Spike (the dog from Tom & Jerry) wears a Union Flag t-shirt and brandishes an assault rifle as he chases Sınn Féın’s Gerry Adams, wearing a Celtic top, out of Belfast and towards Dublin, in front of the UDA murals at (D00971) and behind (D00969) the KFC.
This is one of the murals painted in the era of Johnny Adair’s C company.
Hopewell Crescent, lower Shankill, west Belfast
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Copyright © 2000 Paddy Duffy (no date given)
T01190
“Free our prisoners o[f] w[ar]”, specifically prisoners from the South Belfast UFF/UDA. This pair of smaller murals is in the garden next to St Alban’s, and the gable mural is across the road.
Blythe Street, south Belfast
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Copyright © 2000 Paddy Duffy (no date given)
T01177 T01186 T01185
King Billy crossing the Boyne, with Schomberg dying in the foreground, making this a crude reproduction of Benjamin West’s 1780 painting ‘Battle Of The Boyne’. Second-in-command Schomberg had crossed the Boyne first and met his fate at the hands of Jacobite cavalry. Schomberg’s helper is perhaps George Walker, governor of Derry during the siege, who was shot and killed (reportedly) while attending to Schomberg – see George Walker.
Shankill Parade, west Belfast
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Copyright © 2000 Paddy Duffy (no date given)
T01183
“We demand the right to march”, “Portadown District LOL No 1 [Fb]”, “Here we stand – we can do no other”.
This mural in the lower Shankill estate is about the disputed Orange Order parade (WP entry, including a map of the route) to Drumcree Church (in Portadown, shown in the mural) part of which goes along the Catholic Garvaghy Road. After many contentious years (beginning in 1995), the re-routing of the marches in 2000 led to some rioting, but was the last year of notable conflict over the parade (CAIN).
N Boundary Street, lower Shankill, west Belfast
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Copyright © 2000 Paddy Duffy
T00452
Diana Spencer (“1961-1997”) became Princess Of Wales upon marrying Prince Charles in 1981 but they divorced in 1996, a year before she died in a Paris car-crash. She is presented has an English rose in front of a large Union Flag in the shape of a heart.
This is one of the murals painted in the lower Shankill estate under Johnny Adair.
Hopewell Crescent, lower Shankill, west Belfast
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Copyright © 2000 Paddy Duffy (no date given)
T01182
The Siege Of Derry began in December 1688 when 13 apprentice boys shut the gates against the approaching army of Jacobite soldiers.
Hopewell Crescent, lower Shankill, west Belfast
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Copyright © 2000 Paddy Duffy
T00266
Ulster’s defenders, past and present, from Cuchulainn “Ancient defender of Ulster from Gael attacks”, via the 1893 UDU and WWI soldiers memorialised in the towers at Messines and Thiepval, to the modern UDA/UFF: “In memory of the officers and volunteers of A. Coy. [“Glencairn, Highfield, Springmartin”] UDA/UFF West Belfast Brigade who unselfishly dedicated their lives in defence of their country.”
High Green, Highfield, west Belfast
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Copyright © 2000 Paddy Duffy
T00267
The Ulster Volunteers were formed in response to the Home Rule bill of April 1912 and the Covenant signed in September 1912, first by Edward Carson and then by almost half a million others. Guns were smuggled into Larne on the Clyde Valley in April 1914 but the advent of the World War saw the volunteers instead joining the British Army, specifically the 36th (Ulster) Division, and went over the top at the Somme.
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Copyright © 2000 Paddy Duffy (no date given)
T01189
“Comrade, councillor, cara [friend].” Pat McGeown was a 1981 IRA hunger striker whose family intervened when he lapsed into a coma. After his release in 1985 he also worked for Sınn Féın and was elected to Belfast City Council in 1993. He died in 1996 of a heart attack. He is also remembered by a plaque on the Sınn Féın office on Falls Road.
Ballymurphy Road, west Belfast
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Copyright © 2000 Paddy Duffy
T00786
This pair of murals, on the New Lodge Road, Belfast, contrasts life for young people in the black-and-white “1900s” to life in colourful “2000”. Instead of working (and dying – in the headlines from the Irish News) in mills, they work in fast-food restaurants and drive black taxis (and suffer unemployment, suicide, and anorexia – again, in the newspaper), and instead of playing in the streets and wrapping themselves in blankets, they sit on walls and drink.
New Lodge Road, north Belfast
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Copyright © 2000 Paddy Duffy
T00353
T00348 [T00366]
