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Big Ugg

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“Jon Clifford’s Tristar FC, Derry, founded 1974”. Jon “Ugg” Clifford died on September 3rd, 2011, while waiting for a lung transplant (BelTel). In 1974 he had founded a youth soccer club – initially for boys – called “Tristrar” (web) in Creggan. The park where they played – Bull Park – was renamed in his honour, a portrait on boards was mounted in 2013 (which has now been replaced by the larger painting shown here), and a memorial championship was begun in 2014 (Derry Daily).

Update: The mural was officially launched on October 9th, 2025 (BBC).

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Copyright © 2025 Paddy Duffy
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Goodnight, Sisters

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Derry native Nell McCafferty is commemorated by a mural in the Maiden City, launched on International Women’s Day (March 8th), 2025, and the annual Femme Sesh event was also dedicated to McCafferty (ig | Derry Journal).

McCafferty died last year (2024) after a long career as a journalist and activist (BBC). “Goodnight, sisters” was her parting phrase at the end of her segments on The Women’s Programme, which aired on RTÉ between 1983 and 1986 (Journal).

Here is RTÉ footage of Nell and Marian Finucane on the Late Late in 1991 and in 1980.

The mural was painted by Peaball (web) on a gable in Lisfannon Park and is visible from Lecky Road. The portrait of McCafferty appeared on the cover of (the Penguin Ireland edition of) her autobiography Nell.

For the mural on the low wall (in the wide shot, below), see Two Nations One Struggle.

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Copyright © 2025 Paddy Duffy
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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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Copyright © 2025 Paddy Duffy
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Paste No Paste-Ups

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Above and immediately below are two new paste-ups by Leo Boyd which attempt – by example and by reverse-psychology – to turn the hoarding around the War Memorial building in Waring Street into a paste-up gallery (similar to the new “legal wall” for graffiti and street-art in Little Patrick Street – see First!).

The third image is of a Boyd paste-up already on the wall, mixing the police land-rover (see Off The Edge for an index) with the cat looming over city hall (see Belfast Kitty Hall). The final stencil is by French artist MDLF (ig).

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Let Your Light Shine

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“How cool is it that the same God that created oceans and mountains and galaxies looked at you and thought the world needed one you too”, “Be the light”, “God is love”, “Let your light shine”.

Uplifting religious messages in Sixmilewater Park, below Main Street, Ballyclare.

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Sammy The Seal

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Sightings of seals in the Lagan go back to the late 80s (DCTours) and became so much a part of the city’s culture that they (under the singular familiar ‘Sammy the seal’ standing in for multiple individuals and generations) have been celebrated in a set of three sculptures on Donegall Quay near the Big Fish (geograph | Belfast Live). Joining the sculptures is a new piece of street art by HMC (web), painted for Hit The North 2025 on an exterior wall of the Laganside bus centre.

In-progress images … May 3rd:

May 2nd:

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Copyright © 2025 Paddy Duffy
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Hooded Man

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“Óglach Kevin Hannaway, Irish Republican Army, hooded man. Unbowed & unbroken. Ar dheıs Dé go raıbh a anam.”

Kevin Hannaway died in January (2025), aged 77. In 1971 he was interned (Belfast Media) and subjected, along with thirteen others, to the “five techniques” – deprivation of food/drink and of sleep, subjection to noise, prolonged stress positions, and hooding (WP) – as well as being beaten and dropped out of a helicopter (Irish Times). The ‘five techniques’ were found to constitute torture in 2021 (RTÉ) and the PSNI apologised to the victims in 2023 (BBC | Irish Legal News).

Hannaway remained a republican throughout his life and was anti-Agreement in recent years (BBC). The board in Hannaway’s honour was launched on Sunday July 13th (Fb video). The panels of the board were siezed by the PSNI during a drug raid on a home in St James’s on the 11th but returned the next day (BelTel).

“IRPWA [web]. Republican prisoners still exist! Unfinished revolution. Unbowed, unbroken.”

Hugo Street, west Belfast. For a close-up of the Pearse Jordan plaque on the left, see the Peter Moloney Collection.

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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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