Give Way

An Orange Order marcher (with skeletal face, glowing eyes, and a ‘Give way’ sign) is about to step on a protestor from the lower Ormeau who holds a sign reading “Peace – Justice” and has just released a dove that is sitting on top of the road-sign on the corner.

The scene is the Ormeau Road at Farnham Street, and the mural is in Farnham Street at the Ormeau Road; the mural thus includes a depiction of itself: the edge of the mural (with blue sky and grey pavement) appears on the wall to the left of the pizza shop with painted shutters reading “What part of NO don’t you understand?” (An image of the actual shutters, from the squire93 collection, is included below.)

In the top left is a smaller piece painted on a board: the words “Will there ever be peace? No.” are super-imposed on a grave.

Both the murals and the graffiti on the shutters were perhaps done by Troy Garity (ig), who did the Trade Off! Stand Off! mural in Artana Street.

Farnham Street, south Belfast

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Copyright © 1998 Paddy Duffy
T00319

(D00775)

The Gibraltar Three

The plaque to the left reads “I ndıl chuımhne – In proud and loving memory of Volunteers Dan McCann, Maıréad Farrell, Sean Savage, Óglaıgh Na hÉıreann who were executed by British Crown forces in Gibraltar 6th March, 1988.” (For a close-up of the plaque, see M04470.) The trio are shown here floating over the rock of Gibraltar, while being honoured by a gunman giving a “final salute” and an ancient Celtic warrior who stand among a circle of standing stones.

Hawthorn Street, west Belfast

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Copyright © 1998 Paddy Duffy
T00309

We Demand Nothing Less Than Equality!

A trail of skulls flows from the base of Carson’s statue, which is adorned with an Orange sash. “No internal settlement” means a settlement among the northern parties only, but rather that there should be an all-Ireland dimension to any agreement.

“No return to Stormont rule – no internal settlement. In the history of Stormont the unionists exercised absolute power in order to keep nationalists subjugated and on their knees. Nationalist MPs only succeeded in passing one act – The Wild Birds Act! In 1969, the nationalist people got off their knees. In the past 30 years we have resisted numerous attempts to force us back down. Neither will we be conned nor duped back down! We demand nothing less than equality!”

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Copyright © 1998 Paddy Duffy
T00286

Nothing Has Changed!

“Old Labour 1969 – new Labour 1997 – nothing has changed!” Members of the Orange Order march with a large Union Flag on the backs of the RUC (with an Orange accent on their helmets) who are holding back the protesting local Catholic residents – particularly of the Garvaghy Road in Portadown and the Ormeau Road in Belfast.

The party in power (of the UK government) was the Labour party under Harold Wilson; in the general election of May 1st, 1997, Tony Blair’s Labour party regained power from the Conservatives. The mural hopes to pressure Labour into taking definitive action on the issue of parading – see (e.g.) Approved Parade Route, No Consent, No Parade and Not All Traditions Deserve Respect.

The mural in the distance to the left is the 1994 Fleadh mural.

Ardoyne Avenue/Ascaıll Ard Eoın, north Belfast

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Copyright © 1997 Paddy Duffy
T00300

An Gorta Mór

An Gorta Mór is the Great Famine, or the Great Hunger among those who point out that there was plenty of food in Ireland in the late 1840s, just not made available to peasants. Of a population around eight million, a million people died and a million more emigrated.

“They buried us without shroud or coffin” is a line from an unrelated Seamus Heaney poem Requiem For The Croppies.

The mural comprises three images from Illustrated London News: (left) Bridget O’Donnel And Children (ILN) and (right) Funeral At Skibbereen (ILN). 

Ardoyne Avenue, north Belfast

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Copyright © 1997 Paddy Duffy
T00299

Not All Traditions Deserve Respect

This Falls Road board is a comment on the “traditional routes” taken in Garvaghy (Portadown) and Ormeau (south Belfast) and other small towns (Enniskillen, Dunloy, Castlederg, Ros[s]lea, Keady, and Bellaghy) by the Orange Order – which now pass through CNR areas.

The horse comes from Nuada And Indech At The Second Battle Of Moytura by Jim Fitzpatrick but its rider has been changed from a Celtic warrior to an Orangeman wearing the cloak and hood of the Ku Klux Klan. The landscape is from his The Tuatha Dé Assemble For Battle, with stones turned into skulls. For more on Jim Fitzpatrick’s art in murals, see the Visual History page.

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Copyright © 1996 Paddy Duffy
T00167

Stevie McCrea

“In loving memory of Stevie McCrea”. Red Hand Commando volunteer Stevie McCrea was sentenced to 16 years for the murder of James Kerr in 1972 (Behind The Mask) and was subsequently “murdered by the enemies of Ulster” on February 18th, 1989 in an IPLO attack on the Orange Cross (WP). (The door of the club can be seen next to the mural in M00560.)

On the side-wall, Binyon’s ‘For The Fallen‘ is modified for the singular “he”: “For he shall not grow old as we that are left grow old. Age shall not weary him nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun and in the morning, we will remember him.”

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Copyright © 1995 Paddy Duffy
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