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HTN 2025 – Union Street

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Here is a gallery of pieces from Union Street, painted for 2025’s Hit The North street art festival (Seedhead Arts). From left to right (top to bottom in this entry), the works are by:

FESA (ig) from Munch
SNAK (ig)
Ona Salvador (web)
ADW (ig)
Molly Hankinson (web)
Kerrie Hanna (web)
(below Kent St)
Shane Ha (web)
Kayde (web)
Alana McDowell (ig)
Niall OL (ig)
NRMN (ig)
Keyto (ig)
Codo (ig)
Leo Boyd (web)
Conor McClure (ig)
KAYOS (ig)
JunkGraff (ig) + Sinead Crumlish (ig)
and, on the other side of the street, Sky High (ig)

May 1st:

work-in-progress May 3rd:

May 4th:

May 3rd:

Below Kent St:

May 1st:

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Copyright © 2025 Paddy Duffy
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Seas Le Kneecap

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Kneecap performed their Coachella sets in front of a large screen onto which messages were projected, including denunciation of the Israeli “genocide” of Palestinians “enabled” by the US (Rolling Stone). 

Many cancelled gigs followed, as well as a call from Sharon Osbourne that the band’s work visas be revoked (BBC). In response, Kneecap insisted that their speech was not an incitement to violence (BBC).

The band’s visas might also be in jeopardy because the band has parted ways with booking agents IAG, which sponsored the band’s US tour (Hollywood Reporter). 

Further, scrutiny of past performances revealed pro-Hamas and -Hizbollah chants, which have now led to an investigation by the UK’s anti-terror police (NME). The band also apologized for a 2023 remark that “the only good Tory [Conservative MP] is a dead Tory” (BBC).

Many artists and bands have come out in support of Kneecap – about 40 put their names to a statement posted to instagram. The band also has the support of the graffitist in the image above: “Free Palestine – silence = complicity. Seas le Kneecap [stand with Kneecap]”.

See also: I Stand With Kneecap by JMK for Hit The North.

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Copyright © 2025 Paddy Duffy
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Solidarity With Gaza Health Workers

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In this graffiti outside the Royal Victoria Hospital, west Belfast, a person in a white coat faces a tank bearing an Israeli flag. Israel’s renewed bombardment of Gaza on March 18th killed more than 400 people (Independent), including an OB-GYN specialist in Rafah (Al-Jazeera); on the 23rd, an airstrike on Nasser Hospital killed five (Reuters).

Detailed figures of casualties among health-care workers in Gaza can be found at Healthcare Workers Watch.

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Illegal Occupation

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This Lasaır Dhearg (web) board in Lenadoon is explicit in defending the use of physical force by Palestinians (specifically by the Popular Front For The Liberation Of Palestine – WP): “Palestine has a right to resist. The Palestinians have a legal and moral right to resist the illegal occupation of their land by the Zionist settler entity known as ‘Israel’. We support a one-state solution: Palestine, free, from the river to the sea.”

At the Suffolk Road end of Falcarragh Drive/Céıde An Fháıl Charraıgh, formerly the site of Car Crime Is A Growing Problem.

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Free Palestine

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These electrical boxes are at the entrance to the Glencolin estate in west Belfast. The one above previously had an RSF stencil on it – see Restoration Of The Monarchy – but now bears an image of a Palestinian child in the ruins of Gaza flying a kite. (For the symbolism, see Tell My Story and My Kite You Made.

The arabic (“فلسطين”) reads “Palestine”.

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Stop The Slaughter

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“Free Gaza” in the Ballycolman estate, Strabane. This piece is not from the current conflict (that started with the Hamas attack in October 2023) but from the 2014 war, in which roughly 2,300 Palestinians and 73 Israelis were killed (WP) – numbers that now seem small in comparison.

In Belfast: Stad An Slad/Stop The Slaughter

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Republican Solidarity With Palestine

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Since the October 7th attack by Hamas and the subsequent Israeli invasion of Gaza, the number of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel has gone up from about 5,000 to about 9,000, including about 3,500 prisoners held under what is called “administrative detention” or what would be known here as “internment without trial”. (Figures for the last fifteen years are available at HaMoked and at B’Tselem.) Prisoners recently released from Israeli detention have described the beatings and degrading treatment they received (Amnesty | Reuters | Haaretz).

During the peace process of the mid-1990s, a green ribbon was used as a symbol of republican political prisoners, whose release was one of the major goals in a peace settlement – see this large example from Shantallow, Derry, from 1998. It is still used post-Agreement by physical-force republicans, e.g. End Brit Brutality and Maghaberry Concentration Camp.

The board is on the Meenan Square construction site in the Bogside, Derry. For the INLA board in the background of the wide shot, see Serious Trouble.

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End The Siege Of Gaza

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This is a 2014 mural in Strabane that is still is decent shape and still/again relevant, as there are now more than 62,000 deaths in Gaza (Al Jazeera) and aid into the territory has once again been blocked and electricity cut off by Israel (AP | Standard). The mural reproduces a Carlos Latuff (ig) image of an Israeli Apache helicopter firing a “hellfire” missile at a Palestinian child. It was painted by John Carlin and friends (Highland Radio). (It was also reproduced in Springhill, west Belfast, by Mo Chara Kelly.)

See the Peter Moloney Collection for the mural shortly after its launch.

Springhill Park, Strabane

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Trump – Hands Off Gaza

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Since taking office, newly-inaugurated US president Donald Trump has proposed buying Greenland, annexing Canada, and taking over the Panama canal.

His latest geo-political raving was made during a visit by Israeli premier Bibi Netanyahu on February 4th, when he suggested that the US occupy Gaza and turn it into the “riviera of the Middle East”(AP); officials including the new Secretary Of State Marco Rubio talked down the “plan”, which involves forcing Egypt and Jordan to take the two million Gazans (AP), but Trump reiterated the threat on February 12th during a visit from Jordan’s King Abdullah (AP).

World leaders – and residents of Derry’s Bogside – have condemned the proposal (AP). The words “am nuts” are written on the paper puppet of Trump; the poster to the right reads “They kill children like me. [with an image of a child] Stop the war. Free Palestine”.

Free Derry Corner has its own Visual History page.

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