“No extradition! Don’t play England’s game” – after years of legal wrangling, Liam Campbell was extradited to Lithuania on charges of procuring weapons for the Real IRA (BBC | Saoradh). See previously: Silence Is Complicity. Cıarán Maguire was handed over to the PSNI by Gardaí in April 2021 (Donegal Daily).
Havana Way, Ardoyne, and Springfield Park, Springfield
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“A little boy of fifteen years/was chosen thus to die./As a British soldier aimed his gun/And never questioned why!/The shots rang out, the echo[e]s still/Young Danny fell, shoot to kill./They shoot to kill & kill & kill/Oh please God stop them/But no one will.” Danny Barrett was shot and killed on July 9th, 1981 – a day after Joe McDonnell’s death and on evening of the same day as the shooting of Norah McCabe – by a single shot from a British army observation post on top of Ewart’s Mill. The mural in his memory is in Havana Way, close to his Havana Court home, where he had been sitting on a garden wall talking to a friend. For a full account, see Free Ireland or watch video of his sisters in front of the new mural. For the Lawrence/Hammil board in Brompton Road, see Same Story, Same Bigotry.
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For this year’s Twelfth, the famous UVF “Prepared for peace, ready for war” mural that has stood over the entrance to Mount Vernon for twenty years was retouched. The most obvious change is in the apex, as a different UVF symbol – with flags – has been included, along with the words “3rd Battalion” which had been in the much earlier version of this mural on another wall.
For the previous version (and a link to the original wall), see Prepared For Peace, Ready For War.
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A succession of Irish rebels is shown in this new mural in Andersonstown, west Belfast. It begins (top left) with the rebellion of 1798 and then to the Easter Rising of 1916 at the GPO in Dublin. In the lower left, a pious Padraıg Pearse awaits his execution with rosary beads in hand. There are then shown female figures from Cumann Na mBán and the IRA (see previously: United Irishwomen, Do You Care? and Mothering Sunday In Beechmount), and then Maıréad Farrell in Armagh Women’s Prison (for the original, see Prison Walls). In the bottom right corner there is a blanketman. The busts of Bobby Sands and Joe McDonnell float above the GPO and the last verse of Sands’s The Rhythm Of Time form the epigraph: “It lights the dark of this prison cell, it thunders forth its might, it is the undauntable thought, my friend, the thought that says, “I’m right”.
On the side wall, “Ag fíorú na poblachta” means “Realising the republic”. It celebrates the centenary (“Céad Blıaın 1916 – 2016”) of the Easter Rising and shows a copy of the proclamation of the republic and an Easter lily. The next wall over (see below) shows portraits of the seven signatories to the Proclamation: Joseph Plunkett, Sean Mac Dıarmada, Thomas Clarke, James Connolly, Patrick Pearse, Eamonn Ceannt, and Thomas McDonagh.
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“Audemus jura nostra defendere – We dare to defend our rights”. The UDA/UFF/UYM/LPA mural above shows hooded gunmen standing either side of a view of Carrickfergus castle. The phrase “The price of peace is eternal vigilance” is associated with British politician Leonard Courtney (who also said “Lies – damned lies – and statistics) though it probably goes further back. As can be seen from the second image, the mural watches over Woodlawn primary school. The third image shows the memorial garden off to the right-hand side; the plaque is shown fourth: “This memorial is dedicated to the memory of the officers and members of our organisation who were murdered by the enemies of Ulster and to those who paid the supreme sacrifice whilst on active service during the present conflict. Quis separabit.”
For the previous mural (Ulster’s Call 1893 – Boer War), see Murals Irlande du Nord.
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The memorial garden in Mount Vernon, has a “cut-out” mural to the 36th (Ulster) Division and memorial plaques to six UVF members who died between 1974 and 2000, including (lhs of the final image) Joe Shaw, who was shot by the UDA during the 1974-1975 feud. (For details of the killings and its aftermath, see this Balaclava Street article.) The stone in the centre is dedicated to the “3rd battalion North Belfast” Ulster Volunteer Force.
Mount Vernon Gardens, north Belfast
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“Show no mercy and expect none”. Iron Maiden’s Eddie the trooper, armed with an assault rifle and carrying a UDA flag, leads the grim reaper over the graves of “G. Adams”, “McGuinness” and “A. Maskey”. UDA/UFF mural in Castlemara, Carrickfergus.
For more on Eddie, see his Visual History page.
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The Young Citizen Volunteers of 1912 eventually joined the Ulster Volunteers (in 1914) as the 14th battalion of the Royal Irish Rifles and part of the 36th (Ulster) Division (WP). In 1972 the name was resurrected for use as the youth wing of the UVF (WP). In the wide shot, below, this history is presented as a continuous movement from left to right; a modern-day hooded gunman climbs out of a WWI trench with one hand on a YCV flag.
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The upper flag on the right-hand side of this mural – purple saltire on a blue background with star and red hand – is the proposed flag of Ulster nationalists. The position was espoused by the UDA of the 1970s, under the guise of the political parties the Ulster Loyalist Democratic Party and the Ulster Democratic Party, and for a time by the Red Hand Commandos under the Ulster Loyalist Central Coordinating Committee.
For the previous (identical) version, see UFF Carrickfergus in the Peter Moloney collection.
Castlemara Drive, Carrickfergus
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Ten years after ending its armed campaign, the Red Hand Commando in 2017 applied to be de-proscribed, on the basis that it had given up its arms in 2009 and transformed itself into an ‘old comrades association’ (see the emblem in the bottom left of the wide shot) (BBC | NewsLetter). According to this mural, however, B company is ready to reform in response to those who “play with peace”, fifty years later (or so – the mural claims the group was founded in 1970; other sources give 1972 (WP cites Peter Taylor).
“50 years has passed/We were forced to don our masks/Don’t play with peace/Or attack our land/We await in the shadows/B Coy Red Hand”
Replaces the ‘99.9% need not apply‘ RHC mural.
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Paddy Duffy Collection 