Operation Motorman and The Runner – two of the murals in The People’s Gallery by the Bogside Artists, at the junction of Rossville Street and Fahan Street in the Bogside, Derry.
Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2023 Paddy Duffy
T02079
“To live in the hearts of those left behind is not to die.” Above is the main piece in a new (2022-11) memorial garden next to Fáılte Feırste Thıar dedicated to young people from the Divis area who have passed away (Belfast Media). There are two smaller pieces on the opposite wall and one next to the alley (immediately below), and together they form the space for a memorial garden. “There is hope on the horizon: May love and laughter be our guide as navigate the tides of grief and despair. … Gone too soon, but cherished eternal.”
With support from Peace IV, Belfast City Council, and the Housing Executive.
Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2023 Paddy Duffy
T04005 [T01606] T04004 T04002 T04003
X12667 X12665 [X12666] courtesy of Extramural Activity
This is a three-stone memorial to army soldiers from both World Wars in Tullycarnet, featuring a line from the gospel of John (“Greater love has no-one than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends” 15:13) and a song by Randall Wallace for the 2002 movie We Were Soldiers called ‘The Mansions of the Lord’: To fallen soldiers let us sing, where no rockets fly nor bullets wing, our broken brothers let us bring, to the mansions of the Lord. No more weeping, no more fight, no prayers pleading through the night, just divine embrace, eternal light, in the mansions of the Lord. Where no mothers cry and no children weep, we will stand and guard though the angels sleep, Oh through the ages safely keep, the mansions of the Lord.”
By Ross Wilson with support from the International Fund For Ireland (IFI)
Behind the memorial is a mural reading “Time for peace – invest in kids …… not war!”
Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2023 Paddy Duffy
T01781 [T01782] T01787
Bunscoıl Mhıc Reachtaın (McCracken Primary) is an Irish-language school named after the famous Belfast family and in particular after Mary Anne McCracken, who was a campaigner in the 1800s for the education of children both male and female (among with many other causes – see previously the post on the bust of Mary Anne in Carrick Hill, opposite Clifton House: The World Affords No Enjoyment Equal To That Of Promoting The Happiness Of Others.
The bunscoil opened in 1999 in the New Lodge, before moving to its current location (and site of this mural) in Lancaster Street (Naíscoıl Mhıc Reachtaın). (Lancaster Street is itself named after the controversial Quaker educator, Joseph Lancaster (WP) – Joe Baker p. 72.) According to an Irish News report in 2020 on Irish-language schools, the bunscoıl at that time, at least, had more pupils than its approved maximum.
The school borrows from the teaching philosophy of Patrick Pearse (Belfast Media), discussed previously in connection with Coláıste Feırste in An Tusa An Chéad Laoch Eıle?
Also on the school wall is an Ed Reynolds piece from 2017: Civilisation Has Its Roots In The Soil.
Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2022 Paddy Duffy
T01699
“Beware of a risen people” (or “beware the risen people”) comes from Patrick Pearse’s The Rebel: “And I say to my people’s masters: Beware/Beware of the thing that is coming, beware of the risen people/Who shall take what ye would not give.” The slogan dates back to at least 1987 on this wall (see M00511 and M00600 from 1998).
Carol Ann Kelly, aged 12, was hit by a plastic bullet fired by the Royal Fusiliers on May 19th, 1981, in Twinbrook, and died on the 22nd – one of seven people to die in the summer of 1981 (They Kill Children).
There was previously a mural to Carol Ann in Twinbrook: M01630.
Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2022 Paddy Duffy
T01519 T01521 T01520 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 then you can understand
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.”
Click image to enlarge
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.
Click image to enlarge
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.
Click image to enlarge
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
Click image to enlarge
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
Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2007 Paddy Duffy
T00408
Paddy Duffy Collection 