Cú Chulaınn is revered as a living god who might watch over children and their pets, homes, food, and toys in these devotional panels in Dunclug, Ballymena. As the info board says, “It was prophesied that his great deeds would give him everlasting fame.” Cú Chulaınn has his own Visual History page.
Dunclug Park, Ballymena.
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Copyright © 2023 Paddy Duffy
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A trio of international causes aimed at the visiting Joe Biden, president of the United States, from Gael Force Art and People Before Profit. What’s new here is the “No 2 NATO” under the Irish Tricolour. The other two parts have been on the mountain previously: the Cuban flag with “unblock Cuba” reprises the maassive Cuban flag on the mountain in 2021, which was depicted in the La Solidaridad Invariable mural on Divis St, and the Palestinian flag with “BDS” [Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions] in 2018’s #BDS.
The third image shows the Cuban flag being rolled out; Bayview Media has a video of the installation on twitter.
For more on Biden’s visit, see Joe Biden, Globalist.
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“Through adversity to the stars” – in WWII the Belfast Telegraph conducted a campaign to raise money for spitfire aircraft. 17 were purchased with the roughly 89 thousand pounds raised, and each of them was named for a city or area of Northern Ireland, including one named for Ballymena, which is the site of this new mural recalling the effort. (BelTel | NIWorld)
The plaques to Jimmy Aberdeen on the right-hand side of the second image date back to the previous mural, which is included last below; previously on the wall were Fight To A Finish and, before that, I Can Stand Alone.
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“Victory to the workers”. Costello House is home to the IRSP (tw) “Advice Hub” with representative Dan Murphy (Mid Falls & Springfield) and Michael Kelly (Lower Falls). Murphy (in Black Mountain) received 2.7% and Kelly (in Court) 3.2% of first-preference votes in the recent local elections (WP).
Falls Road, west Belfast.
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JP Beadle’s painting “Battle of the Somme: Attack of the Ulster Division” hangs in Belfast City Hall (Royal Irish has a history of its purchase) but is reproduced here in a new Rathcoole memorial to the dead of the Great War. (A list of “Ulster’s VC Heroes” can be found at the bottom of The Dead We Honour Here, from the east Belfast memorial garden. For the King George V quote, see How Nobly They Fight And Die.)
“Solemn the drums thrill: Death august and royal/Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres./There is music in the midst of desolation/And a glory that shines upon our tears.” This is the second verse of Binyon’s For The Fallen, a poem whose fourth verse – “They shall not grow old …” – is used in dozens of murals and memorials. (And in one case, the fifth verse: They Sleep Beyond England’s Foam.)
John McCrae’s poem concludes the board to the left: “In August 2019 a group from Rathcoole Protestant Boys [Fb] travelled to the battlefields of World War 1 to respect the fallen. The images represented pay homage to that visit, which prved to be and continues to be a journey of discovery and appreciation for the sacrifices made by those brave souls who fought during the Great War and who paid the ultimate sacrifice. As a group and society we look to a better future in the knowledge that those who do not learn from the mistakes of the past are doomed to repeat it. ‘If ye break faith with us who die/We shall not sleep, though poppies grow in Flanders fields.'”
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Here are images of street art in the green space off Queen’s Parade, (following on from Sharon Regan’s boards along the street – Nature Is Healing). The works are:
Friz’s (ig) Snow Patrol ‘Wildness’ cover for their “Ward Park 3” festival,
unknown artist “As they reach for the heavens/They forget to be earthly good”.
local artist Carla Hodgson’s (ig) “Rock, Paper, Scissors” octopus,
Codo (ig) x Jimbo Slice (ig),
FGB’s (ig) “Don’t look wack in Bangor”,
HM Constance’s (ig) stag.
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Lí Ban became a mermaid – half-human, half-salmon – after a year spent living in an underwater bower, taking shelter from the family’s uncovered spring that overnight formed Lough Neagh. Three hundred years later (circa 558 A.D.) she told an envoy of Saint Comgall’s who was on his way to Rome, that she would come ashore at Larne a year later. She forwent another 300 years of sea life in favour of being baptised and dying immediately. She was baptised by Comgall, the abbot of Bangor, and christened “Muirgen” (sea-born) and was buried in the Lough Derg (Donegal) abbey (O’Grady | WP). Muirgen’s feast-day is January 27th (Sacred Sisters).
Painted by Friz (ig) for the Bangor Seaside Revival Festival, with support from Seedhead Arts (ig).
For a different style of presentation of Lí Ban, see Shaped By Sea And Stone in Larne. The end of the story is similar to the fate of the children of Lear, who spend 900 years as swans before a monk hears their song, puts them (willingly) in chains, but in protecting them from others touches them, which restores them to human form only for (baptism and) death to follow immediately. (See The Children Of Lear.)
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After centuries of pitiless exploitation by Bangor locals, a new hope is taking the knife into its own hand and striking back – revenge of the crustaceans. Work by Irony (ig) on Mill Row.
In Belfast: a lobster is boiled.
In Bangor: an octopus plays rock-paper-scissors.
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The first printing press in Belfast belonged to James Blow and his brother-in-law Patrick Neil in 1694 (DIB | Dublin Penny Journal gives 1696 | Mary Lowry Story Of Belfast gives 1690); a run of 8,000 Bibles is said to have been printed in 1751, one of which is part of the Linen Hall Library’s collection on Early Ulster Printing (RASCAL).
In 1895, Carswell & Sons opened a print-works and book-binders in a warehouse running with frontage in Queen Street and a rear in College Court (the building is now a bingo hall – see Kelly’s Eyes) which is currently being renovated as an office block (Bel Tel) – some of the scaffolding in College Cour can be seen in the later images in We Built This, the street art festival for International Women’s Day, 2023.
To complement those festival pieces, the mouth of College Court has been given a make-over, with work by Peachzz (ig) (above) and lettering by Woskerski (ig) that both draw on the street’s association with printing. If you know who did the “bookbinding” piece, please get in touch.
Previously on either side of College Court there were two pieces by Friz: Fox and Hare.
The bonus image, of a man leaning against the newsagent’s wall, is on the corner with Castle Street.
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Above is a trio of boards on a wall behind the Antiville community centre, softening (somewhat) the very aggressive set of six UDA boards next to it.
The experts’ best guess is that the gentleman on the white horse (on the right of the painting) is James Scott, Duke of Monmouth, at the siege of Maastricht in 1673. Scott was commander of the English forces fighting with the French during the Franco-Dutch war. It’s not clear, thus, what the connection is to the Antiville area of Larne or the wars fought in Ireland over the English crown. It was painted by Jan Wyck, who also did a painting of the Battle of the Boyne. On either side (as shown below) are a portrait of Queen Elizabeth II and the English version of the Royal coat of arms of the United Kingdom.
Eddie The Trooper has his own Visual History page.
Hampton Crescent, Antiville, Larne
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