community – Paddy Duffy Collection

When All That Was Solid Melted Into Air

2026-04-062026-04-14Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

At its peak, the Harland & Wolff shipyard employed 35,000 people (IndustriAll) and the flat-capped worker became a symbol of east Belfast, along – much later – with Samson and Goliath, the two gantry cranes at the shipyard that were raised in 1974 and 1969 (WP) and which have become the symbol of Belfast.

The title of this entry is the first line of Martin Mooney’s poem ‘Launching The Whaler Juan Peron‘.

The silhouetted workers and cranes are on a mobile office in Fraser Pass, Newtownards Road, Belfast, at the end of the Pitt Stop next to the Belfast Bikes racks.

Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2026 Paddy Duffy
T08796

The Swifts

2026-04-052026-04-25Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

St James’s Swifts (web) are a west Belfast club playing intermediate level soccer with Donegal Celtic Park on the Suffolk Road as a home ground.

The three pieces shown here are in St James’s Crescent, at the Park Centre on Donegall Road, and St James’s Road. The mural in progress (shown last) is in St Katherine’s Road

Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2026 Paddy Duffy
T08444 T08443
T08621 T08622
T08792 [T08793]
T07262

The World’s Biggest Bonfire

2026-03-312026-04-22Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

“Welcome to Craigyhill, home of the world’s biggest bonfire.”

The board in the image below was mounted circa 2019 (replacing the controversial Craigyhill Provost Team board that showed a hooded gunman with a pistol). The community was already claiming that its annual bonfire was “Northern Ireland’s biggest”.

But the claim was expanded to the entire world with 2022’s bonfire, which was measured at 202.3 feet (see March 2023’s Welcome To Craigyhill). The builders took a break with the (July) 2023 bonfire but the 2024 pyre (not “2023”, as in the image above) was measured at 205 feet, 2.69 inches (Belfast Live).

Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2026 Paddy Duffy
T08763 T08765 [T08764]

Belfast Blitz 1941

2026-03-292026-04-20Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

This is a representation of the 1941 Belfast Blitz, providing a graphic companion to the large board in Enfield Street, which contains information and images, and a list of 79 people from the Woodvale who died in the blitz. (There is also a plaque on the side of the Woodvale Community Centre.) There were three separate nights of bombing: April 7th/8th, April 15th/16th, and May 4th/5th and half of the buildings in Belfast were destroyed or damaged (WP); it is not clear what particular buildings are being depicted here.

On the left, spotlights and anti-aircraft guns attempt to take down the planes dropping bombs. (For information about the anti-aircraft guns in Belfast, see York Road Civil Defence Hall.)

Painted by DanK (web) in Glenvale Street, Woodvale, west Belfast, during the same trip in which he painted a D-Day mural in Carrickfergus.

Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2026 Paddy Duffy
T08721
T08722
T08816 [T08815]
T08720 [T08723] [T08817]
T08724
T08719 T08814

Ocean Separates Land, Not Souls

2026-03-282026-04-12Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

The middle of the three upper plaques in the image above, as well as the blue plaque above them (in the third image), is dedicated to Thomas Raymond Kelly, a merchant seaman who died as he attempted to rescue a third person from heavy seas in the Bay Of Biscay. He was awarded the George Cross for his efforts (Newry Maritime Association).

The other plaques commemorate the SS Upas (Irish Wrecks); the Quo Vadis fishing boats (Mourne Maritime); SS Orior (Wrecksite); the “merchant seamen from Newry And Mourne who served with courage and valour through both World Wars”; SS Clew Bay, which took part in Operation Dynamo in Dunkirk; SS Dingle; the “Carlingford Lough Disaster” in 1916 – the collision of the SS Connemara and SS Retriever with the loss of 94 lives (BBC).

River Street/Kilmorey Street, Newry

Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2026 Paddy Duffy
T08699 T08700 T08701 T08702

Mercedes Gleitze

2026-03-202026-03-29Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

Mercedes Gleitze was an open-water endurance swimmer who achieved various feats, including swimming the English Channel and the Straits Of Gibraltar. She also attempted to swim the North Channel eight times, starting on four occasions from Donaghadee (Brighton Museum), site of these drawings by artist Vanessa Daws (web | Swimming A Long Way Together) – herself an open-water swimmer – on a shelter on Commons Park.

Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2026 Paddy Duffy
T08663 T08664 T08665
T08661 T08662

Fine Heads

2026-03-152026-03-26Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

Belfast match-maker Maguire & Paterson made matches under the brands Buffalo, Swift, Bo-Peep, and City Hall (and perhaps others). The factory was on the Donegall Road, on what became, for a time, the site of West Side Stores (and is now a set of houses facing the Park Centre. Here is an aerial view (on Fb) of the factory in 1947, when Celtic Park was still standing.

This tribute to the Belfast match is by Leo Boyd (web) in Beechmount Avenue, west Belfast.

Óıge Na bhFál

2026-03-102026-03-21Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

“Our youth, out culture, our community, our future”. This mural was painted in 2014 but the future for one of the clubs featured – Seán Mac Dıarmada/Seán Sean McDermott’s in the yellow with green stripe – was short-lived, as the club folded later the same year. The other club, Michael Davitt’s in the green, white, and gold strip, still exists.

Painted by Lucas Quigley in Sultan Way/Ross Road, Divis, west Belfast.

Strabane

2026-03-082026-03-28Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

Four local landmarks are featured in this recent (2025-07) mural in Strabane. From left to right/top to bottom: one of the five Tinnies (TripAdvisor) (officially known as the ‘Let The Dance Begin’ sculpture), the pedestrian/cycle bridge (with a heart drawn around it), the pig sculpture (WikiMedia), and the boat in Abercorn Square (Geograph).

Painted by Peaball (web) and young people from SPARYA (Fb), with support from DC&S council (web), and the Housing Executive

Springhill Park, Strabane, next to the Good Vibes piece.

If I Have Erred, It Was Only Through Too Much Love

2026-03-082026-03-13Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

Finvola of the O’Cahans was such a beauty that she was called the “gem of the Roe” – the Roe being the river that runs through Dungiven on its way from the Sperrins to Lough Foyle. She married Angus McDonnell of Islay, who could not bear, as promised, to return with her body when she died. Her family travelled to the Hebrides to reclaim the corpse and return it to Dungiven (Library Ireland). Her life was immortalised in the song ‘Finvola, Gem Of The Roe’. (Here is a version by Anne And Francie Brolly on youtube).

In this mural, Finvola’s long red hair represents the river, which flows towards Benbradagh Mountain.

Painted by Sheila Byrne with youths from Benbradagh Community Support (Fb) in Main Street, Dungiven (Derry Now).