“Tackle inequality – create opportunities – inspire change”. The large board shown here is in Cupar Way, near the security gates in North Howard Street, which are locked nightly between 8:30 and 6:30 a.m. (DoJ). These and the nearby Northumberland Street gates separate the lower Falls and the middle Shankill, including the young people from the Active Communities Network (web), a cross-community youth group that lobbied for increased opening hours to allow members to return home quickly after meetings (BBC).
“Drugs destroy lives/families & communities – Stand together against drugs – There’s always hope. There’s always help.” According to the Education Authority, one in eight young people and one in five adults have a mental health need (EA). Services are available from PIPS (web), Lifeline (web), Samaritans (web), Extern (web), Addiction NI (Inspire), Debt Helpline (Advice NI), GP William St (web), Frank (web).
Painted by JMK (ig) in Levin Road, Kilwilkie, Lurgan, replacing some anti-internment writing (D02265).
– “Why do they come here, if they can’t speak our language?” – “We will learn your language! Will you learn to accept us?”
Despite learning the language and opening businesses, immigrants came under attack in early August as part of a wave of anti-immigrant rioting and attacks in a number of UK cities, including Belfast, Bangor, Carrick, Newtownabbey, and Ballyclare. Shops were attacked on Botanic Road and Sandy Row (BBC | RTÉ) and eggs were thrown at a Middle Eastern market on the Falls Road (BBC). In response, anti-racism demonstrators outnumbered an anti-immigration protest five to one (Irish Times | BBC); residents of the middle Falls came out a few days later (Belfast Live).
This anti-racism mural is on Albert Street, Divis, west Belfast. In-progress image (above) from June 23rd; image of completed mural (with additions by kids) below from August 11th
Sugarhouse Entry, running between Waring Street and High Street, and home to the Muddlers’ Club of the United Irishmen, was closed in 1972 as part of the “ring of steel” securing Belfast city centre (DC Tours) and for fifty years served only as a back alley to various businesses between Waring Street and High Street; there was talk in 2022 of reopening it (Irish News) and again in 2023 (BelTel). It has now (August, 2024) been refurbished and reopened (BelTel | UTv includes interview with Sean Napier | Belfast City Council video on youtube).
Peter Strain (web) produced illustrations for a number of entries in 2020 and 2022, including one from 2022 for Sugarhouse Entry. It quotes United Irishman Thomas Russell as saying, “Every time I look at a lump of sugar, I see a drop of African blood”.
The precise source of the quote is unknown (please comment/get in touch if you know it); towards the end of Russell’s 1796 Letter To The People Of Ireland, in which he exhorts Irish people to develop a national spirit and take an interest in politics, he takes as a present-day example refraining from supporting the Crown in the French Revolutionary Wars by serving in the army or by buying taxed goods (such as sugar): “Are the Irish nation aware that this contest involves the question of the slave trade, the one now of the greatest consequence on the face of the earth? Are they willing to employ their treasure and their blood in support of that system, because England has 70 or 7000 millions engaged in it, the only argument that can be adduced in its favour, monstrous as it may appear? Do they know that that horrid traffic spreads its influence over the globe; that it creates and perpetuates barbarism and misery, and prevents the spreading of civilization and religion, in which we profess to believe? Do they know that by it thousands and hundreds of thousands of these miserable Africans are dragged from their innocent families … transported to various places, and there treated with such a system of cruelty, torment, wickedness and infamy, that it is impossible for language adequately to express its horror and guilt, and which would appear rather to be the work of wicked demons than of men. If this trade is wrong, is it right for the Irish nation to endeavour to continue it? And does not every man who contributes to the war contribute to its support?” (archive.org p. 22)
These bird-boxes and platforms were installed by Wild Belfast (web) – a group aimed at enhancing natural habitats – in order to attract house-martins, who visit Ireland in the summer in order to breed, but whose numbers are in decline because of a loss of nesting sites (under the eaves of houses) and building materials (mud).
The boxes are in front of street art by artist Daniela Balmaverde (web) on the end of one of the stands at Cliftonville FC (BBC) – the shamrock earrings are the club’s emblem.
The new “Garden Of Hope” in Springmadden is also a memorial garden, with a (second) plaque to four of the victims of the “Ballymurphy Massacre” who were shot near the spot, which was across the street from the old Henry Taggart base. (For the first plaque, see this 2010 entry in the Peter Moloney Collection.) Also in Springmadden is the Reaching Out mental-health art.
Here is a gallery of boards and flyers from on and around the green-spaces adjacent to Free Derry Corner.
“The “crisis” is capitalism – this is a war on the working class. Don’t fall for their lies. Fight back, join RSYM [Fb]”
“Evict greedy landlords, not struggling families. Rates of housing benefit for private renters in Derry and Strabane … landlords should not be charging working class families more than these rates. Don’t let them rob you! Drop The Rents North West [Fb]” (on top of Cosaın Ár Neodracht)
The Easter lily and the red star mark this graffiti-art-style slogan in Durrow Park, Derry, as republican-socialist; RSYM = Republican Socialist Youth Movement (Fb), IRSP = Irish Republican Socialist Party (web), AFA = Anti-Fascist Action (Fb)). There is a small “Victory to Hamas” graffito to the right.
For the large Arm Saoırse Náısıúnta Na hÉıreann (INLA) board, see Serious Trouble.
Commemorations of the INLA’s fiftieth anniversary have so far been limited to graffiti – see Saoırse Go Deo in Derry and Let The Fight Go On in Belfast – but here we have two deliberately painted panels in the Bogside (specifically Meenan Square) (one replacing The Way We Were).
Here is a painting of a model from Femelle Studios (ig) by London artist Mr Cenz (web | tw) in Londonderry’s Waterside, with support from UVArts (ig). With “Death dealers out” graffiti to the right.
Paddy Duffy Collection 