This photo of children taking a ride on a coal cart joins more than a dozen others depicting life during the 20th century in Carrick Hill – see Old Carrick Hill and The Tea Bar. Here is a Belfast Forum thread of people reminiscing about the various items that used to be delivered by horse-drawn cart.
For the anti-drugs art on the left of the wide shot below, see You Have The Power.
(lower) Regent Street, Carrick Hill, west Belfast. A new archive featuring recordings of local people opened earlier this month in the Carrick Hill Community Centre (Belfast City Council).
Avenue Hall – the building at the junction of Lower Garfield Street and North Street – was built in 1896, with ground-floor shops and upstairs ballrooms. The upstairs rooms were damaged by fire in 1990 and the last occupied unit on the ground floor was the Tivoli barbers, which held on until 2013 before moving to North Street. The shutters of the ground-floor shops, along with much of the derelict (lower) North Street, were covered with graffiti, and in 2012 became the epicentre of ‘Shutter Scape’, the first year of what came to be called Hit The North (see Visual History 11 and the historical map). The blocked-up windows of the upper floor were also painted, in 2014.
Future Belfast lists three potential developments and developers, in 2000, 2012, and 2016, and there were others in 2017 and in 2020. Castlebrooke currently has request for comments on its latest plan for the whole Garfield and Donegall Street area (RSUA | pdf). The current scaffolding was erected in 2018 along with the hoarding around the bottom, which was painted by Danni Simpson (‘Bout Ye, Belfast). Some demolition of the interior took place; the facade is protected by a grade B2 listing in 1991 (Plan Belfast | Future Belfast). Seven years later, the hoarding and the scaffolding still stand, and the hoarding has been repainted with a variety of Belfast sayings – “Aye”, “Dead on”, “Grand”, “Class”, “Awk, hiya” – painted by Alana McDowell (ig). The first part, above, replaces the anti-homelessness art in Life In A Bag.
The left-hand part of this large installation in Dervock is given over to six boards commemorating the First World War and the locals who served and died in it. Sixty-two names are listed on the “roll of honour”, including the “Upwards of 42 men [who] had made the supreme sacrifice” from the roughly 200 who served – as noted by “Lady McCartney” (perhaps at the opening of the Dervock War Memorial Institute – Larne Times & Weekly Telegraph, 25th December 1922). (For the Institute, see Ulster War Memorials, which also gives a (very different) list of Dervock dead.) The central image was long ago a mural in the centre of the village – it can be seen in the plates to Bill Rolston’s Politics And Painting and as image 24 in volume one of Drawing Support.
The right-hand part contains two boards about William McKinley, one to CS Lewis, one providing a small dictionary of Ulstèr-Scots words (“Our wae tongue – a proud heritage, a living language.”), one listing “memorable moments” of the Northern Ireland soccer team (“Our football. Our nation. Our pride.”), and one inviting people to “visit the north coast”.
There is no record (on-line, at least) of McKinley saying or writing, “Let us ever remember that our interest is bound up with the liberty and progress of all mankind. So long as any nation is oppressed, we are not free.” And only one of the quotations in the bio can be verified:
“President William McKinley (1843 – 1901). 1843: William was born in Ohio, after his parents [perhaps his great-great-grandfather] emigrated from Connagher [Conagher], near Dervock. 1861: Enlisted at 18. 23rd Ohio Volunteer Infantry Regiment. [The American Civil War] 1896: Defender of Sound Money [i.e. the Gold Standard]. “I am for sound money and opposed to the free and unlimited coinage of silver.” [“sound money” was a campaign slogan; the remainder can be found in the Republican policy platform of 1900] 1898: Spanish-American War. “War should never be entered upon until every agency of peace has failed.” [From the first inaugural, 1897, and so not in response to the Spanish-American War; Congress declared war despite McKinley’s reticence] 1900: Gold Standard Act. Restored stability. Built prosperity. 1901: Died eight days later [sic, “after”] being shot, whilst attending the Pan-American Exposition in Buffallo [sic] New York.”
See also: the Visual History page on Ulster-Scots murals.
CS Lewis did not say or write, “You can’t go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending.” (CS Lewis)
Knock Road, Dervock, with support from Causeway Policing And Community Safety Partnership (Causeway PCSP) and the Causeway Coast & Glens borough council’s Good Relations team. Unveiled July 2nd, 2026.
“Chest, Heart & Stroke – Improving lives across Northern Ireland since 1946.”
2026 is the eightieth anniversary of the Northern Ireland Chest, Heart & Stroke Association. It was founded on June 14th 1946 as the first Northern Irish branch the National Association For The Prevention Of Tuberculosis (previously the National Association For The Prevention Of Consumption And Other Forms Of Tuberculosis) and in 1959 became the Chest And Heart Association and in 1976 the Chest, Heart & Stroke Association. The Stroke Association (web) was formed in 1992, but there remain the NI (web) and Scotland (web) CHS associations.
The landmarks, from left to right (top to bottom) are: Carrickfergus castle, Grand Opera House, Titanic Centre, the Harland & Wolff cranes (Samson and Goliath), Carrick-A-Rede rope bridge, St Peter’s pro-cathedral, Mussenden Temple, Devenish Round Tower, Scrabo tower, the Giant’s Causeway, Dunluce castle, Gosford castle, the Peace Bridge.
Painted by Visual Waste (web) on the shutters of NICHS headquarters at the junction of Bruce Street and Dublin Road. With support from Linen Quarter BID (web).
Donegall Pass began life in the late 1600s as a lane-way (loning, loney, loanen) made by one of the early earls of Donegall (the first three of whom were all called Arthur Chichester) through what was then Cromack Woods (Library Ireland). The woods are remembered in local street-names such as Walnut Street, Elm, Street, Pine Way (which are all included in the mural), as well as Cromac Street itself.
Clara Copley was born in Rotherham, moved to Liverpool, and then to Belfast c. 1900, where she lived for about fifty years. Her career was a colourful one that included running a fish-and-chip stall, an amusement arcade, a waxworks, a theatre, and a boxing ring, which was initially unlicensed but made official in 1936, when Copley was aged 70. She retired to a house in Donegall Pass where she died in 1949; there is a ‘blue plaque’ at the site (with an incorrect date of birth, faithfully reproduced here) in her memory. (DIB)
This is the new mural to Sister Clare Crockett, replacing the previous mural seen in All Or Nothing!! The new mural was dedicated on April 16th, on the tenth anniversary of her death, and a mass was said in the nearby Long Tower church (Derry Diocese | Derry Journal).
Crockett was born in Derry in 1982 and died in Ecuador in 2016. This mural does not have the information board (and “Sister Clare’s Prayer”) that the previous one did; for information, see the previous mural or the other Sister Clare mural, in Shantallow.
Painted by UV Arts (specifically Ray Bonner) (web) in Deanery Street, Brandywell, Derry.
The Peace Bridge is shown spanning the Foyle between (the former) Ebrington barracks and the Guildhall, with a film-strip of images, many depicting naval and military scenes, above and below. The first few panels in the upper ribbon show a gap in the walls of Derry, a poster encouraging people to “Join the Wrens [and free a man for the fleet]” (the Women’s Royal Naval Service; see the poster at IWM), soldiers playing ping-pong in their barracks, and the ship’s bell of the HMS Londonderry (which served as a training ship during the Falkland War (WP)).
Girls from Seán Dolans GAC (Fb) and Trojans Youth & Community Group (Fb) are “bringing communities together”, “forging friendships”, and “making memories”.
Painted by Peaball (web) with support from Féıle Derry (web) on what is now the Health For Life (Fb) building on Linsfort Drive in Creggan, Derry
Ryan McBride was a Derry City FC defender and captain who died suddenly in 2017 at the age of 27 (BBC). The stadium was renamed, and the Ryan McBride foundation (web) was established, in his honour.
The piece above (by Ray Bonner) is at the Brandywell stadiums; the banner below is in Lecky Road.
Paddy Duffy Collection 