Paddy Duffy Collection

Painting For Palestine

2024-01-202024-08-27Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

In January 2024, in response to the prolonged Israeli attack on Gaza, many murals on the “International Wall” on Divis Street were painted out and work began on reproductions of artworks by artists from Palestine and elsewhere in the region. The project was called Painting For Palestine and a Facebook page and GoFundMe page were launched.

According to Bill Rolston (Fb) (who can be seen in the second image, below), there was a plan last Autumn that Palestinian artists would create their own “international wall” and include murals designed by CNR artists. The Hamas attack on October 7 and the subsequent Israeli invasion on Gaza – now ongoing for 108 days – put paid to that project, and instead art by Palestinian painters is being painted in Belfast in support of Palestine. (Here is an NVTv segment on the project.)

All of the following were painted out: Operation Pagoda, #Unblock Cuba, Jim McCabe, Black Taxi CIC, Springhill-Westrock Massacre, Falls Commemoration Committee, Lenár Lınn, Hunger Strikers (1916). The Nugent-Hughes-McKee, the museum bookmark, Stop The Slaughter In Gaza, and the two anti-Agreement panels (Khader Adnan and Republican Prisoners Still Exist!) remain.

This entry shows images of whitewashed panels and early progress on the first seven of the new murals, taken on January 14, 15, 17, and 20.

Here are links to the originals:

The Land Is Ours – Mohammed Alhaj, Abdullah Al Najar, Rami Al Safadi, Abdel Hamid Fares
(man holding child) – Saïd Hassan
(soldiers standing over children) – Saïd Hassan
(family group) – Ahmad Shaweesh
(Soso and Omar Ashour) – Raed Qatanani
(child and phoenix) – ?
(cooking in front of tent) – Saïd Hassan

The first (left-most) panel will reproduce a mural called ‘The Land Is Ours’ by Mohammed Alhaj, Abdullah Al Najar, Rami Al Safadi, and Abdel Hamid Fares that once stood in a Gaza school; the second, next to the first, is currently blank (see the image above).

The grid and cartoon for a mural from digital artist Saïd Hassan (web):

Another image by digital artist Saïd Hassan, showing soldiers standing over dead children:

Four murals are being painted over what were previously Lenár Linn and Hunger Strikers (1916). The originals for these were designed by Ahmad Shaweesh (ig), Raed Qatanani (ig), ? [please get in touch], and Saïd Hassan (web).

Shaweesh’s piece is a deliberately unfinished image of a group of people, perhaps a family, in distress. Qatanani’s image is a portrait of Soso and Omar Ashour as they sat in a Gaza hospital during the first week of the Israeli invasion.

The original artist of this figure with a phoenix is unknown.

The last of these four murals is by Hassan and shows a woman cooking over an open fire in front of a tent in a refugee camp.

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Copyright © 2024 Paddy Duffy
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Midtown Makers

2024-01-072024-10-27Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

Here is a small gallery of commercial streetart on the shutters of shops along Broughshane Street, Ballymena.

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Copyright © 2024 Paddy Duffy
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1916 Battle Of The Somme

2024-01-072025-04-15Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

153 men of the 12th Battalion Royal Irish Rifles (which included men from Ballymena and other Central Antrim Volunteers) died on the first day of the Battle Of The Somme, July 1st, 1916, as they and the 9th Royal Irish Fusiliers attempted to take German trenches near Beaucourt railway station (Royal Irish). According to the account of the movements of the 12th Royal Irish Rifles by Des Blackadder on the Great War Forum, “they were cut down like corn before a scythe”. In all, more than 2,000 men from the 36th Division were killed that day (WP).

The new mural in Drumtara, Ballymena, was painted by Craig Gilmore, who also did the recent tribute to Elizabeth II (see The Crown) (Ballymena Guardian article on the mural, also by Blackadder). The cut-outs (in the third image) are on a wall at the bottom of the estate; the machine-gunner is unusual.

Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2024/2023 Paddy Duffy
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To Markets New

2024-01-072024-08-27Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

The Saturday market in Ballymena goes back to the 1600s but has had troubles recently finding a thriving home (Ballymena Guardian). The recent streetart by Friz (ig) and NRMN (ig) in Greenvale Street is intended to be a reference to the ancient market and is (probably) inspired by James Guthrie’s 1883 painting, ‘To Pastures New’, showing a girl herding geese in Lincolnshire.

Funded by the Department For Communities, Department For Agriculture, Environment, And Rural Affairs, and the Department For Infrastructure, with support from the Mid- & East-Antrim Borough Council.

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Copyright © 2024 Paddy Duffy
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Unrecognisable Britishness

2024-01-072024-08-27Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

Billy Wright broke with the UVF over the ceasefire in 1994 and after being expelled (and the Mid-Ulster brigade disbanded) in the summer of 1996, formed the LVF (WP). The tarp shown above, however, is in the UVF Ballykeel area of Ballymena, which has come around to his anti-Agreement way of thinking in the current anti-Protocol environment. There is video of the speeches from which these paragraphs come; the first paragraphs can be seen in this AP report; the third paragraph (from a speech on Xitter) is followed by the claim that “democracy has been stood on its head”.

“”I am living through the death of our nation, the destruction of our way of life. I am sick of ambiguity, I am sick of the government’s lies and deceit. I will not become part of a process that is designed to ease our people into a United Ireland. They shall demand concession after concession, their small inches will soon turn to yards, then yards to miles and finally they shall have their way, your Britishness shall become unrecognisable.” – No Irish Sea border – Maintain the Union – Defending our heritage and culture.”

On top of a Covid-era “NHS thank you” board on Crebilly Road, Ballymena, next to Somme, King Billy, and VE Day pieces.

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Copyright © 2024 Paddy Duffy
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Day Of The Dahlias

2024-01-072024-08-27Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

English artist Sophie Mess (ig) says that this variety of dahlia “represent[s] wealth, change and creativity, a fitting symbol for the [Ballymena] area’s history: rich farmland and mineral deposits meant the town was turned into a prosperous market town” (press-release from Mid- And East-Antrim council, which sponsored the work). Purple dahlias are also said to symbolise “grace, beauty, dignity, kindness” (Saffron Marigold) or royalty (Bouq’s). So, whatever you want, really.

Mess also painted flowers in Belfast for HTN 2022.

Wellington Court, Ballymena.

The Specials

2024-01-062024-08-27Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

Jack Nicholson and Noel Gallagher have disappeared from Glen Molloy’s (ig) Corporation Street gallery, replaced by Amy Winehouse (above), who died in 2011 (Guardian), and Terry Hall (below) of The Specials and Fun Boy Three, who died in December 2022 (BBC).

For Nicholson, see God Of Madness; for Gallagher and others, see Runner & Hunter On The Wild Frontier.

Update 2024-03: Carrie Fisher, in Princess Leia guise, is being added – see final images.

Pádraıc Fıacc

2024-01-022024-10-27Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

Patrick O’Connor was born on this day in 1924 on the lower Falls but after his father emigrated he spent his early years – until age 5 – with his grandparents in East Street in the Markets. It was as a high-schooler in New York that he adopted the name Pádraıc Fıacc (“fiach dubh” is “raven”) and began writing poetry. He settled in Glengormley upon his second and final return; it is not clear that he ever saw East Street lined with British Army soldiers, as shown in the mural above. He wrote of his early life in ‘First Movement’:

Low clouds, yellow in a mist wind
Sift on far-off Ards
Drift hazily …
I was born on such a morning
Smelling of the bone yards
The smoking chimneys over the slate top roofs
The wayward storm birds
And to the east where morning is, the sea
And to the west where evening is, the sea
Threatening with danger
And it would always darken suddenly

Some of Fıacc’s poems are in the TroublesArchive. He was interviewed by NVTv’s Bernard Conlon (Vimeo); he also appears in a reception in Belfast City Hall (youtube).

Lower Stanfield St, Markets, south Belfast