cultural – Page 14 – Paddy Duffy Collection

Kai Johansen’s Bar

2024-06-022024-08-27Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

Kai Johansen was a Danish international who played for Rangers from 1965-1970, most famously scoring the only goal in the 1966 Scottish Cup final against Celtic (WP). He retired in 1970 and went on to manage two teams in South Africa, as well as owning businesses, including pubs and tanning salons, in Denmark and Scotland (Herald). The pub mentioned in the board above is perhaps “Kai Johansen’s Bar” at 564 Govan Road, Glasgow (images at Follow Follow).

“Every week in Glasgow, to watch the boys in blue/We wanted to form a band, of us there was just a few./We sat in Johansen’s bar, sometimes, he joined us too./He treated us like his sons, and nobody understood why/But through this hospitality, we become adopted sons of Kai./Now we have our name, we will now make it stand./Known as Rathecoole’s finest, the Sons Of Kai flute band.”

See previously: The Famous | Welcome To Our Homeland | We’re From The Coole.

Derrycoole Way, Rathcoole, Newtownabbey

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Sásta A Bheıth Anseo

2024-05-122024-08-27Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

The mural on the wall of Madden’s bar in the city centre has been updated. Fiddler Art Lundy and the “decommissioned” ashtray are retained, but much else has changed. (For the previous version, see Madden’s.)

Traditional Irish and Irish-language music features in multiple places:
— a poster for new group Biird (ig) is in the mirror behind Art’s head (and next to an Acht Na Gaeılge fáınne (see #AchtAnois) and a Pride flag);
— by his fingering hand is a poster for Féıle Na Gealaí (web);
— the “Fine Art” in front of the pints is the cover of Kneecap’s (web) forthcoming album – DJ Próvaí’s familiar tricoloured balaclava can be seen on the side-door in the third image, below (see also their two murals in Beechmount, Incendiary Device and England Get Out Of Ireland);
— the album cover to its right is the EP “Sásta A Bheıth Anseo” [Happy To Be Here] by Múlú (Mıaḋaċluġaın Ní Doṁnaıll | ig) which you can hear on youtube.

The other main change is the addition of two newspapers. In the Andersonstown News in Art’s pocket trumpets Cliftonville’s 3-1 victory over Linfield in the Irish Cup on May 4th (youtube highlights), while on the table a copy of The Irish News reports on DUP (now-former) leader Jeffrey Donaldson being prosecuted on charges of rape and sexual assault (BBC).

Update: The newspaper was soon changed to DUP Backs United Ireland.

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Turf Lodge Boxing

2024-04-302024-08-27Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

This is a new mural on boards celebrating boxing in the Turf Lodge area of west Belfast.

Belfast Boxers (ig) gives the names as (l-r) Eoin Hamill, Damaen Kelly, John Ireland, Dee Irving, Damien Fryers, Sean/Jim “Spike” McCormack, Sean McComb.

Hamill (the youngster on the far left) was knocked down and killed on the Springfield Road in 2020 (BelTel | BBC | Irish Times). John Ireland (third from left, with blue collar) died in a crash 2014 at age 20 (Belfast Media).

Norglen Gardens.

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Born For A Storm

2024-04-142024-08-27Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

The family of “Andrew Jackson 1767-1845”, seventh president of the United States, hailed from Carrickfergus (Discover Ulster-Scots | Carrickfergus History) and there is a period cottage that functions as a museum on the site of the home from which his parents and two older brothers departed (Discover NI).

There is a Visual History page on Ulster-Scots murals. A series of murals was painted, beginning in 1999, under the title ‘Pioneers To Presidents’, the last of which was of Andrew Jackson in the lower Shankill in 2007. Why he was chosen as the subject of this new mural in Pinewood Avenue, Sunnylands, Carrickfergus, is as yet unknown.

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Queen Of Angels

2024-04-072024-08-27Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

Queen Elizabeth II died, aged 96, on September 8th, 2022, and is now (according to this board) queen of the angels in heaven (Matthew 28:2), which perhaps allows her to send other angels to Earth (Matthew 24:31) to deliver messages to chosen people.

Also included (below) from the same street is a memorial tarp to British soldiers in the Great War and WWII, including Vickers machine guns, Spitfire aeroplanes, and a WWI tank (perhaps a Mark V (Tank Museum)).

Ballyree Drive in Bloomfield, Bangor.

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Róısín Dubh

2024-03-302024-10-03Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

“A Róısín, ná bíodh brón ort fé’r éırigh dhuıt”/Róısín, be not sad about what has happened to you”. The song ‘Róısín Dubh’ [usually translated as ‘Dark Rosaleen’] is a love song to Ireland, in which the infatuated singer recounts the lengths he would go to on her behalf (song (youtube): Muıreann Nıc Amhlaoıbh | Caıtlín Maude | poem/lyrics in English: Mangan | Kinsella at WP).

This new piece in the New Lodge, north Belfast, was painted (presumably) by emic (ig), (presumably) under the same auspices as, and as a thematic complement to, the project we reported on in Communities In Transition. The lack of explicitly nationalist or republican signifiers is perhaps necessary if the piece is to be funded by Communities In Transition, while the cultural reference is perhaps necessary if the art is to survive on what has for the past dozen years been an anti-Agreement wall – see Damn Your Concessions, England and Unbowed, Unbroken. Another emic piece, in Creggan, Derry, has been marked with republican graffiti – see Stand Up And Speak Out. This very skilful piece walks a very fine line very precisely.

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North Down UVF

2024-03-292024-08-27Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

Each quadrant of Down (north, south, east, west) gave rise to a battalion of Ulster Volunteers, and North Down comprised 15 companies, almost doubling the typical British-Army size of eight companies (History Ireland; see also another History Ireland article on the initially sporadic development of the Volunteers out of Unionist Clubs).

Upon the outbreak of the Great War, the Down volunteers joined the 13th battalion of the Royal Irish Rifles, which were assigned to the 108th brigade of the 36th Division of the British Army.

The mural shown in this entry is a recent repainting; the previous version was painted in 2017 (and originally c. 2007 – see M03697).

See also: Only A Few Minutes – a memorial mural to Bangor native James Samuel Davidson, of the 108th and a North Down volunteer.

Clandeboye Road, at the bottom of the Kilcooley estate.

The Undertones

2024-03-222024-10-10Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

Here are images of signage in the courtyard of the Dark Horse (web) in tribute to Derry band The Undertones, whose 1978 single ‘Teenage Kicks’ begins with the line “Teenage dreams, so hard to beat …” . The sign uses the same font as the original writing by TDS under the Bridge End flyover that was put up when John Peel died, in 2004, (see J2426), and restored in 2015 (see Teenage Dreams Never Die). The signatures, from left to right, are of band members Dee O’Neill, Michael Bradley, Billy Doherty, John O’Neill, F[eargal] Sharkey.

The wide shot shows ‘Teenage dreams’ at the very top of the wall, above the cycle telling the story of the Conservative Party leadership contests involving Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak (see Ship Of Fools) (plus Nigel Farage presiding over Sweet Rockall), and on the bottom level, the open windows of Belfast Stripped Bare (the Undertones are referenced in the Snow Patrol panel, third from the right in the top row – see Teenage Dreams for a close-up) plus, on the right, six of the panels from the series The Friend At Hand. All of the painted pieces are by Ciaran Gallagher

See also The Undertones in Derry: The Punk Of The Parish | Creggan Is My Home

Bonus image, last below: Belfast punk band Stiff Little Fingers on the opposite wall in the courtyard.

The Last Viking

2024-02-242024-08-27Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

Magnús Óláfsson – Magnus Barelegs – was king of Norway from 1093 to 1103 and raided settlements in Ireland, Scotland, Wales, the isle of Man, and Sweden. During a second campaign around the Irish Sea he was killed somewhere near the River Quoile, which flows through Downpatrick, and was buried close to St Patrick’s church. (WP) The Magnus Viking Association (Fb) hosts an annual Magnus Viking festival.

The mural is by friz (web) in Church Street, Downpatrick.

1916 Battle Of The Somme

2024-01-072025-04-15Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

153 men of the 12th Battalion Royal Irish Rifles (which included men from Ballymena and other Central Antrim Volunteers) died on the first day of the Battle Of The Somme, July 1st, 1916, as they and the 9th Royal Irish Fusiliers attempted to take German trenches near Beaucourt railway station (Royal Irish). According to the account of the movements of the 12th Royal Irish Rifles by Des Blackadder on the Great War Forum, “they were cut down like corn before a scythe”. In all, more than 2,000 men from the 36th Division were killed that day (WP).

The new mural in Drumtara, Ballymena, was painted by Craig Gilmore, who also did the recent tribute to Elizabeth II (see The Crown) (Ballymena Guardian article on the mural, also by Blackadder). The cut-outs (in the third image) are on a wall at the bottom of the estate; the machine-gunner is unusual.