Manchester’s Nomad Clan were in town for CNB17/HTN17 and painted the large wall outside the Dirty Onion in Hill Street, punning on local shipbuilders Harland & Wolff. There’s some video of the piece in progress in this CNN profile.
Hill Street, Belfast
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Here is a small gallery of street art in North Street (below Royal Avenue). Above is emic (2018). Below are …
Glen Molloy (2021)
Friz + Dan Leo (2013)
JMK (2014)
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Here is a gallery of the street art in Kent Street, starting, above, with Mr Cenz’s 2021 piece. In order, below, we have work by …
Curtis Hylton (2022)
ESTR (2019)
Leo Boyd (2022)
Alana McDowell (2022)
Glen Molloy (2022)
Conor McClure (2022)
NRMN (2022)
HMConstance (2022)
Kilian (2022)
Kerrie Hanna (2022)
Dan Leo (2016)
Bust (2022)
Conzo + Glöbel (2018)
… north side of the street …
ADW (2022)
JMK (2022)
emic (2016)
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North Street Arcade was burned down in April 2004 – see Who Burnt Us Out?. Since 2012, there has been street art at both its North Street and Donegall Street ends, the latest (from September, 2021) being this piece by Danni Simpson (ig) in Donegall St.
For the girl with owl left over from the previous Matt Sewell street art, see Only When The Dusk Starts To Fall (along with A Bird In The Hand and Carnival Of The Animals).
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Here is a gallery of the street art in Union Street, starting, above, with emic’s 2020 piece “Fuck Racism”. In order, below, we have work by …
Wee Nuls + Ten Hundred + KVLR (2019)
ADW (2016)
Ink Fun (2022)
Shane Ha (2022)
Friz (2022)
Lobster Robin (2022)
irony (2022)
RAZER (2022)
ESTR + Lanni Powder (in Little Donegall Street, 2017)
KinMx (in Library Street, 2017)
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London street artist Dan Kitchener’s (web | ig) piece “Hope” features a Tokyo landscapes behind a geisha. “The wall is dedicated to Sandra – サンドラ. Sandra McCurry worked and owned Mikala’s Kitchen on The Shankill Road, Sandra worked tirelessly for the local community and sadly passed away” (Belfast Walking Tours Fb).
The geisha has (bizarrely) been situated above “Conor’s Corner”, where William Conor has been rendered in bronze by sculptor Holger Lönze and placed among a number of Conor’s paintings. (For images of the sculpture in progress, see Lönze’s site and the project’s Facebook page.) Connor (later Conor) was born in the Old Lodge area of Belfast (in 1881) close to the location of the new bronze statue shown in these images, which is at the corner of Northumberland Street and Shankill Road, replacing the UVF/Shankill Protestant Boys mural (see M02457).
The info board describes his methods in capturing the Belfast street scenes for which he is most famous: “Conor was developing a spontaneous drawing technique by recording quick impressions, and it soon became a habit for him to go out into the streets with a newspaper, which contained loose leaves from his sketchbook. When he saw anything of interest he leant against a lap post or wall, took out his newspaper as though he were simply reading the sports results and sketched away.”
For more info, see the project’s web site. For images of many of Conor’s paintings, see ArtNet.
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As a player, the Dublin-born Patrick O’Connell started with Belfast Celtic before moving on to various English and Scottish clubs, including a period at Manchester United at the time of WWI. He then went on to manage a string of Spanish clubs. As manager (“Don Patricio”) of Barcelona during the Spanish civil war, he accompanied the club on their tour of Mexico and the United States. The money from the tour saved the club from bankruptcy but 12 of the 16 players went into exile in Mexico and France. (WP) Barcelona returns to the US this month (2015-07) for games against the LA Galaxy, Manchester United, and Chelsea. (FCBarcelona)
The newspaper in the mural above crams all of this news onto one page: “Civil war erupts in Spain – Barcelona bombed”, “Football suspended – President [of FC Barcelona] Josep Sunyol assassinated” [by Franco’s troops] (WP); “Irishman O’Connell takes players on tour – FC Barcelona saved from extinction”; “Funds lodged in Switzerland”. In the bottom left-hand corner of the newspaper is Robert Capa’s famous photograph of ‘The Falling Soldier’, purporting to show a Republican soldier at the very moment he is struck by a bullet and dies. The image is now thought to have been staged (WP).
The image on which the mural is based can be seen in this Irish Times article on O’Connell.
The player on the right is Lionel Messi. The Argentinian forward is shown in front of the Spanish League cup, which Barcelona won in the year the mural was painted (2014-2015) with a goal from “La Pulga” (“the flea”) – Messi is 5’7″ but four-time world player of the year.
The stands of three football stadiums are shown in the background: Belfast Celtic’s Celtic Park (“Paradise”), Manchester United’s Old Trafford, and Barcelona’s Camp Nou. The Old Trafford stands bear the emblems of the teams Patrick O’Connell played for and managed: Liffey Wanderers (whose shirt is also featured, on the left), Sheffield Wednesday, Hull City (The Tigers), Manchester United, Dumbarton, Real Racing Club de Santander, Real Oviedo, and Real Betis Balompié (also shirt on the right).
Whiterock Road, Belfast
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“The first blanketman”. IRA prisoner Kieran Nugent is reputed to have said – upon being imprisoned after the removal of Special Category status in 1976 – “I’m not a criminal – the Brits will have to nail prison clothes to my back.”
Rockville Street, west Belfast
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Érıu/Éıre of the Tuatha Dé Danann, queen of Ireland, (as depicted by Richard J King) is at the centre of various representations of republican women. Along the top are Ann Devlin, Betsy Gray, Mary Ann McCracken, Countess Markievicz, Nora Connolly?, and Winifred Carney. Suffragettes, the modern IRA, and Cumman Na mBan are depicted, as are Máıre Drumm at the Falls Curfew, Tom McElwee’s sisters carrying his coffin, and Molly Childers and Mary Spring Rice running guns on the Asgard. There is also an unusual ‘four provinces’ in the corners.
The wide shot (below) shows the James Connolly mural below and the 1916 centenary board above – also seen in South Link: Ag fíorú na poblachta/“Realising the republic”.
Rockmount Street, west Belfast.
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