Get Up, Derry

Here is a gallery of images from the ‘Get Up’ paint jam, organised by Peaball (web) in Derry at the end of June as part of the Foyle Maritime Festival (ig).

In order (from top to bottom), there are three in Strand Road, from emic (web), KONE (ig), and ACHES (ig), five in Lower Clarendon Street, by RAZER (ig), Chose Letters (ig), Will Vibes (ig), Friz (web), DanLeo (web), and finally, three by Zippy (web) at The Lounge café in Clarendon Street.

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Comrades In Arms

John Meeke signed the Ulster Covenant in Dervock Orange Hall in 1912 and went to war with the Ulster Volunteers. Willie Redmond, brother of John Redmond, had been jailed three times and was a nationalist MP at Westminster when, at age 53, he signed up for service.

Major Redmond went over the top with the 16th (Irish) Division at Messines Ridge and was hit by machine-gun fire. Private Meeke, a stretcher-bearer with the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers in the 36th (Ulster) Division, found and stayed with Redmond under heavy fire, taking two bullets himself.

Redmond would die that night. He was awarded the Legion Of Honour by the French. His East Clare seat was taken by Éamon de Valera. Meeke survived after several surgeries. He was awarded the Military Medal by the British. After the World War, he joined the Specials and LOL 1001 in Benvarden before dying of TB in 1923 (NALIL | Irish Times | WP | BelTel).

This mural (and its very odd accompanying plaque, for a public mural) is in the Ebrington Centre car park, in the Waterside, Londonderry.

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Welcome To The Brandywell

“Fáilte go dtí Brandywell [Tobar An Bhranda]” This mural featuring the rights of children was painted in Derry’s Brandywell area in 2014; it puts images alongside parts of Caroline Castle’s rendering of the UN’s Rights of the Child. One, for example, reads “Understand that all children are precious. Pick us up if we fall down and if we are lost lend us your hand. Give us things we need to make us happy and strong and always do your best for us whenever we are in your care. Right no. 3”.

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The Menin Gate

The Menin Gate memorial, at the eastern edge of Ypres, Belgium, commemorates 54,896 Commonwealth soldiers who died in the area during WWI and whose bodies were not recovered. “To the armies of the British Empire who stood here from 1914 to 1918 and to those of their dead who have no known grave.”

The buglers below have remained unfinished since (at least) 2018.

Ebrington Street, off Bond’s Street, Londonderry, leading to the Ebrington Centre car park.

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We Carry On

“This mural is one part of a community led project by Hive Cancer Support and Ulster University [web]. It was designed and painted by Peaball street art collective [web] based on the findings of an Ulster University research study [UU | Derry Now] commissioned by Hive Cancer Support that looked at the mental health impact of cancer surgery. We want to thank all those who took part weer willing to tell their personal story to help create this piece. The singular sunflower looks at each individual journey and the focus and determination to look to the light in dark times. It also represents the innovative air purifying paint [Hypo Air] used on this mural. The vase illustrates the Japanese art of Kintsugi- repairing pottery with gold making it stronger and more beautiful that before. The healing golden seams become part of the beauty and history of the object, to be appreciated rather than disguised. Cancer does not discriminate. Many homes around the world have been affected in some way- the window is a representation of this. The project was made possible through funding from The Ideas Fund.”

Strand Road, Derry

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The Cost Of War

From the info plaque (shown last below): “This mural depicts three plinths which stand in the Island Of Ireland Peace Park in the city of Messen [Mesen]/Messines in Belgium. Each plinth represents the number of casualties for each division which was raised on the island of Ireland during the 1st World War. A total of 69,947 soldiers from the island of Ireland were either killed, wounded or reported missing during the four years which the war lasted. The price of freedom.”

The numbers given are: 36th (Ulster) division, 32,186; 16th (Irish) division, 28,398; 10th (Irish) division, 9,363.

The Peace Park is also featured in another mural in the car-park – see The Spirit Of Brotherhood.

Ebrington Centre car park, Waterside, Londonderry

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Cuımhníonn Doıre

For many years there were portraits of the hunger strikers (either the 10 deceased from 1981 or the 12 from the 70s and 80s) along the long wall in Bishop St Without – see 2009, 2004, and 1998 (before that time the wall was divided into a number of panels for a variety of republican imagery – see 1984 and 1982) but in the portraits – which were on boards – soon started coming off and over the next decade the wall began to fade and become covered in graffiti (as can be seen in Street View). For the 40th anniversary, the deceased hunger strikers were restored to the wall, as shown here. From the info board (to the left of Sands’s head): “Cuımhníonn Doıre: 40th anniversary of the 1980-1981 hunger strikes. Rededication of mural, by the Bogside and Brandywell Monument Committee.”

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