This is a mural by Damian Walker in the New Lodge, in support of republican prisoners in Maghaberry, showing a single shirtless prisoner with a flower or dripping blood (?) surrounded by three baton-wielding officers. Sponsored the 32-County Sovereignty Movement (web).
Replaces: Damn Your Concessions, England
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A Che Guevara quote – “I don’t care if I fall as long as someone else picks up my gun and keeps on shooting” – unifies two panels bearing masked men firing funeral volleys, Irish and Palestinian shields, and “Our day will come” in both Irish and Arabic.
New Lodge, north Belfast
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In 2021, after a ten year run, the Crusaders FC mural (2010 | 2012) was reverted (1996 D00711 | 2002 J1204) to a UVF hooded gunman mural.
For the other murals on this corner, see Respect, Heritage, Culture.
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The inquest into the Ballymurphy Massacre – the killings of 11 people from August 9th to 11th, continues, with testimony this past week from former Paratrooper Henry Gow (Irish News | BBC-NI). The image above shows Hugh Mullan being shot from Springmartin while going to the aid of a neigbour, Bobby Clarke; he is waving a white Babygro (BallymurphyMassacre.com). The Paratrooper is distinguished by his red beret.
The mural was originally painted by Rısteard Ó Murchú in 2008 and displayed first on the Whiterock Road then around the corner on the Springfield Road; the location of the repainted board is at the Glenalina Road entrance to the area, in the spot of the former 1916 GPO mural (which had lasted seventeen years before the wall was re-plastered and whitewashed in 2017).
The plaque on the fence reads, “This plaque is dedicated to the 11 innocent civilians murdered by members of the British Parachute regiment in August 1971. Fr Hugh Mullan, Frank Quinn, Noel Phillips, Joan Connolly,
Danny Teggart, Joseph Murphy, Eddie Doherty, John Laverty, Joseph Corr, Paddy McCarthy, John McKerr. Donated by the Frank McCann Cumann, Hamilton [Scotland] (Fb).”
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“30th anniversary of the hunger strike. 5th May 1981. IRA final salute. IRA Vol. Bobby Sands, MP Fermanagh South Tyrone.” Gerry Adams watches on as a funeral volley is fired over Sands’s coffin. Whiterock Road, Belfast.
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Thomas Ashe was working as an Irish teacher in Dublin when he joined the Irish Volunteers and in 1916 served as a battalion commander in the Easter Rising, for which he was sentenced to penal servitude for life. He went on hunger strike in May 1917 and again in September when he was rearrested by the British authorities for a “seditious” speech. He died on September 25th, one hundred years ago, becoming “an chéad staılceoır ocraıs a maraíodh san 20ú haoıs” (“first hunger striker to die in the 20th century”).
In the five circles around his portrait are Countess Markievicz, Pádraig Pearse, and James Connolly – fellow fighters in the Rising – and (in the bottom left) Máırtín Ó Cadhaın (author of Cré na Cılle and IRA member interned during WWII), and the symbol of Laochra Loch Lao and more generally of An Ceathrú Gaeltachta/Gaeltacht Quarter (see previously The Big Plan and Onwards). In the middle is a march from An Dream Dearg in support of Acht Na Gaeılge (an Irish language Act) past the Bobby Sands mural on Sevastopol Street.
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“In memory of our fallen INLA volunteers, upper Springfield area: Hugh Ferguson, Ronnie Bunting, Noel Little, Hugh O’Neill, Micky Kearney, John McColgan, Paddy “Paddybo” Campbell. Comrades: Barry “Baz” McMullan, Sean “Shanto” fleming, Harry O’Hara, Paul Collins, Bernado Brownlee, Emmanuel Kelly, Michael Conlon, Billy Lynch, James “Harpo” Murray, John Kennaway. Saoırse go deo [freedom forever].” Ferguson was the first member of the INLA to die, in 1975 in the feud with the OIRA. Bunting and Little/Lyttle (both Protestants) were shot dead in 1980 in Bunting’s Andersonstown home by masked gunmen from the UDA or SAS with RUC complicity.
Whiterock Road, Belfast, next to the Kevin Lynch – Marian Price – Kevin Lynch wall.
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“Springhill-Westock Massacre: Ar an 9ú Iúıl 1972 maraíodh Margaret Gargan 13 blıana d’aoıs, David McCafferty 15 d’aoıs, John Dougal 16 d’aoıs, Paddy Butler fear pósta le 6 claınne aıge agus sagaırt áıtiúıl an tAthaır Noel Fitzpatrick, scaoılt ag Arm na Breataıne. B’as Clós Adhmaıd Corry’s sa cheantar Springhill/Westrock a bhí na saıghdıúrí ag feıdhmıú.”
“‘And I’ll keep on praying for Ireland/The way I pray for you’ – from the poem “The Springhill Massacre” by Martin Dudley”. The new plaque was launched on July 9th, 2019 by Dudley and Brian Pettigrew, both of whom were wounded in the attack. Here is a gallery of images from the launch from Relatives For Justice.
The board, above, was originally in Beechmount Avenue/Ascaıll Ard Na bhFeá, but had to be moved due to the “re-imaging” of the brick wall at the back of St Mary’s University College into a fence by the Department For Communities (web).
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“Saoradh salute the men and women of violence,” namely the signatories to the 1916 Proclamation, the women of the 1970s IRA, and modern “dissidents” with home-made weapons.
The plaque on the left is to the IRA’s Pearse Jordan, next to the centenary celebration of the Proclamation, Ag Fíorú Na Poblachta. The board was been moved to this Falls Road location from Ardoyne; it replaces an anti-RUC/PSNI mural.
Hugo Street, west Belfast
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Palestinian icon Leila Khaled, who took part in aeroplane hijackings in 1969 and 1970, is featured in this new mural pro-Gaza mural in Hugo Street. The central portrait is a replication of a famous photo by Eddie Adams (WP), taken after her first skyjacking; she then underwent plastic surgery to disguise her identity prior to the 1970 attempt. (WP; see also minute 30 of the 2005 Swedish documentary on Khaled included below).
This fading mural is in Hugo Street, west Belfast
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Paddy Duffy Collection 