This colourful fish replaces graffiti reading “Don’t Listen 2 SF Traiters” (in the Peter Moloney collection) in Fountain Street, Strabane.
The cause or sponsoring group is unknown – please comment/get in touch if you have any information.
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Copyright © 2025 Paddy Duffy
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This sunflower was painted by Peaball (web) outside the Old Library Trust’s Healthy Living Centre (web) in Creggan, Derry, as part of Derry & Strabane’s ‘District Of Hope’ initiative (NWMF | Derry Now).
The wall was previously used for a COVID-era mural: Someone To Watch Over Me.
Another sunflower in Derry: We Carry On.
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The Maritime Festival (web) in various years held a ‘bubble challenge’ that involved people running inside a large inflated tube (youtube video from 2016). Aquatic animals on the other hand come up the river Foyle under their own power, such as Dopey Dick (shown above), an orca who swam up the Foyle in 1977 (Derry Journal) and the otters (in the final two images below) painted by HM Constance (web).
We also see two musical crows – one is playing DJ and the other is carrying a cassette tape – and five humans, who also didn’t come up the Foyle in a bubble – “I didn’t come up (or “float up”) the Foyle in a bubble” means “I’m no fool” or “I wasn’t born yesterday”.
With support from UVArts (web).
For street art using the Belfast/Lagan version of the phrase, see Mother Of God.
Dopey Dick also appeared in a board in the Fountain (CAIN | M03914) and in a piece of street art in Ebrington.
Foyle Street, Derry, which is undergoing a major sewage update (Derry Now).
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Street art by emic (web) and Alana Barton (web) in Pat’s Brae, Ballymena
The pair also collaborated on a piece that they called Ida in Carrickfergus.
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These are end-of-life images of the street-art by Hicks at Connswater in east Belfast. The piece was painted in 2012 and so it is now twelve years old.
Update: the wall itself was torn down in June, 2025.
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This new piece from Belfast One BID is full of literary references (web). The blackberries (top left of the image above) are perhaps for Seamus Heaney, and the kites (bottom right of the image above) are perhaps for John Hewitt. Comment/Get in touch if you can identify others.
Below the Linen Hall library in Fountain Street, Belfast city centre.
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Bluebells flower in April and May, which is also the time of year when foxes are frequently seen, foraging to support their new offspring (Discover Wildlife).
This Peaball (web) creation (with support from @daisychaininc) is on a wall at Ellie May’s restaurant (web) in Dunadry, outside Antrim.
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Copyright © 2024 Paddy Duffy
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This new Glengormley street art pays tribute to an elephant from Bellevue Zoo during WWII.
In response to the blitz of April 1941, thoughts turned to what might happen if the zoo was bombed. Thirty-three animals that would be dangerous to the public (if they escaped) were executed. A zoo-keeper, Denise Weston Austin, brought Sheila, an Asian elephant, to her home on the Whitewell Road, where she lived for several weeks, before being returned to the zoo in time for the bombing of May. (See WP for dates of the Belfast blitz.) For photographs of Sheila and Denise, and the tale of how Sheila’s absence was discovered, see Wartime NI.
By DanLeo (web), with DaisyChain (web).
Ballyclare Road (just below Moss Road) in Glengormley, Newtownabbey.
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“The Dark Dreamer – The Silkie mural by Loretta Lizzio is a recreation of the oil painting “Dark Dreamer” by world-famous Irish artist Patrick Jones who lived here in the family home.”
Patrick J. Jones (web) grew up in Belfast before leaving for London, England, in 1984 and Brisbane, Australia, in 1997. Lizzio, (web), who is also from Australia, reproduced Jones’s original (Fb) on the side of the Stax coffee-shop on the Cliftonville Road, renaming it ‘The Silkie’, though it depicts a mermaid rather than one of the seal-folk; compare with KMG’s interpretation of the Selkie myth in the city centre.
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Friendly faces by Aches (web) on the side of the “Sandy Row” Holiday Inn, officially in Hope Street/Bruce Street, but more familiarly above the car-park where the Twelfth bonfire has previously taken place, starting in 2016 – see Stuff We Don’t Need – and continuing into 2024 – see News Letter.
October 20th:
October 13th:
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Paddy Duffy Collection 