Here are matching “KAH” (Kill all Huns/Protestants) and “KAT” (Kill all Taigs/Catholics) graffiti from Broadway roundabout – the interface between Iveagh and the Village – that have been plastered over with paper hearts.
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Unlike the book of Lamentations (see Our Homes Have Been Given To Foreigners), the book of Jeremiah contains a promise that the peoples of Judah and Israel will return from Babylonian captivity and that the palaces of Judah will be rebuilt. In the New Living Translation, Jeremiah 33 v6 is rendered as, “Nevertheless, the time will come when I will heal Jerusalem’s wounds and give it prosperity and true peace.”
In addition to the Ulster Banner and Israeli flag (in the shape of hearts) we also see the emblem of the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) – צבא ההגנה לישראל/Tzva Hahaganah leYisrael – and below that אי כניעה or “no surrender” in Hebrew.
“We are at war and we will win” was Benjamin Netanyahu’s response to the Hamas attack of October 7th (Times Of Israel)
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“Resistance to IRA demands – “Every word spoken in Irish is like a bullet being fired in the struggle for Irish freedom” – Ulster says no to an ILA.” The precise wording and the author of the quotation are unclear. Nelson McCausland of the DUP gives it as “Now every phrase you learn is a bullet in the freedom struggle” and attributes it to Sınn Féın’s Pádraıg Ó Maolchraoıbhe in May 1982 (BelTel | Nelson’s View). The Irish language is not, of course, the exclusive property of militant republicanism, and, although the IRA has ceased its campaign and decommissioned its weapons, it is used here in conjunction with an image of a gunman firing an assault rifle in order to provoke fear against an Irish Language Act. The bill – enacted by Westminster rather than Stormont – became law last (2022) December (BBC). The poster dates from 2022 or 2021.
See previously: A Tale Of Two Protests | Acht Anoıs.
Below are “PSNIRA” targets and an old Leo Varadkar poster – see A Return To Violence.
Beechfield Avenue, Carrickfergus
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Here is a poster version of Leo Boyd’s (ig) HTN2021 piece My First Paste Up.
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This Leo Boyd (web) piece in Great Victoria Street brings together many of the ideas seen in his posters over the years, including When Urban Love Goes Wrong, Belfast Kitty Hall, DeLorean cars, Godzilla – “The monster created by atoms gone wild! Escaped from Belfast zoo”, and the wind-up police land-rover.
“Approved by DC Tours“
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“”As you lived you must die/An’ your last gasp or cry/Will be heard very likely by none/Not one/You unfortunate devil, Maglone.” – Barney Maglone Robert A. Wilson.”
Wilson was a Donegal man who, after some time in America, worked for newspapers in Enniskillen and Belfast. He was most famous under the pen-name “Barney Maglone” as the author of ‘To My Cousin In Amerikay’ and ‘Barney Maglone’s Notions Of Things’ (DIB).
The poem from which these lines come can be found in the [Belfast] Morning News obituary reprinted in the Portland Guardian And Normanby Advertiser (Victoria, Australia) for November 2nd, 1875 (though it gives “misfortunate divil” in the final line).
The paste-up is by Peter Strain (web) in Wilson’s Court, one of the Belfast Entries. Other pieces by Strain in the entries can be seen in Handsome, Easy-Going, And Utterly Untrustworthy | The Blots On The Page Are So Black | Trust Women.
The piece below, in Joy’s Entry, shows a sign for “R. A. Wilson’s philosophical instruments labyrinthine sale!” It is probably by Leo Boyd – see The Farset Voice.
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These two fake newspapers allude to the fact that the river Farset, after which Belfast is named, still runs below the city, invisible since it was covered over in 1804. (You can read George Benn’s A History Of The Town Of Belfast at archive.org.)
Wilson’s Court; presumably by Leo Boyd (compare with New Weird Order).
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Left: After a break for the funeral of the Duke Of Edinburgh, the Loyalist Communities Council has resumed its protest of Brexit with a banner campaign (Irish News). The banner seems to be offering viewers the choice of one of four affiliations (“Europe – UK – USA – Ireland – choose one or the other! It’s your decision!) but the “correct” answer is at the bottom (and in the faded background of the Covenant): “Ulster is British and this we will always maintain!” even though “Political leaders are not listening!” (including, perhaps, Arlene Foster and the DUP.) The Belfast Agreement (Good Friday Agreement) allows people in Northern Ireland to identify themselves as Irish, British, or both.
Right: “Peace or protocol – it’s your decision”, aimed at Leo Varadkar on the day that he again became Taoiseach (Irish Times) and repeating his words back to him from a speech in 2018: “The possibility of a return to violence is very real”. At that meeting, Varadkar was anticipating violence by anti-Agreement republicans in response to customs posts on the Ireland-Northern Ireland border, and brought a newspaper describing the death of four customs officials, two lorry drivers, and three IRA volunteers at a Monaghan post in 1972 (BelTel).
The authors of this poster are not known, but the parallel statement (mutatis mutandis) would be that anti-Protocol agents – perhaps the “young loyalists” that the UVF “can no longer contain” (UK Daily; see also RTÉ from November) – might return to acts of violence such as the 1974 “Dublin & Monaghan Bombings” that killed 33 people – in the background of the poster is part of a photograph (included below) of bomb damage in Talbot Street – if the Protocol’s “Irish Sea border” is not removed.
Ballysillan Road and (below) Oakmount Drive (near Mount Vernon), north Belfast.
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A message from BUILD Shankill (web): “Did you know? The Shankill has over 80 waste sites the size of 62 football pitches with the space to build 3300 homes. #BuildShankill.” Members of the team, as well as representatives from the Housing Executive and the NI Executive, took a bus tour of the sites in June (Alternatives youtube channel).
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“The sporting wing [of the IRA]” is a play on the idea that Sınn Féın was the “political wing” of the IRA and so Celtic FC is the group’s “sporting wing”. Instead of Celtic’s usual four-leaf clover, three hooded gunmen fire a funeral volley.
The GAA has also been given the title (BelTel 2020); Sammy Wilson, as DUP press officer defending UDA attacks on GAA halls in Belfast and Banbridge, in September 1993, described the GAA as “the IRA at play” (WP). (For a history of the two organisations, see Irish Peace Process.)
Falls Road, west Belfast
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