political

A Letter To The 22

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“I gcuımhne na nÓglach a fuaır bás ar son saoırse [in memory of the volunteers who died for freedom].” The “22” are the familiar 12 deceased Troubles-era hunger-strikers, plus 10 from 1917 to 1946: Thomas Ashe, Terence McSwiney, Michael Fitzgerald, Joseph Murphy, Joe Witty, Dennis Barry, Andy O’Sullivan, Tony Darcy, Jack McNeela, Sean McCaughey.

“‘A Letter To The 22: You have not gone away. You are in the hearts/and on the lips of your people./The old speak of you with knowing tongue. The middle/aged, as those who walked beside you./The young men and women with a passion not unlike your own./Your names can be heard on the wind taken from the mouths/of men who tend their flocks on Slieve Gullion, Cnoc Phádraıg, Glenshane./They echo in small graveyards in/Cork, Kerry, Galway, Mayo, Tyrone, Antrim, Derry and Armagh./They are heard among your people at the mass gate on/Sunday, in the crowd at the hurling game, around the hearth when/the bottle is cracked and song in sung. Your image can be seen/on the faces of happy smiling children for whose freedom you gave your all./You are in our prayers, you have not gone away, you never will’ – Colum Mac Gıolla Bhéın“

For the same 22, see Staılc Ocraıs. Replaces a painted mural to Joe McDonnell.

Suffolk Road, west Belfast

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Copyright © 2024 Paddy Duffy
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Éıreannaıgh Sınne!

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“Ní coırpıgh sınne! Éıreannaıgh sınne! [we are not criminals; we are Irish people] “There is that much to be done that no select or small portion of people can do; only the greater mass of the Irish nation will ensure the achievement of a socialist republic, and this can only be done by hard work and sacrifice.” – Bobby Sands [Hunger strike diary, March 14th, 1981]” With photographs of the ten deceased 1981 hunger strikers.

Falcarragh Drive, Lenadoon, Belfast.

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Copyright © 2022 Paddy Duffy
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On The Occasion Of Her Platinum Jubilee

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“The people of Rathcoole send their sincere and heartfelt congratulations to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II on the historic occasion of Her Platinum Jubilee.” The Monday at the end of May is usually a bank holiday in the UK, but this year it is being postponed until the end of the week and combined with an additional one to create a four-day weekend beginning this Thursday in celebration of the 70th (“platinum”) anniversary of the accession of Elizabeth on February 6th, 1952 (the coronation was on June 2nd, 1953).

The mural centrally shows an official portrait from 1992, wearing the orders of George VI and George V; the four medallions show Elizabeth at her birth, her coronation, “trooping the colour” on her birthday, and 70th wedding anniversary in 2017.

With support from RATH (Rathcoole Achieving, Transforming, Helping each other) (Fb) and Dalaradia (web). For another Dalaradia board in Rathcoole, see Dalaradia; for a Cú Chulaınn version of the Dalaradia board, see Defending Ulster From Gaelic Attacks.

Clonmore Drive, Rathcoole

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Copyright © 2022 Paddy Duffy
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From Rathcoole To The House Of Windsor

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These two boards in Owenreagh Drive, Rathcoole, were mounted to celebrate the seventieth (platinum) jubilee of Queen Elizabeth in June 2022. Similar paintings were produced by schoolchildren in west Belfast – see The People’s Monarch.

“This artwork was designed and created by pupils from Abbots Cross Primary School in partnership with the local children from Rathcoole Community Hub to commemorate the platinum jubilee of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.”

“From Rathcoole to the house of Windsor – happy platinum jubilee 1952-2022. God save the Queen.”

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Get Me Back To The Green Hill

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“Don’t let me body lie here – get me back to the green hill by Murlough, by the McCarry’s house, looking down on the Moyle. That’s where I’d like to be now, that’s where I’d like to lie. … Death is not dark but only deeper blue.” [Letter to Elizabeth “Eilis” Bannister, July 25th, 1916] Roger Casement was executed in Pentonville prison, in England, in 1916, for his role in gunrunning for the Rising, and his corpse was buried in the prison cemetery. Despite repeated requests for repatriation, it wasn’t until 1965 that the corpse was returned to Ireland – but to his home town of Dublin rather than to his beloved Murlough, where his cousins Eilis and Gertrude lived (in what was by then Northern Ireland): the corpse was released on condition that it not enter Northern Ireland, for fear of stoking political tensions between the sects (WP).

Casement Park, Andersonstown, west Belfast

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Copyright © 2022 Paddy Duffy
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Kieran Doherty

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Kieran Doherty died on August 2nd, 1981, after 73 days on hunger-strike. The mural above depicts scenes from his funeral on 1981-08-04. The portrait of Doherty in the top left replaces a similar one in the same location; the plaque at the portrait’s top-right corner remains from before. The angled panel shows Doherty’s parents, Alfie and Margaret.

There is video of the launch on youtube.

The photograph on which the central panel is based is by Derek Spiers; see also this set at hungerstrikes.org. The volley took place outside the Doherty family home in nearby Commedagh Drive (Belfast Media).

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Copyright © 2022 Paddy Duffy
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No Justice

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Here is a gallery of images from the Falls Road/Glen Road junction (site of the old Andersonstown RUC barracks). The images top to bottom follow the wall from right (Glen Road) to left (Falls Road).

Above: a call for the release of Basque prisoners.

Below: Mervyn and Rosaleen McDonald were Catholics living in the mixed Longlands area of Newtownabbey when they were visited by “UFF loyalist assassins” and shot dead in front of their two young children. The killings are described in most detail in Jack Holland’s Too Long A Sacrifice, which contains an interview with the gunman and the claim that the unit had access to RUC files (p. 94).

Seamus Costello fought for the IRA during the Border Campaign and was interned in the Curragh for two years. He stayed with the Officials during the split, but was driven out in 1974 and formed the Irish Republican Socialist Party (IRSP) and the INLA. He was shot in 1977. (WP)

A large Fıanna banner.

Metalwork commemorating the deceased 1981 hunger strikers.

A Sınn Féın electoral banner.

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Common Sense

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UDA commander John McMichael was also secretary of the New Ulster Political Research Group (NUPRG), a think tank of the UDA/UFF. The group argued for an independent Northern Ireland (based in part on beliefs about a separate Ulster ethnic identity – see the Visual History page on Cú Chulaınn) in two documents, 1979’s Beyond the Religious Divide and 1987’s Common Sense (available at CAIN), promoting the philosophy of ‘Ulster nationalism’, depicted here by the free-floating Northern Ireland. McMichael ran unsuccessfully for the Belfast South seat after the murder of Robert Bradford (see To Bathe The Sharp Sword Of My Word In Heaven).

The side wall reads “Because loyalists have a past doesn’t mean they shouldn’t have a future. Quis separabit.” It previously had a McMichael quote – see We Must Share The Responsibility.

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September 28th – July 1st

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Here are a pair of boards in Barrington Gardens, Belfast: above, the signing of the Ulster Covenant, on September 28th, 1912; below, an attack on British trenches, perhaps intended to represent a scene from the first day of the Battle Of The Somme, July 1st, 1916.

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