“Sandy Row South Belfast” UDA/UFF volunteers in balaclavas and camo gear fire a funeral volley “in proud memory of our fallen comrades. We forget them not – at the going down of the sun and in the morning we will remember them.”
Boyne Court, Sandy Row, south Belfast
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Copyright © 1997 Paddy Duffy
T00252
The orange lily makes a rare appearance in a paramilitary mural. The hooded gunmen are from the UFF/UDA. Volunteer Stephen “Benson” Kingsberry is remembered in the panel on the left of the house. He died from consuming tainted ecstasy (perhaps distributed by the UVF).
Kilburn Street, south Belfast
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Copyright © 1997 Paddy Duffy
T00250
Hooded UDA gunmen at the entrance to the Rathfern estate.
There is also Cloughfern Young Conquerors flute band mural on the other side of Knockenagh Avenue, Newtownabbey.
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Copyright © 1996 Paddy Duffy
T00225
Text would later be added along the bottom reading, “This mural is dedicated to the Women of Cumann Na mBan, Óglaıgh Na hÉıreann & Sınn Féın.” Image “from R[uth] Taillon’s book The Women Of 1916.” Taillon is a Canadian who moved to Belfast in 1980 and has been doing work with the women’s movement in the north and on women’s history – see NVTv.
Hawthorn Street, west Belfast. There was also a mural on the low wall to the left – see The Soldiers Of Cumann Na mBan.
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Copyright © 1996 Paddy Duffy
T00193
“Penal days in Ireland” – this mural commemorates the repression of Catholicism and use of mass rocks as secret locations in the days of Cromwellian conquest and the penal laws, c. 1650-1800. The 1652 Act Of Settlement (WP) banished Catholic priests from the island and services had to be held at short notice and in remote locations, with sentries posted to keep watch against soldiers from the New Model Army. Laws against the practice of Catholicism in Ireland were not lifted until the 1782 Roman Catholic Relief Act (PCUG).
See also: The Hedge Row School.
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Copyright © 1996 Paddy Duffy
T00186
The main figure is from Jim Fitzpatrick’s The Coming Of Lugh and the two horsemen on the left are from Lugh The Il-Danna.
For more Jim Fitzpatrick drawings reproduced in murals, see the Visual History page.
The mural was perhaps painted for the Ardoyne Fleadh, and perhaps by Sean Doran, who worked on the Blind Piper in 1994 and produced posters for the Fleadh in 1996, 1997, and 1998.
Ardoyne Avenue, north Belfast
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Copyright © 1996 Paddy Duffy
T00184
A pair of manacled red fists break free of their chains and the Maze/Long Kesh is depicted in the outline of Northern Ireland. “Free the prisoners”, “All gave some, some gave all.”
No particular paramilitary group is mentioned, though this is UDA territory.
Bellevue Street, Shankill, west Belfast
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Copyright © 1996 Paddy Duffy
T00236
Trevor “Kingso” King served time for his part in the Battle At Springmartin in 1972, in which seven people, including a British soldier, died. In 1994, having been shot by the INLA and paralysed from the neck down, King took the decision to remove his own life-support (WP).
The emblem of the PAF is out of shot to the left; the UVF emblem in the centre is flanked by the Ulster Banner and UVF flag. “1st Belfast battalion, ‘B’ company.”
Disraeli Street, Woodvale, west Belfast
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Copyright © 1996 Paddy Duffy
T00235
Brian Robinson was shot by the British Army in September, 1989, immediately after he had shot and killed a Catholic (Paddy McKenna) walking along Crumlin Road (WP). The mural features Robinson’s portrait in a wreath (“For God and Ulster – 1st Batt. B. Coy”) and the emblems of the UVF and PAF.
Disraeli Street, Woodvale, west Belfast
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Copyright © 1996 Paddy Duffy
T00234
“This mural is a memorial to the volunteers of A Coy 1st Batt who served the Shankill community so bravely during the years of conflict. Gone but not forgotten.” The flags being held on either side are of the Shankill Protestant Boys (1st battalion, Ulster Volunteers) and the USSF.
Canmore Street, Shankill, west Belfast. Paddy Duffy’s British Telecom van is parked on the Shankill, to the right of the image.
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Copyright © 1996 Paddy Duffy
T00223
