Easter Rising 1916 – Page 3 – Paddy Duffy Collection

800 Years Of Irish Resistance

2023-09-242024-08-27Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

There is a memorial garden to the history of Irish resistance at the entrance to the Athletic Grounds in Armagh. From left to right, the images presented here show:

“More than 800 years of Irish resistence” – a sword for the Norman invasion under Strongbow, a pike for the 1798 and 1803 rebellions, a bolt-action rifle for the Easter Rising of 1916, and an assault rifle for the Troubles;

Cumann Na mBan, Mairéad Farrell and republican women who made “the supreme sacrifice”;

The Proclamation, Provisional IRA and Na Fianna;

The dying Cú Chulainn and a plaque “in proud and loving memory of all republican volunteers, ex-POWs and the unsung heroes from this area who fought, suffered and died in the cause of Ireland’s freedom, with a quote from James Connolly: ‘If you strike at, imprison or kill us, out of prisons or graves will still evoke a spirit that will thwart you and perhaps raise a force that will destroy you! We defy you England! Do your worst!”;

“Remember Ireland’s hunger strikers – 22 men” – the ten 1981 hunger strikers and Thomas Ashe, Terence MacSwiney, Michael Fitzgerald, Joe Murphy, Joseph Whitty, Andy O’Sullivan, Denny Barry, Tony D’Arcy, Jack McNeela, Seán McCaughey, Michael Gaughan, Frank Stagg;

A stone “in loving memory of men, women and children murdered by British forces in Ireland.”

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Clós Ard An Lao

2023-05-092025-04-27Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

Here is a gallery of the murals and plaques in Clós Ard An Lao/Ardilea Close in the Machaıre Botháın/Marrowbone area of north Belfast. A full repertoire of republican events is commemorated – the United Irishmen, Great Hunger, the Rising, the Troubles, the (modern) hunger strikes. What is most striking is the significant presence of religious icons, such as the Sacred Heart in the glass cases in front of the two main murals (above and last below).

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Mothers, Sisters, Daughters

2022-11-062024-08-05Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

Érıu/Éıre of the Tuatha Dé Danann, queen of Ireland, (as depicted by Richard J King) is at the centre of various representations of republican women. Along the top are Ann Devlin, Betsy Gray, Mary Ann McCracken, Countess Markievicz, Nora Connolly?, and Winifred Carney. Suffragettes, the modern IRA, and Cumman Na mBan are depicted, as are Máıre Drumm at the Falls Curfew, Tom McElwee’s sisters carrying his coffin, and Molly Childers and Mary Spring Rice running guns on the Asgard. There is also an unusual ‘four provinces’ in the corners.

The wide shot (below) shows the James Connolly mural below and the 1916 centenary board above – also seen in South Link: Ag fíorú na poblachta/“Realising the republic”.

Rockmount Street, west Belfast.

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Unbowed, Unbroken

2022-11-032026-08-31Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

A succession of Irish rebels is shown in this new mural in Andersonstown, west Belfast. It begins (top left) with the rebellion of 1798 and then to the Easter Rising of 1916 at the GPO in Dublin. In the lower left, a pious Padraıg Pearse awaits his execution with rosary beads in hand. There are then shown female figures from Cumann Na mBán and the IRA (see previously: United Irishwomen, Do You Care? and Mothering Sunday In Beechmount), and then Maıréad Farrell in Armagh Women’s Prison (for the original, see Prison Walls). In the bottom right corner there is a blanketman. The busts of Bobby Sands and Joe McDonnell float above the GPO and the last verse of Sands’s The Rhythm Of Time form the epigraph: “It lights the dark of this prison cell, it thunders forth its might, it is the undauntable thought, my friend, the thought that says, “I’m right”.

On the side wall, “Ag fíorú na poblachta” means “Realising the republic”. It celebrates the centenary (“Céad Blıaın 1916 – 2016”) of the Easter Rising and shows a copy of the proclamation of the republic and an Easter lily. The next wall over (see below) shows portraits of the seven signatories to the Proclamation: Joseph Plunkett, Sean Mac Dıarmada, Thomas Clarke, James Connolly, Patrick Pearse, Eamonn Ceannt, and Thomas McDonagh.

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Tragedy At Ballykissane

2022-10-302024-08-03Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

One of the first casualties of the Easter Rising, on the evening of Good Friday, was Belfast-born Charles Monahan (Charlie Monahan, Cathal Ó Monacháın/Ó Muıneacháın), who died along with Con Keating and Daniel Sheehan in a motor accident in Kerry, when their car – which only had one headlamp – was driven off a pier. His body was not found until October 30th. The driver, Tommy McInerney – shown here studying a map – survived. This mural is in the Markets; Monahan is also claimed by east Belfast and a 2006 mural to him was painted on Mountpottinger Road (Visual History).

“Born in Riley[‘s] Place in the Market area of Belfast, Charles was one of many people who left Belfast to take part in the events leading up to the Easter Rising. Charles[‘s] role was to meet up with 3 other vols and help guide Roger Casement (top left) land a ship full of weapons. On the 21st April, 1916, the driver took the wrong road and drove off the pier into the Laune at Ballykissane. Charles, 37, drowned along with two of his comrades.”

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Mac Dıarmada

2022-10-192026-08-30Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

This board to Seán Mac Dıarmada in Ardoyne details his exploits leading up to and including the 1916 uprising and his earlier connection with the local area.

Painted by Rısteard ÓMurchú.

Previously: Mac Dıarmada also appears in the Bone Staır Na Gaeılge mural.

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The Evolution Of Our Revolution

2022-10-162024-08-01Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

A history of nationalism/republicanism from left to right: a pair of Easter lilies, four generations of rifles, and then a switch to a ballot paper with a check in favour of “unity” and a road named “Unity Way”: “From bullet to ballot: the evolution of our revolution. 1916 – 2016”

This mural is on the north side of Hugo Street – the south side remains exclusively éırígí.

Hugo Street, west Belfast

O’Neill-Allsopp Memorial Flute Band

2022-10-072026-08-30Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

Jim O’Neill was killed in February 1976 during an IRA arson attack on a furniture warehouse on the Antrim Road near the New Lodge – Gerry Fitt’s house next door might have been the ultimate target (Belfast Child); Robert Allsopp appears to have accidentally shot himself in March 1975 (Irish Peace Process). Both were members of Na Fıanna. The flute band (Fb) is named in their memory. The emblem in the centre of the mural was previously a pair of crossed Sunburst flags (see X05242).

For the main mural, see M08532.

Her Old Tradition Of Nationhood

2022-10-052026-08-30Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

“Saoradh salute the men and women of violence,” namely the signatories to the 1916 Proclamation, the women of the 1970s IRA, and modern “dissidents” with home-made weapons.

The plaque on the left is to the IRA’s Pearse Jordan, next to the centenary celebration of the Proclamation, Ag Fíorú Na Poblachta. The board was been moved to this Falls Road location from Ardoyne; it replaces an anti-RUC/PSNI mural.

Hugo Street, west Belfast

The Mainspring

2022-09-132026-08-28Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

Seán Mac Dıarmada was born in Leitrim, left for Glasgow at age 15, but after two years returned to Belfast in 1905 (working on the trams) and – according to the new mural above – spoke from the back of a coal lorry in Clonard Street, outside the Clonard branch of the Ancient Order Of Hibernians. Mac Dıarmada was for a short time an AOH member, before moving on to the Irish Republican Brotherhood and Irish Volunteers, which led to his participation in the 1916 Easter Rising and execution on May 12th of that year.

The title of this post is historian F.X. Martin’s assessment of Mac Dıarmada, quoted in a pamphlet on Mac Dıarmada from the National Library Of Ireland, which includes reproductions of letters from and about Mac Dıarmada. The NLI made more letters available today (2016-02-08). (See also this Irish Times write-up).

Previously: A 2013 Mac Dıarmada mural in Ardoyne.