and in the poster on the left), and Bobby Sands is seen on the right reading a collection of Che’s speeches and writings published in English in 1969 as Venceremos! (pdf).
Shiels Street, Beechmount, west Belfast
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Copyright © 1998 Paddy Duffy
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“Remember the ten H-Block martyrs. 1981-1998. Unbowed – unbroken.” With a pair of fists in barbed wire, a funeral volley fired over a coffin covered with Tricolour and beret, and a line-drawing of Bobby Sands. Signed “Republican Youth”
Berwick Road/Paráıd An Ardghleanna, Ardoyne,Ard Eoın, north Belfast/tuaısceart Bhéal Feırste
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Copyright © 1998 Paddy Duffy
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The main panels commemorate 25 years of “unbowed, unbroken” resistance in east Belfast (probably dating to the Battle Of St Matthew’s (WP) in 1970) with portraits of 16 deceased locals (“I measc laochra na nGael go raıbh a naınmeacha”) and two verses from Bobby Sands’s poem Weeping Winds (see below), on either side of Érıu the mythological queen of Ireland/Éıre as designed by Richard J King/Rísteard Ó Cíonga.
On the right (in the second image) is a copy of the 1916 Proclamation.
Oh, whistling winds why do you weep/When roaming free you are,
Oh! Is it that your poor heart’s broke/And scattered off afar?
Or is it that you bear the cries/Of people born unfree,
Who like your way have no control/Or sovereign destiny?
Oh! Lonely winds that walk the night/To haunt the sinner’s soul/
Pray pity me a wretched lad/Who never will grow old.
Pray pity those who lie in pain/The bondsman and the slave
And whisper sweet the breath of God/Upon my humble grave.
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Copyright © 1998 Paddy Duffy
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This is the second Bobby Sands mural on the wall of the offices of Sınn Féın and An Phoblacht/Republican News on the Falls Road. For the first, see The Spirit Of Freedom. Gone from that first mural is the lark in barbed wire, replaced by a skyline of Maze/Long Kesh watch-towers, but the smiling Sands and the quotation from him remain: “Everyone, republican or otherwise, has his [here: “his/her”] own [particular] part to play”.
This wall has its own Visual History page.
Sevastopol Street, west Belfast
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Copyright © 1995 Paddy Duffy
T00087 [T00207]
A smiling Bobby Sands on the side of the Sınn Féın offices on the Falls Road, (also the west Belfast office of An Phoblacht/Republican News), with his famous statement that “Everyone, republican or otherwise, has his [here: “his/her”] own [particular] part to play” (and the lark with its “spirit of freedom“). This version was painted by Mo Chara Kelly in 1989, and an image of Sands has been on the wall continuously since then.
Sevastopol Street, west Belfast
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Copyright © 1990 Paddy Duffy
T00089
The death by hanging of African National Congress supporter Benjamin Moloise on 18 October, 1985, for the alleged murder of a South African policeman, drew international condemnation and led to widespread rioting in Johannesburg and Port Elizabeth. (ExecutedToday | Jet)
Moloise’s words, “tell the world, freedom is at hand”, originally appeared on the right of this ANC-IRA mural, paired with a phrase from Bobby Sands, “we aim to be free” on the left of the assault rifle and a zulu shield and spear. The quote and signature have been painted out due to paint-bombing. (There was (at least) one other paint-bombing of the mural – see the Peter Moloney Collection.)
The boards above the mural (“erected by Sınn Féın April 1986”) declare west Belfast an “apartheid free zone”/”ceantar saor ó apartheıd”. Note the “A/A” [anti-aparteid] emblem in bottom-left of the left-hand board.
“Beır bua” [seize victory] along the bottom is partly obscured by the skip.
Ascaıll Ard Na bhFeá/Beechmount Avenue, west Belfast
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Copyright © 1988 Paddy Duffy
T00072
The design for this mural comes from a poster sent by the Iranian Ayatollah Khomeini, which featured the head of Bobby Sands against a backdrop of skeletal bodies. The hunger-strike imagery is somewhat in contrast with the quote to the right, which advocates for armed resistance: “The Irish Republican Army is right: The British government does not listen to the ballot box in Ireland and the only thing they will listen to in Ireland is what they listened to in other colonies: agitation, rebellion, and armed forces”.
Oakman Street, Beechmount, west Belfast
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Copyright © 1981 Paddy Duffy
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“The right honourable Bobby Sands Esq MP – Murdered by his fellow members of H.M. Govt”, “I have the spirit of freedom that cannot be quenched by even the most horrendous treatment. Of course I can be murdered, but while I remain alive, I remain what I am, a political prisoner of war, and no one can change that.” (From The Lark And The Freedom Fighter.) Barbed wire stretches over an Irish tricolour next to an image of Sands.
Shaws Road, west Belfast
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Copyright © 1981 Paddy Duffy
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