“Mıse Éıre” [I Am Ireland]. These two murals were both in the courtyard of Millview Court, off Mountainhill Road in Ligoniel and together present the fighting spirit and the loss entailed by the Irish struggle for freedom.
The plaque at the centre of the Celtic Cross reads “I ndıl chuımhne [in fond memory]. This plaque is dedicated to the memory of all those from Ligoniel who lost their lives as a result of the conflict in our country. A Mhuıre banríon na nGael guıgh orthu [Mary, queen of the Gael, pray for them]”
The second shows a Maid Of Erin harp – symbol of the United Irishmen – on top of a Tricolour attached to a pike, and a banner reading “Bás nó bua” [death or victory].
A funeral volley is fired in honour three IRA volunteers, Joseph Downey, Brendan Davison, and Tony Nolan. All three were from the Markets area.
Downey’s death is variously attributed to either side in a gun-battle between the British Army and IRA, but the most detailed account (by PaperTrail) says Downey was shot by a loyalist (UVF) gang on the night of Bloody Friday.
Davison was shot by the UVF at his Friendly Way home in 1988 (RTÉ video).
Nolan was accidentally shot in 1971 when a gun being loaded by a colleague went off (Lost Lives 208).
“Britain’s genocide by starvation”, “Ireland’s holocaust 1845-1849”, “Over 1,500,000 deaths”. The great hunger is depicted using images from Illustrated London Newses of the time (see the Visual History page on an gorta mór).
The mural was begun in 1995 and was still in development in 1997. Whiterock Road, west Belfast
“Remember the ten H-Block martyrs. 1981-1998. Unbowed – unbroken.” With a pair of fists in barbed wire, a funeral volley fired over a coffin covered with Tricolour and beret, and a line-drawing of Bobby Sands. Signed “Republican Youth”
Berwick Road/Paráıd An Ardghleanna, Ardoyne,Ard Eoın, north Belfast/tuaısceart Bhéal Feırste
The main panels commemorate 25 years of “unbowed, unbroken” resistance in east Belfast (probably dating to the Battle Of St Matthew’s (WP) in 1970) with portraits of 16 deceased locals (“I measc laochra na nGael go raıbh a naınmeacha”) and two verses from Bobby Sands’s poem Weeping Winds(see below), on either side of Érıu the mythological queen of Ireland/Éıre as designed by Richard J King/Rísteard Ó Cíonga.
On the right (in the second image) is a copy of the 1916 Proclamation.
Oh, whistling winds why do you weep/When roaming free you are, Oh! Is it that your poor heart’s broke/And scattered off afar? Or is it that you bear the cries/Of people born unfree, Who like your way have no control/Or sovereign destiny?
Oh! Lonely winds that walk the night/To haunt the sinner’s soul/ Pray pity me a wretched lad/Who never will grow old. Pray pity those who lie in pain/The bondsman and the slave And whisper sweet the breath of God/Upon my humble grave.
“Not Spain, not France. Free Catalonia. Since 1714 the Catalan nation is military [sic] occupied for the Spanish and French states. Catalonia has their own culture, language, and history. Our country have [sic] more than 1000 years of history as a nation. The Catalan flag is the first European flag. Our fight flag is the “Estelada”. The white star means the freedom, and the blue triangle stands for the sky of humanity. Free Catalonia! United Ireland! El nostre dia arribarà! Tıócfaıdh [sic] ár lá. 11/8/97″
This is a trio of murals along the New Lodge Road to William Steel Dickson, William Drennan, and Mary Ann and Henry Joy McCracken. What the three have in common is that they were all Presbyterians and Irish republicans, and members of the Society Of United Irishmen.
William Steel Dickson was adjutant-general of the County Down Irishmen (see the blue plaque in Portaferry M08948) and was arrested a few days before the insurrection (WP). Like the McCrackens, he is buried in Clifton Street Cemetery.
William Drennan, 1754-1820, was a doctor, poet, a founder of the Society of United Irishmen, and the first person to refer to Ireland as “the Emerald Isle”, in his poem When Erin First Rose. The words in the mural are the epitaph on his stone in Clifton Street Cemetery: “Pure, just, benign. Thus filial love would trace the virtues, hollowing [sic] this narrow space. The Emerald Isle may grant a wider claim and link the patriot with his country’s name.”
Mary Ann McCracken (“What a wonderful clamour is now raised at the name of union, when in reality there has always been such a union between England and this country, as there is between husband and wife by which the former has the power to oppress the latter.”) and her older brother Henry Joy McCracken (“These are the times that try men’s souls … the rich always betray the poor.”) are the best-known of the figures. Henry led the Antrim uprising of the United Irishmen in 1798 and was executed for it; Mary Ann was an abolitionist and social reformer.
“This plaque is dedicated to the memory of Lt. Col. Trevor King, died 9th July 1994, Major Wm. (Frenchie) Marchant, died 28th April 1987, Davy Hamilton, Died 17th June 1994. These brave men died near this spot [the corner of Spier’s Place and Shankill Road, Belfast] by the enemies of Ulster. No sacrifice is too great for one’s country. They paid the ultimate sacrifice. ‘They shall grow not old/as we that are left grow old/Age shall not weary them nor the years condemn/At the going down of the sun and in the morning/We will remember them.’”
King and Hamilton (along with Colin Craig, an RUC informer and not included on the plaque) were shot by the INLA and died of their wounds three weeks and one day later. Frenchie Marchant was shot by the IRA outside The Eagle chip shop. The plaque is surrounded by a garland of three nation’s flowers: shamrock, rose, and thistle.
Spier’s Place, west Belfast. This is a new, larger, plaque, compared to previously.
The scroll on the left between the emblems of the UDA, UYM, UFF and the Ulster banner reads, “In memory of our freedom fighters who fought and died for Ulster. It was not for glory they fought nor honour or riches but freedom alone which no good man should lose but with his life.” There is a pair of manacled red fists above the central UFF emblem, which itself rests on a free-floating outline of Northern Ireland superimposed with the Ulster banner. On the right is a crouching volunteer from A battalion, from south Belfast’s Sandy Row.
Paddy Duffy Collection 