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Ardoyne Generations Bloom

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Etna Drive in Ardoyne has undergone a make-over in the last twelve months. The large board below was mounted in December 2024, the planters added in March 2025, and the boxes along the street were painted in June. The boxes celebrate local groups and initiatives: “Cıceam Ard Eoın [Fb]”, “Ardoyne-Bone Community health & leisure trust [Fb]”, “Community larder. Drop in. Locally sourced food.”, “Ardoyne Association [Fb] Citizens’ Advice Centre”, and the “Lawrenson-Toal academy of Irish dance [ig]”.

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Saoırse Go Deo

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The gallery of socialist heroes at the top of the Rock, first painted in 2006, has been repainted in blue (rather than yellow). The faces remain the same as before: (l-r) Seamus Costello (INLA/IRSP founder), Gino Gallagher (INLA chief of staff), Che (in the Guerillero Heroico pose), Patsy O’Hara, Miriam Daly, James Connolly.

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Death, Death

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Bob Vylan (a punk-rap duo) at June’s Glastonbury Festival led the crowd in chants of “Free, free Palestine” and “Death, death to the IDF” (BBC | Reuters). These have now appeared as stencils, along with Derry oak-leaves from 2024’s Creggan Is my Home, on signal boxes in Central Drive, Creggan, Derry.

Kneecap took the stage immediately after Bob Vylan, and were likewise investigated for their comments supporting Palestinians and criticizing UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer (Reuters).

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Empower Your Community

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Here are IRSP (web) and RNU (Fb) signs side-by-side in Bishop Street, Derry, both employing the idea of ’empowerment’. Above: “Empower your community – Join the IRSP, the party of Connolly and Costello”; below: “RNU for the community – support, empower & prosper”.

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Property Of East Belfast UVF

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This notice is on the outside of the Belvoir Bar in east Belfast: “Property of east Belfast Ulster Volunteer Force – Not for sale” alongside a plaque to “fallen comrades” Robert Bennett, Roy Walker, Joseph Long, James Cordner, and Robert Seymour. It seems that the bar has been shuttered since 2011 (Belfast Telegraph | Irish Times).

Newtownards Road, east Belfast, next to the WWI VCs memorial.

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Yes, Yes, BDS

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The UNI Europa mural (Real Say, More Pay) from April is already gone, replaced by “Free Gaza” and a call for “boycott, divestment, sanctions”.

The Civil Rights board (No Apartheid) which was removed for the UNI mural has been re-mounted on the facing wall.

Donegall Street Place, Belfast city centre

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To The People Of Ireland

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The central space in Ardoyne’s Easter Rising centenary wall, combining stencils of the signatories to the Proclamation around a tarp of the document (see In Commemoration Of 1916) has been empty – except for some electoral signs – since 2019’s board marking the centenary of Sınn Féın (see Still The People Spoke). This new tarp returns to the Proclamation and Easter lily and matches the frame of signatories once more.

The last full mural on the wall fell down in 2014 and there does not appear to have been the energy to paint another full mural since then – but perhaps the fading paint around Clarke and Connolly will provoke a complete re-do.

For the stone in the right-hand corner, see the Peter Moloney collection.

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Copyright © 2025 Paddy Duffy
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A Working-Class Boy From A Ghetto

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“I was only a working class boy from a [nationalist] ghetto, but it is repression that creates the revolutionary spirit of freedom.” This is a widely-quoted line from Bobby Sands, from an article in Republican News, 16 December, 1978 (page 7 pdf).

The mosaic has been in place since 2012; the quote was perhaps added for the launch of the Bobby Sands statue.

Twinbrook Road, Dunmurry

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Solidarity With Gaza Health Workers

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In this graffiti outside the Royal Victoria Hospital, west Belfast, a person in a white coat faces a tank bearing an Israeli flag. Israel’s renewed bombardment of Gaza on March 18th killed more than 400 people (Independent), including an OB-GYN specialist in Rafah (Al-Jazeera); on the 23rd, an airstrike on Nasser Hospital killed five (Reuters).

Detailed figures of casualties among health-care workers in Gaza can be found at Healthcare Workers Watch.

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For National Liberation And Socialism In Ireland

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This entry updates Let The Fight Go On!!! from December 1st, which showed the new INLA 50th anniversary wall in Oakman Street but without the (pink) roll of honour on the left. Those listed in the roll of honour are: Hugh Ferguson, Danny Loughran, Brendan McNamee, Miriam Daly, Ronnie Bunting, Noel Little, Jim Power, Matt McLarnon, Joe Craven, Paul “Bonanza” McCann, Thomas “Ta” Power, John O’Reilly, Mickey Kearney, Emmanual Gargan, Gino Gallagher, John McColgan, Patrick Campbell, Christopher “Crip” McWilliams, Harry O’Hara, Barry “Bar” McMullan, Martin McElkerney, James McWilliams. The last five post-date the Agreement, starting with Patrick Campbell, who died in 1999 at the hands of drug-dealers in Dublin (Irish Times | Bel Tel).

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