Paddy Duffy Collection

Andrew Mason

2023-03-122025-02-05Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

19-year-old Andrew “Macey” Mason was wearing his Hillhall band uniform and a UDA badge while en route to visit his girlfriend on April 19th, 1987, when he was set upon by two men near Carnlough on the Antrim coast. The gruesome details of the beatings and stabbings that followed are given in Lost Lives (#2827).

This is the second (see previously 2010 – M05938) memorial board to Mason in Hillhall. The memorial plaque (below) is a new version of the older plaque to John McMichael, Raymond Smallwood[s], Jim Guiney, and Mason.

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Copyright © 2023 Paddy Duffy
T02320 T02321 T02319 Hillhall Gardens “Sons of Ulster do not be anxious for we will never forget you as long as the sun shines and the wind blows and the rain falls and the rivers of Ulster flow to the sea. Always remembered by volunteers from Hillhall C Company.”

Saoırse Go Deo

2023-03-122026-02-07Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

“Saoırse go deo.” INLA volunteer Kevin Lynch went on hunger strike on May 23rd, 1981. He would die 71 days later, on August 1st. His funeral is depicted in the top part of this IRSP/IRSM board commemorating the 40th anniversary of the 1981 hunger-strikes. The Tricolour (for the IRA) and Starry Plough (for the INLA) are used as blankets on the prison beds.

Shaws Road and Norglen Gardens, west Belfast

The same board appeared on the Falls Road and in Galliagh, Derry.

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Copyright © 2023 Paddy Duffy
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John McMichael

2023-03-122025-12-04Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

The South Belfast UDA/UFF commander John McMichael (1948-1987) was killed by an IRA car bomb. In addition to organising a team of assassins in the 70s and 80s, he founded a Political Research Group and wrote two documents proposing an independent Northern Ireland, 1979’s Beyond the Religious Divide and 1987’s Common Sense (available at CAIN), promoting the philosophy of ‘Ulster nationalism’. The quote on the board comes from the end of the Introduction to Common Sense:

“There is no section of this divided Ulster community which is totally innocent or indeed totally guilty, totally right or totally wrong. We all share the responsibility for creating the situation, either by deed or by acquiescence. Therefore we must share the responsibility for finding a settlement and then share the responsibility of maintaining good government.”

Above: “Old Warren A Coy/B Coy”. Right: “One man, one love, one country. Commonsense. In loving memory. Quis separabit.” around a portrait of McMichael. Left: “Common sense” with an Ulster Banner Northern Ireland.

Drumbeg Drive, Lisburn

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Copyright © 2023 Paddy Duffy
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Countryside And Seaside

2023-03-122024-08-27Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

The Priory Park tunnel goes links Priory park with Seapark Bay in Holywood by going under the A2. On the one side are images from the countryside (with a few lines from Frost’s ‘Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening‘) and on the other are images from the seashore. “The creation of these works has been supported by NIHE and the Holywood Residents Assoc.” “urbanartsni.com” is a dead link.

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Copyright © 2023 Paddy Duffy
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We Built This

2023-03-122024-08-27Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

Here is a gallery of completed pieces produced for International Women’s Day 2023 in College Court. The new street art is part of a larger revitalisation project (Belfast City Council).

The works shown are (from Castle Street to College Street) by Claire Prouvost, Holly Pereira, Katriona, Kerri Hanna, Danni Simpson, Alana McDowell, ESTR; Laura Nelson, Novice Jess, Friz, (guest artist Hicks who was in town to repair and extend his piece in College Street Mews (see Cool) – it was damaged by a dumpster fire) and, on the other side of the street, HM Constance.

For in-progress shots, see Women’s Work.

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Copyright © 2023 Paddy Duffy
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T02287 [T02286] T02288 T02289 T02290 T02291 T02539 Department For Communities, Future City Centre Programme, A Bolder Vision for Belfast

Socialism Is Neither Protestant Nor Catholic

2023-03-042026-02-05Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

“Socialism is neither Protestant nor Catholic, Christian nor Freethinker, Buddhist, Mahometan, nor Jews [sic]. It is only human. We of the Socialist working class realise that as we suffer together we must work together that we may enjoy together. We reject the firebrand of capitalist warfare and offer you the olive leaf of brotherhood and justice to and for all.” From part 6 of Connolly’s Labour, Nationality And Religion in 1910.

The mural is in Beechview Park, across the street from Áras Uí Chonghaile/James Connolly Visitor Centre.

Operation Pagoda

2023-03-042024-11-03Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

“CR Gas & The Burning Of Long Kesh, 15th-16th October, 1974 in Long Kesh. Operation Pagoda – the British government authorised and sanctioned the use of a chemical weapon against Irish Republican prisoners. Members of the 22nd S.A.S. carried out the attack from a helicopter.”

Operation Pagoda was the name of the SAS’s counter-terrorism programme (WP). Its role in the ‘Battle Of Long Kesh’ in October 1974 and its alleged use of CR (dibenzoxazepine) powder – the successor to CS powder (and before that, CN or “tear” gas) (New Scientist) – remains a classified matter. CR had been authorised for use in 1973 (Guardian).

The original photograph of the central scene (IWM HU 7025, included in this article from An Phoblacht) was in black-and-white and was reproduced as such in the three previous versions of this mural: 2021 Chemical Warfare In Ireland, 2018 The Battle Of Long Kesh, 2014 The Maze Ablaze. This new version adds burning reds and oranges. It replaces the No Profit On Pandemic mural.

International Wall, Divis Street, west Belfast

It Grows In Fields Where Valour Led

2023-02-262026-01-12Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

“We cherish too the poppy red/That grows in fields where valour led/It seems to signal to the skies/The blood of heroes never dies.” From Moina Michael’s poem We Shall Keep The Faith.

This is an update to the 2016 entry in the Seosamh Mac Coılle collection that showed the mural in new condition. Seven years on, there has been much fading and peeling of paint.

Ballyduff Gardens, Newtownabbey