Sinn Féin – Page 2 – Paddy Duffy Collection

A Citizens’ Assembly

2023-01-272026-10-06Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

The Citizens’ Assembly is a group of 99 randomly-chosen Irish citizens, plus a chair, that considers large-scale issues over the course of months. It began in 2016 by taking up the Eighth Amendment on abortion, the “pensions timebomb” fixed-term parliaments, voter turnout and referendums, and climate change – it is not restricted, like its predecessor the Constitutional Convention, to constitutional issues (WP). The 2020-2021 Assembly considered gender equality and biodiversity loss.

Sınn Féın called for an Assembly on Irish unity at its November (2022) Ard Fheıs (Irish Examiner | Derry Journal | youtube panel) and Belfast City Council passed an SDLP motion to recommend that the Taoıseach form an Assembly (News Letter); in December, the Dublin City Council approved a measure calling for an Assembly to consider the topic (SF).

“The Irish government should establish a citizens’ assembly on Irish unity/tıonól na saoránach ar aontú na hÉıreann.” Sınn Féın’s preferred outcome of such a process is given at the bottom of the board: “#Time4Unity/Am d’Aontacht”. The images show the board in south Belfast (Cromac Street).

Also included (below) is a large tarp reading “Homes now! Social housing, not social cleansing”.

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Australian Aid

2022-12-152026-10-22Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

Above and immediately below: banners of two Australian republican support-groups, holding banners reading “Australian Aid for Ireland QLD [Queensland] Branch – The Spirit of Freedom” and “The Casement Support Group – Saoirse Melbourne”.

Third is Caırde Sınn Féın.

Fourth, Australian Manufacturing Workers Union (amwu.org.au) sponsored the mural above in Conway Street. Then-secretary Craig Johnston is on the left in the back. The flag to the right is the flag of the Eureka Stockade.

“Casement Memorial – In proud memory of the 10 Republican prisoners who died on hunger strike in “H” blocks of Long Kesh in 1981. ‘It is not those who can inflict the most but those who can endure the most who will conquer’ – Terence MacSwiney. Unveiled by Martin McGuinness, Sınn Féın MP MLA Minister for Education Wednesday 6/12/2006 Donated by AMWU, Craig Johnston Secretary.”

Finally, the Australian Electrical Trades Union (ETU) in Victoria. “Says Joe, ‘Those that they forgot to kill went on to organise.’” from ‘(The Ballad Of) Joe Hill’. (Shown in full in A Bunch Of Live Wires.)

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The Dead Cannot Cry Out For Justice

2022-11-202026-08-31Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

Photographs of a dozen atrocities are included on the right of this Derwent Street mural, ranging in time from the 1970 gun-battle around the nearby St Matthew’s church in 1970, in which Jimmy McCurrie and Bobby Neill were killed, to the October 1993 IRA bombing of Frizzell’s fish shop on the Shankill Road, in which Leanne Murray (shown on the left) was one of ten people, two of them children, to die. The others incidents portrayed are Bloody Friday, Darkley, Coleraine, Abercorn, Balmoral, Claudy, La Mon, Kingsmill, and Teebane.

This new computer-generated mural replaces the painted East Belfast Remembers, which had peeled away to a great extent.

“The slaughter of the innocent by the blood soaked hands of Sinn Fein/IRA never to be forgotten. The dead cannot cry out for justice. It is a duty of the living to do so for them. Is this the equality Sinn Fein/IRA asks for? No economic targets, no legitimate targets, no enquiries, no truth, no justice. Hold dear the memory of all the innocents murdered in our country in support of the Sinn Fein electorate. This memory extends to those not mentioned here who were murdered going about their daily lives at work, at prayer and in remembrance. Nothing was sacred in the futile question for a united Ireland.”

Derwent Street, east Belfast

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Where Is The Integrity In Murder?

2022-11-062026-08-31Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

Twenty-five victims of five “Shankill atrocities” – at the Four Step Inn, the Balmoral Furniture Store, Mountainview Bar, Bayardo Bar, and (from the 1990s) Frizzell’s fish shop – are remembered in an updated board in Dundee Street. The central image remains 17-month-old Colin Nichol in the arms of ambulance man Bob Scott.

(See the Peter Moloney Collection for the previous version. Before that, there was a painted version on Bellevue Street: Where Is Our Truth?)

“30 years of indiscriminate slaughter by so-called non-sectarian Irish freedom fighters. Provisional Sinn Fein demands “equality/respect/integrity”. No military targets! No economic targets! No legitimate targets! No enquiries! No truth! No justice! Where is the “equality” in justice? Where is the “respect” for Protestants? Where is the “integrity” in murder? We remember the victims of Provisional Sinn Fein genocide.”

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IRA – Sinn Fein – ISIS

2022-09-182025-10-09Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

A gallery of scenes from IRA bombings surrounds the Bayardo memorial arch, the centre-piece of which are two images from the 2015 paris bombings (shown above). “IRA – Sinn Fein – ISIS no difference”. In an interview for the USA’s PBS (Public Broadcasting Service) the DUP’s Sammie Wilson said he agreed with the equivalence.

Alexander Minto Howell was killed outside the Bayardo bar by the British Army.

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Aontacht Lenár Lınn

2022-09-132026-08-28Extramural Activity1 Comment

“Am le haontacht na hÉıreann” [Time for Irish unity]. Between stints in prison in 1976, Bobby Sands carried a green harp flag – symbol of Ireland and in particular of the United Irishmen – in an August march to protest the withdrawal of political status (Gérard Harlay/Bobby Sands Trust). He is shown here marching under the #TimeForUnity message on Slıabh Dubh in the campaign for a border poll and Irish unity “lenár lınn”/”in our time” (Fb).

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Let No Man Pull You So Low As To Hate Him

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

This Sınn Féın Youth/Maıréad Farrell Youth Committee banner uses Martin Luther King to advocate for non-violent protest (featured previously in Always Avoid Violence). Below is a call to attend a 41st-anniversary commemoration of the 1981 hunger strike.

Beechmount Street, west Belfast

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Liggett & Brady

2012-01-172026-08-02Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

IRA volunteer Francis Liggett was shot by the British Army in January 1973 as he attempted to rob the Royal. One of the images of Gerry Adams in paramilitary beret comes from Liggett’s funeral.

Paddy Brady was a Sınn Féın activist shot in 1984 at his work by the UFF (Sutton). Both were from the St James’s area of west Belfast. Their portraits are on either side of Éıre personified. They are also included in the ‘Roll of Honour’ in the memorial garden below them. The verses are from Bobby Sands’s poem Weeping Winds.

Andersonstown Barracks

2011-01-012026-07-30Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

The RUC barracks at the junction of the Falls Road and Glen Road was demolished in 2005. Since then, it has become a small park and since 2008 the back wall has been full of republican messages and imagery. The metal-work commemorating the hunger strikers pre-dates the painted and printed works, dating back to 2006.

(There is a complete Visual History at Extramural Activity.)

Also included (last) is a mobile board, parked on the Glen Road side, commemorating the thirtieth anniversary of the second hunger strike (“Stailc Ocrais Tríocha Bliain”), in which ten IRA and INLA prisoners died.

Falls Road/Glen Rd, Andersonstown, west Belfast

So I Always Looked The Other Way

1990-07-012026-10-28Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

A cartoon by ‘Cormac‘ (Brian Moore) is turned into a mural on Belfast’s Whiterock Road by Mo Chara Kelly. The mural satirizes the ad included below, which urges people to call the confidential telephone to report terrorist activity. Instead, the protagonist can no longer ignore the violence of the British Army (and RUC) and calls the Sınn Féın office.

1 When the Brits were having a go … “Who cares?” I thought.
2 And when something really rough happened I just trained harder to forget it … [Speech-bubble:] Anything for a quiet life, see.
3 But where’s it got me? What have these brave lads in khaki done for me? [British Army soldier:] We’re not here to do things for you; we’re here to do things to you.
4 [RUC commander:] Hey, don’t forget us. We’ve done our share of wrecking homes, harassing people. We’ve murdered and tortured and …
5 And when I saw their kind of justice I thought “There’s got to be something better than this.” [Judge:] You may think I’m a corrupt Orange bigot. But I know that I’m a very well-paid corrupt Orange bigot! And the only justice you’re going to get is British justice.
6 So I made up my mind. I wanted these thugs off our backs. [Thought-bubble:] Is it any wonder that the British tourist is the most despised person on earth?
7 You see I want a decent future, and it’s not going to happen while these “hero[e]s” are doing the dirty work of British imperialism. And it’s not going to happen if you’re waiting for someone else to do something.
8 622112. Hallo? Is that the Sınn Féın office?