The re-painted mural to plastic-bullet victim Julie Livingstone was rededicated on October 15th. For the previous mural, see 2010. “The Stolen Child – Come away, O human child/To the waters and the wild/With a faery hand in hand/For the world’s more full of weeping/Than you can understand… – WB Yeats.”
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Copyright © 2024 Paddy Duffy
T01242
Holy Cross [Boys] Primary School [“HCPS”] distributes student into four “houses” within the school for motivational purposes but unlike the four houses of Hogwarts (Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, Slytherin) these are named for famous philosophers. Students in all seven years take one hour of philosophy a week – staff are trained by The Philosophy Foundation (HCPS Prospectus) – and they now have a mural just outside the school gates to encourage them in the four “R”s – “reflective, reasoned, responsive, re-evaluative”. The mural shows a student (Conor) sitting in the pose of Auguste Rodin’s Le Penseur/The Thinker, bringing to mind sayings of the four philosophers: (from left to right) “Quality is not an act, it is a habit” – Aristotle; “I cannot teach anybody anything, I can only make them think” – Socrates; “He who knows only his own side knows little” – JS Mill; “Philosophy begins in wonder” – Plato.
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Copyright © 2022 Paddy Duffy
T01165 [T01166]
Visible from the Ormeau Road, this large union flag greets visitors to Donegall Pass in the south of the city. It asserts the presence of the UVF and connects the original Ulster Volunteer Force of 1913 to the present-day group one hundred years later: the aim of the original UVF was to resist the impending rule by Catholics under Home Rule.
The image below is of the wall opposite, in the car-park; the names are presumably those of local children, with “WATP” [we are the people] and poppies.
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Copyright © 2022 Paddy Duffy
T01101 T01102
‘The Runner’ is the final mural painted by the Bogside Artists in the series that would in 2007 be collectively given the name The People’s Gallery (the John Hume mural would be added in 2008). The mural shows youths running from CS gas in Creggan. There are portraits of Manus Deery (see his Bogside plaques) and (obscured) Charles Love in the bottom left; the plaque to Love in the centre is retained.
Fahan Street, Bogside, Derry
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Copyright © 2007 Paddy Duffy
T00368
The mural to the first child killed in the Troubles, Annette McGavigan, entitled The Death Of Innocence, was repainted by the Bogside Artists in 2006. On account of the success of the peace process and IRA decommissioning of weapons, the rifle on the left is broken.
See also the Visual History page on The People’s Gallery.
Lecky Road, Derry
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Copyright © 2007 Paddy Duffy
T00408
The subject for the fifth mural by The Bogside Artists (Visual History) is Annette McGavigan, the first child to be killed by British forces in the Troubles, in 1971 (WP).
Lecky Road, Derry
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Copyright © 2001 Paddy Duffy
T00358
12-year-old Carol Ann Kelly was shot by the British Army on May 22nd, 1981, and died three days later. Eight other children are remembered in this mural: Tobias Molloy, Frances Rowntree, Seamus Duffy, Paul Whitters, Stephen McConomy, Brian Stewart, Stephan Geddis, and Julie Livingstone. Molloy and Rowntree were killed by rubber bullets, the rest by plastic bullets.
The mural, by Andrea Redmond, is in Twinbrook Road, Dunmurry, near where Kelly was shot.
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Copyright © 2000 Paddy Duffy
T00326 [T00343] [T00361]
“To be free of poverty is a human right.” October 17th, each year, is the United Nations’ International Day for the Eradication of Poverty. The mural shown above states that “12 of the 16 most deprived wards in Belfast are in W. Belfast”.
Mural by Andrea Redmond and Margaret McCann sponsored by W. Belfast Economic Forum and the Falls Women’s Centre, showing children of the world under a rainbow and between a dolmen and a ?parrot?.
Dunlewey Street, west Belfast
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Copyright © 1997 Paddy Duffy
[T00211] T00212
This is an in-progress image of a mural sponsored by and for the Upper Springfield Development Trust (web | until 1993 the Upper Springfield Development Forum) focusing on young people: “Mol an óıge agus tıocfaıdh sí.” (Praise youth/the young and it will flourish.”/”Youth responds to praise.”)
For a finished version, see the Peter Moloney Collection.
Signed by “Mo Chara” (Gerard “Mo Chara” Kelly) and “Spud” in the bottom right corner.
Whiterock Road, west Belfast
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Copyright © 1996 Paddy Duffy
T00188
This is a difficult mural to interpret and might be incomplete. It appears to show an indigenous child, whose skin is marked with a Union Flag, feasting on the bloody arm of a human adult whose skull sits behind the child. It is perhaps a reference to the colonial exploits of the British in Kenya or in the Putumayo – please comment/get in touch if you can shed any light on the mural.
The mural is in the bricked-up display-window of a shop between Spinner Street and Leeson Street (on the eastern/Dunville Park side of the Falls Road).
Falls Road, west Belfast
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Copyright © 1981 Paddy Duffy
T00043 [T00022]
Paddy Duffy Collection 