cultural – Page 12 – Paddy Duffy Collection

A Corner With A Difference!

2024-08-042024-11-09Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

A poem of appreciation for the Bogside Artists and The People’s Gallery, with images of the 12 murals that can currently be seen:

“Known as Aggro Corner,/at the foot of Rossville Street/It was there at the “Battle of the Bogside”/Where people used to meet//All those years of our troubles/You can capture in a day/At the gateway to the Bogside/The people’s gallery on display.//They brought the Bogside back to life/From its darkest days of trouble and strife/Their painted murals on each gable wall/Have become world famous and the fairest of all.//Reflecting memories of our past/Each one a treasure that will last/They give back to the people/What we thought was gone/Thanks to the Bogside Artists/Our memories will live on.”

“An appreciation to the Bogside Artists who have painted our story! Most humble and dedicated, as they continue to strive, without seeking personal glory!”

“Remember the late William Kelly brother of Tom Kelly who passed away January 10th 2017. Trusting in God’s unfailing love RIP William. © Michael Feeney”

Rossville Street at the eastern end of Kells Walk.

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Copyright © 2024 Paddy Duffy
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Derry Girls

2024-08-042024-11-08Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

The Derry Girls, and the wee fella, James, are a tourist attraction, thanks to the success of the television show. The mural was updated in 2022 ahead of the third (and final) season, with Michelle holding up three fingers rather than two (compare with the image from 2020).

In Orchard St, London-/Derry, by UVArts (ig).

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Copyright © 2024 Paddy Duffy
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Copyright © 2023 Paddy Duffy
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Thousands Are Sailing

2024-08-042024-11-07Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

Shane O’Malley’s (web) piece for the “Famine Street Art Trail” (youtube) in Derry was inspired by the tune The Coffin Ships (score | youtube) by Tommy Peoples (web). The other piece in the “trail” is Omin’s Stars, Look Down/A Réaltaí, Féachaíg’ Anuas.

Great James Street, Derry

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Copyright © 2024 Paddy Duffy
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The Punk Of The Parish

2024-08-042024-08-18Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

“For Mickey Griffiths, the punk of this parish.” In the 1970s and ’80s, Mickey Griffiths from the Brandywell, Derry, served as drummer and lyricist for a series of Derry punk bands: Idol Threats, Dick Tracy & The Green Disaster, The Shameless Hussies, and The Hitlers (NIPunk). Griffiths died in November of 2018 (Derry Now) and this mural was painted in Castle Street/Magazine Street by UV Arts (ig) to remember both him and the 45th anniversary of the Undertones’s hit ‘Teenage Dreams’ (Fb).

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Copyright © 2024 Paddy Duffy
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Comrades In Arms

2024-08-042024-10-30Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

John Meeke signed the Ulster Covenant in Dervock Orange Hall in 1912 and went to war with the Ulster Volunteers. Willie Redmond, brother of John Redmond, had been jailed three times and was a nationalist MP at Westminster when, at age 53, he signed up for service.

Major Redmond went over the top with the 16th (Irish) Division at Messines Ridge and was hit by machine-gun fire. Private Meeke, a stretcher-bearer with the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers in the 36th (Ulster) Division, found and stayed with Redmond under heavy fire, taking two bullets himself.

Redmond would die that night. He was awarded the Legion Of Honour by the French. His East Clare seat was taken by Éamon de Valera. Meeke survived after several surgeries. He was awarded the Military Medal by the British. After the World War, he joined the Specials and LOL 1001 in Benvarden before dying of TB in 1923 (NALIL | Irish Times | WP | BelTel).

This mural (and its very odd accompanying plaque, for a public mural) is in the Ebrington Centre car park, in the Waterside, Londonderry.

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The Menin Gate

2024-08-042025-06-22Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

The Menin Gate memorial, at the eastern edge of Ypres, Belgium, commemorates 54,896 Commonwealth soldiers who died in the area during WWI and whose bodies were not recovered. “To the armies of the British Empire who stood here from 1914 to 1918 and to those of their dead who have no known grave.”

The buglers below have remained unfinished since (at least) 2018.

Ebrington Street, off Bond’s Street, Londonderry, leading to the Ebrington Centre car park.

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The Cost Of War

2024-08-042024-10-30Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

From the info plaque (shown last below): “This mural depicts three plinths which stand in the Island Of Ireland Peace Park in the city of Messen [Mesen]/Messines in Belgium. Each plinth represents the number of casualties for each division which was raised on the island of Ireland during the 1st World War. A total of 69,947 soldiers from the island of Ireland were either killed, wounded or reported missing during the four years which the war lasted. The price of freedom.”

The numbers given are: 36th (Ulster) division, 32,186; 16th (Irish) division, 28,398; 10th (Irish) division, 9,363.

The Peace Park is also featured in another mural in the car-park – see The Spirit Of Brotherhood.

Ebrington Centre car park, Waterside, Londonderry

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The Man Who Saved Barcelona

2024-07-302025-06-08Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

The Don Patricio/Patrick O’Connell mural at the bottom of the Whiterock Road has been refreshed for this year’s Féıle. The major change is in the middle of the mural, where Lionel Messi – who went to Paris Saint-Germain in 2021 and then to Inter Miami in 2023 – has been replaced by current stars Aitana Bonmatí and Lamine Yamal. (A modern soccer-ball replaces the leather ball of the original mural, patches have been added to O’Connell’s jacket, and the FAI trophy and the large Cup Winner’s medal has been removed to make room for Bonmatí.) The new mural was relaunched on August 2nd with an address by the director of the FC Barcelona museum at Camp Nou (Belfast Media).

For more – on O’Connell’s career as a player and manager, the emblems in the stands, and the headlines on the newspaper – see Don Patricio.

Quoth The Raven, “Evermore”

2024-07-252024-08-01Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

A new board was unveiled on July 1st 2024, by the 1st Raven Somme Society and The Loyal (Fb) at the Raven social club (Fb), putting together the Ulster Tower (see e.g. A Thought Is Not A Lot), JP Beadle’s painting of the 36th going ‘over the top’ (see The Trenches Have Vanished Under The Ploughs) and Wilfrid Spender’s famous quote about the first day of the Battle Of The Somme (see I Would Rather Be An Ulsterman).

This board takes the place of the King Charles board (seen previously in Long Live The King), which has been moved to the other side of Castlereagh Street and joined by the board that it replaced, to Queen Elizabeth (both on top of some old (2012) panels depicting east Belfast of yesteryear – see Shipyard Workers).

Row On Row

2024-07-182026-05-30Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

This images in this entry depict, above and below the information board about the park, the World Wars installation inside the park and the banners on the fence along Derrycoole Way.

There is an annual commemoration of the fallen in the World Wars in Rathcoole each year. The monument consisting of mourning soldiers and sandbags) was created in 2020 (Fb group | News Letter) and the bench was perhaps added in 2022. Images from the 2023 ‘row on row’ commemoration can be seen at NI World. The Row On Row group (web) hope to create a permanent memorial on the spot.

Rathcoole People’s Park was renamed the Sir James Craig Play Park by Antrim & Newtownabbey council in September, 2021, as part of the council’s celebrations of the centenary of Northern Ireland (NI World).

The banners on the side are from the Rathcoole Protestant Boys flute band (Fb) whose annual parade was at the end of June, and the Whitehouse Williamite Historical Society (Fb) whose fun-day on June 15th included a historical re-enactment of William’s army landing at Whitehouse. (For more on William’s connection to Whitehouse, see June 14th, 1690.)