knot-work – Page 6 – Paddy Duffy Collection

Gibraltar 3

2008-01-012025-11-26Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

The IRA’s Sean Savage, Maıréad Farrell, and Dan McCann were “Executed by the British SAS 6th March 1988.”

“Oh! Cold March winds that pierce the dark/You cry in aged tones/For souls of folk you’ve brought to God/But still you bear the moans//Oh! Weeping winds, this lonely night/My mother’s heart is sore/Oh! Lord of all, breathe freedom’s breath/That she may weep no more! – Bobby Sands Weeping Winds“

For a close-up of the plaque, see the Peter Moloney Collection.

Hawthorn Street, west Belfast, replacing the painted board seen in 2001.

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Copyright © 2008 Paddy Duffy
T00422 [T00423]

Live Free!

2008-01-012025-11-25Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

“Never will they label our struggle as criminal – Bobby Sands.” [March 6th Diary]

Joe Cahill joined Na Fıanna in 1937 and was involved in the republican movement from then until his death in 2004, including being in Tom Williams’s company in 1942 and later a founder member and Chief of Staff of the Provisional IRA. In the centre of the image he is at the end of the table at the August 13, 1971, press conference to comment on the introduction of internment (CAIN). He is honoured in the mural above alongside his brothers Tom and Frank Cahill. (Pat O’Hare is painted between Tom and Frank.)

In the top left are small boards with portraits of Ned Maguire Snr, Ned Maguire Jnr, Sam Holden, Dal Delaney, Rita McParland, Paddy Meenan, Paddy Corrigan, Sean Wallace, John Petticrew, Alex Crowe.

For a close-up of the plaque, see the Peter Moloney Collection.

Beechview Park, west Belfast

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Copyright © 2008 Paddy Duffy
T00387

Cumann Na mBan

2008-01-012026-01-13Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

Volunteers in Cumann Na mBan (or youth wing Cumann Na gCaılíní) from Ballymurphy and Springhill are remembered in a mural in Ballymurphy Road, Belfast. Anti-clockwise, they are Maura Meehan, Anne Marie Pettigrew, Dorothy Maguire, Eileen Mackin, Catherine (Cathy) McGartland, Anne Parker. All but Mackin are included in the Greater Ballymurphy plaque.

This is the third mural painted as part of the Ballymurphy Mural Project.

The figure on the right comes from a poster for International Women’s Day, 1982, (CAIN). It includes the words, “This is not a man’s war but a people’s war, and very, very much suffering has been borne by the women, be they mothers, wives, political activists or Volunteers, and the men ought to remember that without the sacrifice of women there would be no struggle at all.”

Ballymurphy Road, west Belfast

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Copyright © 2008 Paddy Duffy
T00380

Kieran Doherty

2001-01-012025-11-16Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

Kieran Doherty was elected TD (Teachta Dála) for Cavan-Monaghan three weeks into his 1981 hunger strike. He held the position for two months, until he died on August 2nd. The portraits, plaques, and mural of marchers are in his home area of Andersonstown. The words “It is not those who inflict the most, but those that can endure who shall conquer in the end” is an echo of Terence MacSwiney, whose hunger strike in 1920 lasted 74 days, one more than Doherty’s.

The chimney retains the “150” from the previous mural about the Great Hunger.

Painted by Lucas Quigley in Slemish Way, Andersonstown, west Belfast

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Copyright © 2001 Paddy Duffy
T00491

Mıse Éıre

2000-01-012025-11-06Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

The dying Cú Chulaınn and the Blessed Virgin Mary make an odd pairing in this Ligoniel memorial garden to locals who died during the Troubles. Cú Chulaınn is typically used to memorialise paramilitary volunteers (see the Visual History page) but the plaque does not mention volunteers and the statuary suggests prayer rather than a final salute as a fitting form of remembrance.

The plaque in the centre, which was previously at the crux of a Celtic Cross mural, 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 other mural in the yard is a greatly re-designed presentation of Éıre, taking up the whole wall, and replacing the Maid Of Erin harp with Érıu, the mythological queen of Ireland/Éıre, as designed by (or at least, in the style of) Richard J King/Rísteard Ó Cíonga. (Also seen in the Short Strand.)

Millview Court, Ligoniel, north Belfast

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Copyright © 2000 Paddy Duffy
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Leana An Dúın Unbowed Unbroken

1999-01-012025-10-17Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

The dying Cú Chulaınn (as portrayed in bronze by Oliver Sheppard, in a statue installed in the GPO in 1935) is used as a symbol for the locals from Lenadoon area of west Belfast who fought for freedom (“saoırse”): Tony Henderson, John Finucane, Brendan O’Callaghan, Joe McDonnell, Laura Crawford, Maıréad Farrell, Patricia Black, Bridie O’Neill (subsequently changed to Bridie Quinn).

There were originally portraits of all nine people in the apex when the mural was launched in 1996, but only three remain.

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Copyright © 1999 Paddy Duffy (no date given)
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Remember Our Gibraltar Martyrs

1998-08-012025-11-03Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

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

An Gorta Mór

1998-01-012025-11-01Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

“Britain’s genocide by starvation”, “Ireland’s holocaust 1845-1849”, “Over 1,500,000 deaths”. The great hunger is depicted using images from Illustrated London Newses of the time (see the Visual History page on an gorta mór).

The mural was begun in 1995 and was still in development in 1997. Whiterock Road, west Belfast

Éıre

1998-01-012025-10-31Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

The main panels commemorate 25 years of “unbowed, unbroken” resistance in east Belfast (probably dating to the Battle Of St Matthew’s (WP) in 1970) with portraits of 16 deceased locals (“I measc laochra na nGael go raıbh a naınmeacha”) and two verses from Bobby Sands’s poem Weeping Winds (see below), on either side of Érıu the mythological queen of Ireland/Éıre as designed by Richard J King/Rísteard Ó Cíonga.

On the right (in the second image) is a copy of the 1916 Proclamation.

Oh, whistling winds why do you weep/When roaming free you are,
Oh! Is it that your poor heart’s broke/And scattered off afar?
Or is it that you bear the cries/Of people born unfree,
Who like your way have no control/Or sovereign destiny?

Oh! Lonely winds that walk the night/To haunt the sinner’s soul/
Pray pity me a wretched lad/Who never will grow old.
Pray pity those who lie in pain/The bondsman and the slave
And whisper sweet the breath of God/Upon my humble grave.

Peace With Justice

1997-07-012025-10-23Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

“Peace with justice”, “Fáılte go dtí Bóthar Garbh Achaıdh”, “Re-route sectarian marches”.

Three murals were painted by three Belfast artists (DD, Marty Lyons, Mo Chara Kelly) in 1997 in Hurson Park (renamed from Churchill Park), Portadown, along the route of the Orange Order parade to and from Drumcree, in order to support the local residents who were attempting to block the march through the CNR Garvaghy Road.

In 1996, an initial decision to block the parade was overturned at the last minute, and 1,200 Orangemen marched down Garvaghy Road. The 1997 march also went ahead and “sit-down” protesters were physically removed from the road. (Here is 90 minutes of news footage from 1997 (youtube). There are brief clips of the muralists at work, at 20m44s, 28m48s, 35m16s, 37m32s, 43m26s, 53m23s, and 58m44s. The images of protestors being removed begin at 1h02m)