Great Hunger/Irish emigration

Life Finds A Way

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Palestinian artist Taqi Spateen’s (web | ig) third piece in Belfast is in Crocus Street, in Beechmount, west Belfast, in conjunction with the Beechmount Residents’ Collective, which has images of the launch on June 23rd (ig). It replaces the vandalised-and-repaired lower part of the pro-immigrant mural seen in In Search Of A Better Life. In the mural, both an olive tree and slender Easter lilies emerge from the rubble. On these a new society can be built.

For Spateen’s first piece, in Kent Street in the city centre, see Anatomy Of Oppression.

For the second piece, in Palestine Street, see Women Carry The People.

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Copyright © 2024 Paddy Duffy
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Clós Ard An Lao

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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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Copyright © 2023 Paddy Duffy
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Unbowed, Unbroken

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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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Copyright © 2022 Paddy Duffy
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An Gorta Mór

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“Britain’s genocide by starvation”, “Ireland’s holocaust 1845-1849”, “Over 1,500,000 deaths”. The great hunger is depicted using images from Illustrated London Newses of the time (see the Visual History page on an gorta mór).

The mural was begun in 1995 and was still in development in 1997. Whiterock Road, west Belfast

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Copyright © 1998 Paddy Duffy
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An Gorta Mór

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An Gorta Mór is the Great Famine, or the Great Hunger among those who point out that there was plenty of food in Ireland in the late 1840s, just not made available to peasants. Of a population around eight million, a million people died and a million more emigrated.

“They buried us without shroud or coffin” is a line from an unrelated Seamus Heaney poem Requiem For The Croppies.

The mural comprises three images from Illustrated London News: (left) Bridget O’Donnel And Children (ILN) and (right) Funeral At Skibbereen (ILN). 

Ardoyne Avenue, north Belfast

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Copyright © 1997 Paddy Duffy
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Coffin Ship

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A million, and perhaps as many as 2 million – one in four Irish people – left Ireland between 1845 and 1855, many sailing on so-called “coffin ships” which had mortality rates of 30%. Another million died in the Great Hunger itself (Visual History), in most cases the proximate causes were fever and dysentery (WP | Irish Central).

Crocus Street, west Belfast. Perhaps by the same hand(s) that painted the Gorta Mór mural in Rossnareen.

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Copyright © 1996 Paddy Duffy
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An Gorta Mór

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This is one of about nine murals painted in 1995 for the 150th anniversary mural of An Gorta Mór/the Great Hunger (Visual History).

There is a wall to the right that reads, “There was no famine; it was genocide.” (See the Peter Moloney Collection.)  

The dove on the chimney and the green ribbon below are a nod to the other main movement during this period, the release of political prisoners as a leading goal of the peace process.

Signed “Roısín Byrne & Kathy Rooney”.

Falls Road at Fallswater Street, west Belfast

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Copyright © 1995 Paddy Duffy
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An tOcras Mór

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This New Lodge mural shows people on the coast, near abandoned buildings, trying to grow crops during the period of the Great Hunger (1845-1852).

“An tOcras Mór” (a literal translation of “the great hunger/famine”) is usually (in Irish) “An Gorta Mór” or “An Drochshaol”.

The left-most and right-most figures are from Searching For Potatoes In A Stubble Field in the Illustrated London News. ILN images are a staple of Belfast muraling on the Great Hunger: see the Visual History page on the Great Hunger. (Here is a list, with links, of all of the illustrations of Ireland in ILN from the period 1845-1852.)

The two central figures, and the composition of the three women together, come from Millet’s The Gleaners. (Thanks to Jeryn Mayer for this pointer.)

Painted by “Farset Artists” – Jonny McKerr (later the street–artist JMK), Paul McCullough, Eamon Monaghan, and Dee Fitzsimons.

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Copyright © 1995 Paddy Duffy
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Emigration

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Irish people climb on-board ship in order to escape the Great Hunger. The mural is based on The Embarkation, Waterloo Docks Liverpool in the Illustrated London News. This is one of about nine murals painted in 1995 on the Great Hunger (Visual History).

Oakman Street, west Belfast

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Copyright © 1995 Paddy Duffy
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An Gorta Mór

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“When the potato crop failed causing the great hunger, people watched in despair as shiploads of food were escorted away by British troops …”. This mural combines an image from Illustrated London News (Bridget O’Donnel And Children) with five bodies faces drowning in the sea.

This is one of about nine murals painted in 1995 on the Great Hunger (Visual History).

Shaw’s Road/Rossnareen, west Belfast

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Copyright © 1995 Paddy Duffy (no date given)
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