Tricolour – Page 9 – Paddy Duffy Collection

Llibertat – Saoırse

1997-08-012026-10-28Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

This is a mural of international solidarity between Catalonia (llibertat), Ireland (saoırse), the Basque country, Palestine, and Mexico, whose flags can be seen along the bottom. The skulls hanging on the left are labelled as coming from Kenya, India, Ireland, and Cambodia. The people featured are Steve Biko, Che, Máıre Drumm, Maıréad Farrell, Miram Daly (whose son Donal worked on the mural), Nelson Mandela, Leila Khaled, and Leonard Peltier. The aboriginal flag is on the chimney breast and the pots are painted in the four colours of man.

The mural was painted by Féıle Artists (including Danny D, Marty Lyons, Mo Chara Kelly, and Donal Daly) along with Victor Ochoa (WP).

Falls Road/Fallswater Street, west Belfast

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Copyright © 1997 Paddy Duffy
T00301

Ireland’s Soldiers Of Freedom

1997-07-012025-10-20Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

IRA volunteers are superimposed upon the flags of the four provinces. In the top left (Ulster) and bottom right (Connacht) they are aiming weapons (one with a sniper’s scope), while in the top right (Leinster) they are firing a funeral volley, and in the bottom left (Munster) are reading a statement at a microphone; in the middle are a lark and a Tricolour.

South Link, Andersonstown, west Belfast, replacing the even-more-heavily armed volunteers in Beıdh Ár Lá Lınn.

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Copyright © 1997 Paddy Duffy
T00294

Tom Williams

1996-08-012025-09-24Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

“Volunteer Tom Williams, executed 2.9.42 age 19. A lad who still lied within a prison wall.” Williams was the leader of a unit from C company, 2nd battalion, Belfast IRA, that killed RUC Constable Patrick Murphy. Williams took sole responsibility, hoping that it would save the lives of the other seven (including two women) who had taken part in the ambush. The six men were jointly convicted of the killing but only Williams was ultimately hanged, after appeals from Ireland (not yet officially ‘The Republic Of’), the Vatican, and the US State Department (RN). He was buried on the grounds of Crumlin Road gaol (and his coffin would eventually be exhumed and reburied in Milltown in 2000).

This is the second Tom Williams mural at this spot; the first was painted in 1992; both were painted by Gerard “Mo Chara” Kelly. There is a plaque to Williams above his front door in Bombay Street.

Kashmir Road, west Belfast

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Copyright © 1996 Paddy Duffy
T00178 T00168

A Just And Lasting Peace

1995-11-302026-10-28Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

“Liberty, equality, freedom – saoırse”. US President Bill Clinton visited Belfast and Derry on November 30th, 1995, and his visit included brief walk-abouts on the Shankill and the Falls (Clinton Library | BBC).

The stop on the Falls was at Dunville Park, where this painting on boards had been quickly (and briefly) erected on top of a mural (25 Years Of Resistance).

On the left is “Wolfe Tone 1798” and on the right “Abraham Lincoln 1865”: “Let us strive on to finish the work we are in: to bind up the nation’s wounds, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves”. (Lincoln’s second inaugural speech concludes, “With malice toward none with charity for all with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right let us strive on to finish the work we are in to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan ~ to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”)

The stencil on the lower wall – “25 years – time for peace, time to go. Demilitarise now!”, designed by Robert Ballagh – belongs to the previous mural.

Dunville Street, west Belfast

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Copyright © 1995 Paddy Duffy
T00108 T00161

Freedom’s Sons

1990-07-012025-08-31Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

The writing – D coy, 2nd batt, Belfast Brigade [IRA] – has been added where the volunteer’s legs used to be – see the Peter Moloney Collection for the original. A small plaque has been added at the top. Otherwise, the mural remains as before, with a hooded volunteer raising an assault rifle in front of a sunburst and Tricolour, with a row of barbed wire and the four provinces named in Irish.

Falls Road, west Belfast, now the site of the Garden Of Remembrance

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Copyright © 1990 Paddy Duffy
T00088

Liberty

1990-07-012026-01-20Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

Both of these murals by Mo Chara Kelly in the old Linden Street remained unfinished. “I was doing one about the Falls Curfew [for the 20th anniversary march – shown above]. … It never got finished because we had to start Women Against Oppression. When you’re available, people just came up to you, “Mo Chara, we need a mural on this. Could you stop that one? We need to do this one. There’s a Nelson Mandela one needs doing, could you do that?” Everything was chopped and changed all the time, and I never got back to it.” (Painting My Community/An Pobal A Phéınteáıl – English-language version available for free)

The second shows a barefoot woman carrying a large Tricolour and a lark overhead. It is based on the Women’s Day (“Frauen Tag”) poster from 1914. “Heraus mit dem Frauenwahlrecht” – “Forward with women’s suffrage”. German women were given the right to vote in 1918. This mural was replaced by Women Against Oppression.

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Copyright © 1990 Paddy Duffy
T00090 T00096

Ireland First, Ireland Last, And Ireland Over All

1990-07-012025-08-30Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

A revolutionary soldier raises the Irish Tricolour while trampling on a Union Flag on a broken mast that was perhaps attached to the poorly drawn GPO in the background. The card on which the image is based can be seen below.

On the right hand side are the Easter lily and halberds/pikes and an assault rifle, indicating the historical roots and present-day inheritors of the 1916 revolt.

Saoırse

1988-07-012026-08-28Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

“Freedom.” On the left, a Starry Plough (of the INLA) is attached a spear of ancient Ireland, next to two pikes (of the 1798 Rebellion), behind an ancient shield filled in with the Gal Gréıne of the Fıanna; on the right, a volunteer from the modern “Óglaıgh Na hÉıreann” aims an assault rifle, all against a large Irish Tricolour.

Kashmir Road, west Belfast

Final Salute

1988-06-012025-08-29Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

Volunteers in simplified clothing fire a funeral volley over an unseen coffin. The mural was later made more complex – see Slán Go Fóıll in the Peter Moloney Collection.

For the side wall, see Long Kesh in the Peter Moloney Collection.

South Link, Andersonstown, west Belfast

Turf Lodge Martyrs

1988-06-012025-08-29Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

“In proud memory of those who gave their lives for Ireland’s freedom” (and out of sight to the left) “Also to all civilians murdered by the British crown forces” (and out of sight to the right) “Also to all civilians murdered by pro-British elements”. The Celtic cross bears three republican flags: Tricolour, Sunburst, and Starry Plough.

The volunteers (and one Sınn Féın member) listed are (on the left) “Martin Forsythe, Martin Skillen, Gerard Fennell, Terence O’Neill, John Dempsey” and (on the right) “Sean McDermott, Tom Magill, Sean Savage, Kevin McCracken, Paul Best”.

For a complete shot, see the Peter Moloney Collection.

Norglen Gardens, west Belfast, next to the 1916 Cú Chulaınn.