St James’s Community Farm/Feırm Phobaıl Naomh Séamus (web | Fb) started in 2015 with a dozen hens; it is now home to 38 animals, produces vegetables and eggs, and collects cans for recycling.
Belfast Media recently profiled the farm (in print) and is producing a series of short videos about the farm: one | two | three (on youtube).
The Belfast Maritime Festival (web) included a paint-jam on a hoarding around one of the construction projects in Titanic Quarter (web), with work by (top to bottom, left to right on the hoarding) Conor McClure (ig), Zippy (web), Danni Simpson (web), Lost Lines (ig), Mo (Imogen Donegan) (ig), FGB (web), HMC (web), Karl Fenz (web), KVLR (web), Ana Fish (web)
In the first year that Culture Night Belfast included a public-art component (2012) – before “Hit The North” was the official title of the paint-jam – the idea was to paint some of the permanently-closed shutters in North Street. (Hence the name adopted from 2013 onward; “north” for “North Street” rather than “the North/Northern Ireland”.)
The central location for recent iterations of Hit The North has been Union Street and Kent Street around the Sunflower, but thirteen years later, the public-art component of the re-booted Culture Night returned to its ancestral home roots, with the four pieces of streetart (and one junction box) in North Street, where even more shops are shuttered than in 2012.
The works shown here are by Chain Gun Art (ig) (“Cheese, Please!”), Lost Lines (ig), Féoıl (ig), Rob Hilken (web), and Ana Fish (web). The Ana Fish piece is on shutters painted by Verz in 2012 – see North Street Will Rise Again.
“Free Marwan and all Palestinian political prisoners”. Marwan Barghouti, a leader of the group Fatah, has been in Israeli prison since 2002. He was seen last month in a video showing Israeli’s national security minister taunting the 66-year-old Barghouti in his cell (BBC | Al Jazeera | NPR).
Mary, the mother of Jesus, is remembered in various guises around the New Lodge Grotto. Above, and in the underpass, she takes the form of the ‘Immaculate Heart Of Mary’ (alongside St. Joseph the carpenter and St Patrick(?)).
The prayer next to the trio is a Prayer To Our Lady Of Knock: (Our Lady of Knock, Queen of Ireland, you gave hope to your people in a time of distress, and comforted them in sorrow. You have inspired countless pilgrims to pray with confidence to your divine Son, remembering His promise, “Ask and you shall receive; seek and you shall find.” Help me to remember that we are all pilgrims on the road to heaven. Fill me with love and concern for my brothers and sisters in Christ, especially those who live with me. Comfort me when I am sick, lonely or depressed. Teach me how to take part ever more reverently in the Holy Mass. [Give me a greater love of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament.] Pray for me now, and at the [hour of my death.] Amen.)
The Apparition At Knock took place on August 21st, 1879; there was a mural of the standard depiction of the event in nearby Newington (Street View).
The presentation on the “New Lodge Grotto” side-wall (alongside St Thérèse) is of Our Lady Of Medjugorje. (There was a mural with the same title not far from the grotto.)
There was also an “Our Lady Of Fátima” image on the doors, best seen in C07117.
The ‘Hail Mary’ is also given, in English (Hail, Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou amongst women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.) and in Irish (Sé do bheatha, a Mhuıre, atá lán de ghrásta. Tá an Tıarna leat. Is beannaıthe thú ıdır mná, agus ıs beannaıthe toradh do bhroınne, Íosa. A Naomh-Mhuıre, a Mháthaır Dé, guıgh oraınn na peacaıgh, anoıs, agus ar uaır ár mbáıs. Amen.)
Painted by Paddy McCloskey, with help from Eddie Rossbotham and others.
Paddy Duffy Collection 