Unbowed, Unbroken

This is a mural by Damian Walker in the New Lodge, in support of republican prisoners in Maghaberry, showing a single shirtless prisoner with a flower or dripping blood (?) surrounded by three baton-wielding officers. Sponsored the 32-County Sovereignty Movement (web).

Replaces: Damn Your Concessions, England

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Her Old Tradition Of Nationhood

“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

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Hill Or High Water

The Community Rescue Service (web | Fb) respond to calls about missing persons on both land and water. They were involved in the search for Noah Donohoe and in distributing PPE during the pandemic.

The mural was painted by Mickey Doherty and reproduces a Philip Magowan photograph and a photo of founder Sean McCarry (Belfast Live) from the CRS web site. It is sponsored by Cab Tours Belfast (web). It was launched on November 27th, 2021. It replaced the Fidel Castro memorial mural.

On the right: The Irish Republican Prisoners Committee (IRPC) is currently without any web or social-media presence. As with all post-Agreement boards for republican prisoners, it uses only barbed wire and not the lark. For Liam Campbell, see Don’t Hand Him Over.

Northumberland Street, west Belfast

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Don’t Hand Him Over

“Don’t hand him over. Don’t play England’s game. Stop the extradition of Liam Campbell now.” Liam Campbell is wanted, for a second time, in Lithuania on charges of running guns to the Real IRA in 2006-2007. He was arrested in Dundalk in December 2016 and appealed his extradition in January 2021 (Irish Times).

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Join The IRNC

Irish Republican National Congress (Fb | web) board in Northumberland Street. This one features assault rifles and some nasty barbed wire; the one in Beechmount featured a Maid Of Erin harp.

With a small “Support the Palestinians” tarp below.

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RNU Stands With Palestine

The Republican Network For Unity (RNU) affirm their solidarity with Palestine over the recent deaths during the March Of Return (see also His Land, His Legs, His Life) with a board showing an Israeli hand smothering a Palestinian face. Here is the RNU’s statement on the deaths in Gaza at the time.

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Republican Prisoners Still Exist!

“Foremost in my tortured mind is the thought that there can never be peace in Ireland until the foreign, oppressive British presence is removed, leaving all the Irish people as a unit to control their own affairs and determine their own destinies as a sovereign people, free in mind and body, separate and distinct physically, culturally and economically.” The quote is from day one of Bobby Sands’s hunger strike diary (March 1st, 1981) and the photograph is a 2007 image of a cell in the H-4 (Irish Times).

“Maghaberry – Portlaoise – Hydebank. Republican prisoners still exist!” IRPWA (web) board on Divis St, Belfast, replacing the Sands & Hughes mural – see Caırde Agus Comrádaıthe.

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Unrepentant Republicans

Here is a gallery of the republican boards along the low wall just east of the Falls garden of remembrance. From right to left: James Connolly and Seamus Costello; Divis 81; anti-PSNI; “web of corruption”; Charlie Hughes (killed in 1971 the feud with the OIRA); the Falls Curfew featuring Máıre Drumm; Billy McKee, Alec Murphy, and Brendan Hughes; the Falls Road Massacre 1920; Kieran Abram – Abram was knocked to the ground in the early hours of July 5th, 1992, and kicked to death by loyalists in running battles with nationalists on North Howard Street, near the old British Army sangar. Four people were convicted of manslaughter in the case (Judiciary NI).

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Don’t Play England’s Game

“No extradition! Don’t play England’s game” – after years of legal wrangling, Liam Campbell was extradited to Lithuania on charges of procuring weapons for the Real IRA (BBC | Saoradh). See previously: Silence Is Complicity.

Cıarán Maguire was handed over to the PSNI by Gardaí in April 2021 (Donegal Daily).

Braemar Street, west Belfast, with a 40th anniversary hunger strike board below.

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Don’t Join

“Don’t join the PSNI” – This Lasaır Dhearg board takes the “poster officer” from the 2021 recruitment campaign and puts them against a backdrop of riot officers firing plastic bullets. “17 people have been killed by plastic bullets, including 8 children.” “It is believed that the PSNI retain a stockpile of over 50,000 deadly plastic bullets.” The British state does not use plastic bullets anywhere but occupied Ireland.” “The PSNI is not a normal police force.” Here is the 2021 Amnesty report on the use of water cannon and “Attenuating Energy Projectiles” in the north. In November, relatives of Carol Ann Kelly went to Stormont to call for an end to the use of plastic bullets (BelTel).

Iveagh Parade, west Belfast

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