The Fabulous Fleadh-Mingo is a one-bird band, with drum, cymbals, concertina, and tin whistle. It was brought into being by FGB (web) in Dunbar Street, Belfast city centre, for Fleadh Cheoıl Na hÉıreann, alongside works in Commercial Court, the Dark Horse, Royal Avenue, and Writers’ Square.
Another street-art flamingo, by Woskerski: Flamingo Ballroom
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This is Karl Fenz’s (web) tribute to The Rapparees (ig), who will end the Fleadh (on August 9th) with a gig in Lavery’s (ig). The art is in the entry to Commercial Court, home of the Duke Of York and the Dark Horse bars. There is also a painting of the Rapparees in the Dark Horse courtyard – see The Musicians.
Also painted for the Fleadh: Stay For The Craic | Fleadh Cheoıl Na hÉıreann (in the Dark Horse courtyard) | Fleadh Fiddler.
Commercial Court, Belfast city centre, replacing the John Peel and Dali art.
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Fleadh Cheoıl Na hÉıreann brings eight days of events and competitions (pdf) to venues all across Belfast, beginning on August 2nd. Given the expected 100,000 visitors per day that are expected, the city has been transforming itself (Irish Times | BBC), with camp-sites being prepared, marquees being erected, and a number of artworks being painted, including this one by Danni Simpson (web) of a fiddler among flowers, at Writers’ Square in Donegall Street. There is also new art in the Dark Horse courtyard and on Royal Avenue.
July 26th:
July 23rd:
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Fleadh Cheoıl Na hÉıreann takes place in Belfast from Sunday August 2nd to Sunday August 9th. Approximately 20,000 musicians will perform and compete, around 100,000 people are expected to attend each day, (Irish Times | Irish News | BBC), and 1,300 volunteers have signed up to assist with the event (Belfast Media), which also takes place the week after TradFest (web) during the second week of Féıle An Phobaıl (pdf).
This large painting of dancers and musicians outside the Duke Of York in Commercial Court (one drinking a “Belfast Session”, an American pale ale from MashDown Brewery (ig)) is by Ciaran Gallagher (web) in the courtyard of the Dark Horse bar. Launched July 2nd.
See also Stay For The Craic.
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Here are images of this year’s (2026) Craigyhill bonfire, shrouded in sea-fog. The bonfire was finished on July 5th, a week in advance of its lighting, which will be at midnight on Sunday, amid two days of entertainment by DJs, dancers, and flute bands. The kids’ bonfire (in the fifth image) will be lit on the 11th at 10 p.m. (Fb)
The banner on the fence celebrates an “International bonfire community” between Craigyhill and Scheveningen, in the Netherlands, which holds the official record for the world’s largest bonfire by volume (Guinness). The largest bonfire by height – officially recorded – was in Lustenau, Austria; for Criagyhill’s claim to the title, see the entry on the 2024 bonfire.
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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.
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The United States Of America celebrates the 250th anniversary of its adoption of the Declaration Of Independence today, July 4th, 2026. In the Declaration, delegates from the thirteen (former) colonies set out their reasons for voting to overthrow British rule on July 2nd, noting twenty-seven grievances against the reigning monarch, George III of Great Britain And Ireland. At the time, the American Revolution was ongoing, and the Continental Congress meeting this time in Philadelphia was soon compelled to move to Baltimore, Maryland; the permanent Congress was not established until 1781.
On the left of the board, various symbols of the eventual United States Of America – John Trumbull’s painting ‘Declaration Of Independence’ (image at WP) and a bald eagle upon a Stars And Stripes formed by an outline of the eastern sea-board (which for an unknown reason lists New Castle (not “Newcastle”) alongside Philadelphia), the Liberty Bell, an “America 250 years” pin, the Seal, the Declaration, and a trapper or frontiersman who represents the westward expansion of European Americans – including the Scotch-Irish (Ulster Sails West) – across the continent.
The “liberty and law” emblem, with the red hand against the stars and stripes, surrounded by a garland of thistle and shamrock, is unknown.
The seated gentleman is James Hoban, a Catholic from Co Kilkenny, who studied architecture in Dublin and (after emigrating in 1878) designed the White House – a three-storey model (later reduced to two) is on the desk behind his quill – and (in the framed picture behind him) the Charleston (South Carolina) court-house.
In the centre is a quote attributed to James Buchanan, “My Ulster blood is my most priceless heritage”; for confusion over the quote see James Buchanan. Buchanan is also pictured (next to the word “Donegal”). The Great Seal was designed by Charles Thomson, originally from Maghera. He was also a signatory to the Declaration.
The crown above the red hand is probably the Tudor Crown, destroyed in 1649 (WP). A bed of shamrock supports the title banner.
The Ulster-Scots lineage of seventeen presidents (plus vice-president Andrew Calhoun) is presented along the bottom between the mottos “E pluribus unum” and “In God we trust”. (The Ulster-Scots Agency has a pdf of the Presidents.)
On the right, the poster marked “Eagle’s Wings”, under the Buchanan quote, also appears to come from the Ulster-Scots Agency. It is actually about the Eagle Wing, the ship pictured to the poster’s left (as imagined by water-colour painter Dan Parsons) that undertook the first voyage of Scots-Irish to North America in 1636. The journey was not a success: the roughly 140 dissenters returned to Ireland and some went to Scotland to avoid continued persecution (Presbyterian History.)
The ‘Blue Plaques’ of various notable figures are superimposed upon a period map: John Wallace Crawford, Francis Makemie, James McGregor, Charles Thomson, John Dunlap, Ezekiel Donnell, James Buchanan, Oliver Pollock, Thomas J ‘Stonewall’ Jackson, Robert Adrain, James Holmes. The portraits are of James Buchanan, Teddy Roosevelt (above Andrew Jackson’s ancestral cottage in Carrickfergus), Davey Crockett, and an unknown female figure (comment/get in touch if you can identify her).
The gravestone is to the Rev William Martin, a Reformed Presbyterian (Covenanter) minister, who led a contingent of 1,000 people in five ships in 1772 to Charlestown, South Carolina (Reformation History | History Ireland). The flag is the flag of the Covenanters (WP).
See also the Visual History page on Ulster-Scots Murals.
Lawnbrook Avenue, upper Shankill, west Belfast
For two other celebrations of USA 250, see the Visual History page on Ulster-Scots Murals.
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“Marching mental health.” Light Of Foot is a non-profit organisation (web) supporting the mental health of bands-men and -women in Scotland and Northern Ireland. This flag is next to a Shankill Protestant Boys flag (Fb) and a large Union Flag in Eccles Street, west Belfast.
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This emerald claddagh, flanked by two robins, was painted by Peaball (web) in Central Drive, Creggan, between two other pieces of street art (by Friz and emic) and so removing the last blank wall for graffiti at the entrance to the Bishop’s Field sports centre – see previously Victory To The PFLP. A gallery of anti-Agreement boards is still on the main exterior wall of the centre – see Stand Up And Speak Out and Support Republican Political Prisoners.
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McMaster and Lendrick streets – part of a conservation site of Victorian terraced houses (Dept For Communities) – were the epicentre of last week’s anti-immigration riots, with cars and houses in the street set ablaze and families evacuated to safety by the security forces (BBC video).
Also in the street: An Act Of Betrayal (about the Sea Border) and (before that, c. 2010) Young Newtown UDA.
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