painted wall

Donaghadee Harbour

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Donaghadee harbour celebrated the bicentennial of its construction (which took from 1821-1834) with a mural towards the bottom of Manor Street. From left to right, we can see the “motte” or “moat”, an Anglo-Norman motte-and-bailey castle from the 1100s; the lifeboat (behind the crew) is the Sir Samuel Kelly, named for a hero of the Princess Victoria sinking in 1953 (Historic UK) – the station was established in 1910; the Copeland Islands and holiday-makers; Tom Blower, who left from Donaghadee to swim the North Channel in 1947; Bobby Simpson hiring out row-boats below the lighthouse, which was built in 1836.

The work is by Verz (ig) and Ed Reynolds (web).

(Sources: WP | Ards & North Down council Fb | web | News Letter)

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Copyright © 2025 Paddy Duffy
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Ulster First Flute

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The Ulster First Flute mural in Linfield Road will be twenty-eight years old this year (2025). There is an image in the Collection from 1998 and images in the other collections from 1997, 2009, and 2018. The band formed in 1996, according to its Fb page, though at the bottom the text reads “Est. 1997”.

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Copyright © 2025 Paddy Duffy
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335th Anniversary

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This pair of Sandy Row murals will this year celebrate their 35th anniversary, being two of the three painted in the street in 1990 for the 300th anniversary of the Battle Of The Boyne. For the murals in the year of their creation, see M00823 and M00826.

Above is the crest of the city of Londonderry – the siege ended in 1690; below is the crest of the Young Citizen Volunteers, the part-time territorial force for young adults established in 1912, which became the 14th Battalion of the Royal Irish Rifles and part of the 36th (Ulster) Division in WWI.

Rowland Way, Sandy Row, south Belfast

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Copyright © 2025 Paddy Duffy
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Cuidich’N Righ

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The festive atmosphere depicted along the bottom of the Pride Of Ballybeen flute band’s new mural, with people clapping and waving and doing cartwheels as the parade passes by, is in contrast with the regimental emblems in the upper part of the mural: we see (on the left-hand side; first close-up below) the Highlanders (“Cuidich’n Righ” is Scots Gaelic for “Help the king”) and the Irish Guards (motto “quis separabit”; 1783 is the year the Order Of St Patrick was created), and (right-hand side, second close-up below), the Royal Irish Regiment and the Logistics Corp (motto “Honi soit qui mal y pense“). These are perhaps regiments in which band-members serve or have served; the band does not have a (public) internet presence.

For the previous mural, see Pride Of Ballybeen.

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Copyright © 2025 Paddy Duffy
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Masker Aid

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This entry updates (with close-ups) the image seen in 2022’s Luminaries And Legends Of Eastside which showed (from afar) the ‘famous faces’ mural at Connswater/CS Lewis Square in east Belfast with a large “smiley” face over DJ David Holmes – a (presumably) unauthorised addition to the 2017 original. Word is that Holmes’s image was painted over because he is not from east Belfast. It’s not clear (from on-line sources) where exactly in Belfast Holmes is from; he lived in Los Angeles, California, for a time before returning c. 2014 (Irish Times).

(MaskerAid is an app that allows one to cover faces in photos with smiley-faces and other emoji.)

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