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Ballymena Town Hall

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Here are two shutter paintings of bygone Ballymena: above is Ballymena Town Hall, which has been rebuilt on multiple occasions; pictured above are the hall in its present form, since 1918, and its previous incarnation.

Below is the view looking up Bridge Street, with the old town hall in the middle.

Both of these are on shutters in the modern Bridge Street. tThere are also shutters painted with Mill St, Ballymena.

The owl is in Church Street while the butterfly and nature pair are in Broughshane Street (at Blossom & Birch and The Venue).

The two commercial pieces (final two images, below) are by Sam McAleese for Ballymena BID (LoveBelfast). (For others, see Midtown Makers.)

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Copyright © 2025 Paddy Duffy
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Digging

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Poet Seamus Heaney grew up in Bellaghy, about seven miles from Maghera where this street-art in the centre of the town (on Walsh’s Hotel) includes lines from his poem ‘Digging’: “Between my finger and my thumb the squat pen rests. I’ll dig with it.”

The main part of the piece depicts local farmer Jamese McCloy, reproducing a picture taken for Tourism NI’s ‘Embrace a Giant Spirit’ campaign (Derry Now).

Painted by Pigment Space (ig) and YellaG (ig) in 2020.

Coleraine Road, Maghera

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Copyright © 2025 Paddy Duffy
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Welcome To Belfast

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This is the new piece by Leo Boyd (web) for DC Tours, replacing Belfast Romances on Great Victoria Street. It is full of Belfast icons – Titanic, Sammy the seal, Samson & Goliath, Shiela the elephant, the Albert Clock, city hall, the Europa hotel – as well as some familiar Boydisms such as the wind-up police land-rover and the paintbrush cyclist who is responsible for the pink moon and the yellow sun.

Also included is a nearby ‘painthead’ paste-up – see also Do You Own A Giant Building?

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Copyright © 2025 Paddy Duffy
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