“Leanna An Dúın – Beıdh sıad ın ár gcuımhne choíche.” Local female IRA volunteers Laura Crawford, Patricia Black, Bridie Quinn, Maıréad Farrell and a generic female volunteer with assault rifle on manoeuvres in an Irish landscape strewn with standing stones.
Signed by “Lenadoon Youth 2000”. Glenveagh Drive, Lenadoon, Belfast
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Copyright © 2000 Paddy Duffy (no date given)
T00337 [T00379]
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
The Catalan Countries include (in Spain) Catalonia, parts of Valencia, and the Balearic islands, plus Andorra, and (in France) the Roussillon region. In the separatist flag – the “Estelada” – the white star stands for freedom and the blue triangle stands for the sky of humanity (Vexillology), on top of the four red bars of the Senyera (WP).
Rossnareen, west Belfast
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Copyright © 1996 Paddy Duffy
T00199
“Saoırse – Askatasuna!” Lines from Joxean Artze’s poem Txoria Txori appear in three languages – Basque, Irish, and English – in this Clonard mural:
“Hegoak ebaki banizkion neria izango zen. Ez zuen alde egingo bainan, honela. Ez zen gehiago txoria izango … eta nik txoria nuen maite.”
“Dá ngearfaınn a eıteogaí, bheadh sé agam. Ní éalódh sé, ach ní bheadh sé ına éan níos mó … agus thug mé grá don éan sın.”
“If I cut its wings it would be mine, it wouldn’t escape, but that way it wouldn’t be a bird no more … and I loved the bird.”
The bird for Irish prisoners is the lark, which can be seen through the prison bars. The green ribbon above the central image is a symbol of the campaign to release political prisoners as part of any agreement that might come out of the peace process.
For Basque prisoners the bird is the “arrano beltza” [black eagle] which appears at the bottom of the mural.
The symbols on the left and right are the Irish shamrock and the Basque “lauburu” (four heads).
Painted by the Askapena Basque Internationalist Brigade in Cawnpore Street, Clonard, west Belfast, August 1995. To the right are two small murals in support of the ETA (“Independentzia!!”, “ETA” with the snake-and-axe (politics and armed struggle) and “bietan jarrai“, “Jo ta ke!” [push on!] and the IRA (a blazing pistol above a balaclava’d volunteer with pistol, “Freedom awaits”).
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Copyright © 1996 Paddy Duffy
T00169
The frame of this mural in St James’s was originally painted by Andrea Redmond (Fb) in 1994 for a mural (included below) showing local pensioners remonstrating with a British Army soldier, under the title “The Spirit Of Freedom”, reproducing a photo that appeared in a French-language magazine (see below).
The central circle was repainted (again Redmond) for the 1995 “green ribbon” campaign: the dove holds the keys that will set free the republican prisoners, symbolised by the barbed wire and the lark in the apex. There was also a side-wall, showing two rows of green ribbons, each with the name of a POW (see immediately below).
“Sponsored by AP/RN” has been moved from the side-wall to the main wall.
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Copyright © 1995 Paddy Duffy
T00106
The 1994 ‘Spirit Of Freedom’ mural:
In small letters on the part of the circle at the back of the soldier is written “This mural is dedicated to the memory of J[…] D[…] and M[…] Fitzsimons”.
On the side wall is a verse from the poem The Crime Of Castlereagh by “Volunteer Bobby Sands MP”: “All things must come to pass as one/So hope should never die/There is no height or bloody might/That a freeman can’t defy./There is no source or foreign force/Can break one man who knows,/That his free will no thing can kill/And from that freedom grows.”
This is a mural on Whiterock Road, west Belfast, bidding “Slán Abhaıle” to a British soldier who is himself standing on Whiterock Road in front of the 1916 mural (Who Fears To Speak Of Easter Week?).
In the medallions to the left and right are four demands from during the (first) ceasefire: “End collusion, Release POWs, Disband RIR RUC, End Unionist veto”.
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Copyright © 1995 Paddy Duffy
T00105
“Lark” in Catalan is “alosa” and in Irish “fuıseog”. This appears to be the earliest Catalan mural in the extant collections and it appears from the sponsorship in the lower corner – “Catalan comite [committee] in support of Ireland” – to be an expression of Catalonian solidarity with Ireland, rather than the other way around.
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Copyright © 1994 Paddy Duffy (undated image)
T00112
A smiling Bobby Sands on the side of the Sınn Féın offices on the Falls Road, (also the west Belfast office of An Phoblacht/Republican News), with his famous statement that “Everyone, republican or otherwise, has his [here: “his/her”] own [particular] part to play” (and the lark with its “spirit of freedom“). This version was painted by Mo Chara Kelly in 1989, and an image of Sands has been on the wall continuously since then.
Sevastopol Street, west Belfast
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Copyright © 1990 Paddy Duffy
T00089
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
Chief sitting Bull with his back to the flag of the United States, with a lark (for the Irish struggle) and an eagle (for the Native American) and a border of the colours of humankind.
Painted by Mo Chara Kelly with Jan Attridge on the wall of the (then) Ballymurphy Community Centre just off the Whiterock Road, west Belfast.
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Copyright © 1990 Paddy Duffy
T00092
