The Morning Star (web) is a bar in Pottinger’s Entry that dates back – as a coach halt – all the way to 1810. (For a full history, see Lord Belmont.) This new mural, by Graffic Belfast (ig), features Guinness toucans flying over a variety of local landmarks.
Armagh won the All-Ireland Senior football championship in 2024, with a squad that included three players from Crossmaglen: Oısín O’Neill, Cıan McConville, and Rían O’Neill.
In the bottom-left corner, players from Crossmaglen Rangers turn to face the Irish tricolour, flanked by the club flag and the flag of Palestine – the flags fly below the watchtower of a British Army barracks (perhaps based on an image from the 2005 Armagh final – Irish Times).
On the right is an umbrella in pride colours, below which people can pose and take pictures: “Snap & tag us”.
This is a revised version of the mural, which originally bore the Ernesto Cardenal quote, “They tried to bury you/us but they didn’t know you/we were seeds” (ig).
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.)
This is work by Ona Salvador (ig) on the shutters of Skull And Bones Tattoo Society (web) in North Street, replacing the sign for the tattoo convention (see Inkology). Salvador also did a piece in Union Street for HTN25.
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.”