“Catalonia & Ireland – Saoırse • Llibertat”, “Catalonia – 300 years of occupation, of resistance.”
Centralised Spanish rule dates back to the Nueva Planta decrees (WP) made by Philip V (who is shown upside-down in the first zero) between 1707 and 1716. These formed a single Spanish nation and citizenry and ended various regional identities including Catalonian.
Fahan Street, Derry
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Copyright © 2007 Paddy Duffy
T00382 [T00414]
“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
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Copyright © 2007 Paddy Duffy
T00420
“We have achieved peace, we have maintained peace – now stop the injustice: release our political hostages.” “Dedicated to Mark Rice”, a Tullycarnet resident who was jailed for 20 years for possession of an assault rifle used in the attack on Sean Graham bookmakers on the Ormeau Road in February 1992 (Relatives For Justice). To the left of centre, a red fist smashes through an Irish Tricolour; a Tricolour is also worn by the volunteer in the crosshairs.
Granton Park, Tullycarnet, Dundonald
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Copyright © 2000 Paddy Duffy
T00431
“Comrade, councillor, cara [friend].” Pat McGeown was a 1981 IRA hunger striker whose family intervened when he lapsed into a coma. After his release in 1985 he also worked for Sınn Féın and was elected to Belfast City Council in 1993. He died in 1996 of a heart attack. He is also remembered by a plaque on the Sınn Féın office on Falls Road.
Ballymurphy Road, west Belfast
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Copyright © 2000 Paddy Duffy
T00786
This is a display to republican dead, with a black flag, Easter lilies, and (on the main board) a funeral volley being fired over a coffin draped in a Tricolour, with a printed poster of the ten deceased 1981 hunger-strikers. The board was later moved to Clowney Street.
Among the posters below we see “Release Josephine Hayden”. Hayden was General Secretary of Republican Sınn Féın when she was sentenced to six years in jail in 1996 for weapons’ possession. She would be released in 2000. (Irish Times)
Beechmount Avenue, west Belfast
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Copyright © 1999 Paddy Duffy
T00421c
This is a fake mural, painted for the film The Most Fertile Man In Ireland (O’Connell 2005) which is set in Belfast. The mural doesn’t seem to have made the final cut but there’s another fake mural – Gloria Hunniford and Robert Emmet together in a frame of Celtic knot-work – at 7m40s, and another at 52m44s. You can play ‘spot the location’ for yourself by watching the film on youtube.
This one combines the Union Flag, Irish tricolour, Ulster Banner, and shape of the UVF emblem, with portraits of Ellen DeGeneres, Billy Jean King, KD Laing and Queen Elizabeth I.
(h/t Jonathan McCormick – Album 8)
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Copyright © 1999 Paddy Duffy
T00345
The Gibraltar Three are IRA volunteers Maıréad Farrell, Seán Savage, and Dan McCann, who were executed by British crown forces in Gibraltar on March 6th, 1988.
Along the top is written a variation on the second half of Terence MacSwiney’s famous phrase: “[It is not those who can inflict the most but] “Those that endure the most will conquer in the end”
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Copyright © 1998 Paddy Duffy
T00320
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
T00323 T00321 T00322
“Mıse Éıre” [I Am Ireland]. These two murals were both in the courtyard of Millview Court, off Mountainhill Road in Ligoniel and together present the fighting spirit and the loss entailed by the Irish struggle for freedom.
The plaque at the centre of the Celtic Cross reads “I ndıl chuımhne [in fond memory]. This plaque is dedicated to the memory of all those from Ligoniel who lost their lives as a result of the conflict in our country. A Mhuıre banríon na nGael guıgh orthu [Mary, queen of the Gael, pray for them]”
The second shows a Maid Of Erin harp – symbol of the United Irishmen – on top of a Tricolour attached to a pike, and a banner reading “Bás nó bua” [death or victory].
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Copyright © 1998 Paddy Duffy
T00312 T00314
A funeral volley is fired in honour three IRA volunteers, Joseph Downey, Brendan Davison, and Tony Nolan. All three were from the Markets area.
Downey’s death is variously attributed to either side in a gun-battle between the British Army and IRA, but the most detailed account (by PaperTrail) says Downey was shot by a loyalist (UVF) gang on the night of Bloody Friday.
Davison was shot by the UVF at his Friendly Way home in 1988 (RTÉ video).
Nolan was accidentally shot in 1971 when a gun being loaded by a colleague went off (Lost Lives 208).
Friendly Way, Markets, south Belfast
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Copyright © 1998 Paddy Duffy
T00291
Paddy Duffy Collection 