“Venceremos” is a Spanish Civil War slogan meaning “we will win (or: overcome)”, here alongside two Irish revolutionaries armed with a rifle and a machine gun, against a background of the Tricolour and sunburst flags.
Slemish Way, Andersonstown, west Belfast
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Copyright © 1982 Paddy Duffy
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The first names of the ten deceased 1981 hunger-strikers — Bobby, Francis, Patsy, Raymond, Joe, Martin, Kiersn, Tom, Micky, Kevin — appear on a ribbon held by a tricoloured phoenix against a sunburst, flanked by Starry Plough and Tricolour and volunteers firing a final salute.
The ribbon was initially shorter, with the names of the first six to die – see the Peter Moloney Collection.
Painted by Con in Rockdale Street, west Belfast.
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Copyright © 1981 Paddy Duffy
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A Long Kesh/H-Block blanketman is on his knees, protesting for (political) “status now”, surrounded by barbed wire and two flags on halberds: the Irish Tricolour and the Starry Plough.
The quote on the left (in the wide-shot, below) is from Sean O’Casey, not “Bobby Sands MP”: “You cannot put a rope around the neck of an idea; you cannot put an idea up against the barrack-square wall and riddle it with bullets; you cannot confine it in the strongest prison cell that your slaves could ever build.”
(The quote is reportedly from O’Casey’s prose lament for Thomas Ashe, either the initial pamphlet in November 1917 (?entitled “The Story Of Thomas Ashe”?) or the expanded version of 1918 (entitled “The Sacrifice Of Thomas Ashe” (auction site)), though no copy of this can be found on-line, only two poems ‘Thomas Ashe’ and ‘Lament For Thomas Ashe’ (eastwallforall).
Rockmore Road, west Belfast
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Copyright © 1981 Paddy Duffy
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T00041 [T00015]
This two-part mural in Forest Street features (left) Sunburst and Starry Plough flags on pikes, on either side of two volunteers who are watching the sun rise/set and (right) “Struggle for freedom” below an outline of the island against the green-white-and-gold stripes of the tricolour.
Forest St, west Belfast. For images from 1985, see the Peter Moloney Collection.
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Copyright © 1981 Paddy Duffy
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Paddy Duffy Collection 