The Shipyard

Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

The 36th (Ulster) Division Memorial Association (Fb) put on a play called From The Shipyard To The Somme (Fb | watch on youtube) in Connswater Community Centre in 2013. It follows a group of men from east Belfast who joined the Ulster Volunteers in Belfast but are now training at Abercorn barracks in Ballykinlar (later an internment camp) as members of the 36th Division, before going to the Battle Of The Somme in France.

Belfast – with one tenth of the population – provided about a third of the Irish soldier to participate in WWI. In the shipyards, Harland & Wolff responded to the slow-down in production not by putting everyone on short time but by letting go of employees, particularly unskilled employees, for whom the wages of soldiering were competitive (particularly if married), while skilled men were reclassified as “munitions workers” needed to fulfill war contracts (History Ireland | Long Kesh Inside Out).

Connswater Street, east Belfast

Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2022 Paddy Duffy
T01640

Luminaries And Legends Of Eastside

Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

Famous faces and landmarks from east Belfast: Van Morrison, CS Lewis, George Best, David Holmes, Harland & Wolff, Holywood Arches, Strand Arts Centre, Danny Blanchflower, Lucy Caldwell, Marie Jones, Sam McCready, Gary Moore, James Ellis, St Mark’s Dundela, Eric Bell, Dee Craig (the artist).

Connswater Street, east Belfast

Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2022 Paddy Duffy
T01638 [T01639]

Youth Of North Belfast

Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

The local New Lodge GAA club Cumman An Phıarsaıgh is named in honour of Patrick Pearse, executed after the 1916 rising. The club’s new mural features footballers contesting a ball and Pearse’s image appears at the centre of a Celtic cross along with part of his 1912 poem Mıse Éıre in the bottom corner (shown below in a close-up). Painted by Lucas Quigley and Michael Doherty. Replaces ‘New Lodge 2000‘.

Mıse Éıre: Sıne mé na an Chaılleach Bhéarra.
Mór mo ghlóır: Mé a rug Cú Chulaınn croga.
Mór mo náır: Mo chlann féın a dhíol a máthaır.
[Mór mo phıan: Bıthnaımhde do mo shíorchıapadh.
Mór mo bhrón: D’éag an dream ınar chuıreas dóchas.]
Mıse Éıre: Uaıgní mé ná an Chaılleach Bhéarra.

I am Ireland: I am older than the old woman of Beare.
Great my glory: I who bore Cuchulainn, the brave.
Great my shame: My own children who sold their mother.
[Great my pain: My irreconcilable enemy who harasses me continually.
Great my sorrow: That crowd, in whom I placed my trust, died.]
I am Ireland: I am lonelier than the old woman of Beare.

Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2024 Paddy Duffy
T01628 [T01629]

Wolf At The Door

Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

The statues in CS Lewis Square are by sculptor Maurice Harron (who also did the Hands Across The Divide statue in London-/Derry). The seven statues are of Aslan the lion, Mr. Tumnus, Jadis the White Witch, Mr. and Mrs. Beaver, the stone table (in granite), Robin Red Breast, and, Maugrim, the talking wolf who is head of the Witch’s secret police. Most of the figures are in bronze but Maugrim – shown above – is made of about 5,500 pieces of stainless steel welded to a steel frame (Loop).

For images of the murals (by Friz – web | tw) in better condition, see Winter’s End; for the chain and ropes metal-work, see Of The River.

Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2022 Paddy Duffy
T01647 T01645 T01642

The Sporting Wing

Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

“The sporting wing [of the IRA]” is a play on the idea that Sınn Féın was the “political wing” of the IRA and so Celtic FC is the group’s “sporting wing”. Instead of Celtic’s usual four-leaf clover, three hooded gunmen fire a funeral volley.

The GAA has also been given the title (BelTel 2020); Sammy Wilson, as DUP press officer defending UDA attacks on GAA halls in Belfast and Banbridge, in September 1993, described the GAA as “the IRA at play” (WP). (For a history of the two organisations, see Irish Peace Process.)

Falls Road, west Belfast

Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2022 Paddy Duffy
T01650

No One Speaks This Shame

Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

“Lost in the shadows of Belfast gone/Abandoned to descend/Its soul wilts, swept away/No one speaks this shame.”

Work by Faigy on the same North Street shutters as his previous The Darker Half Of The Year. These shop-fronts are still standing while many next to them have been torn down. Also still standing is Glen Molloy’s tribute to the Aboriginal poet Alice Eather (WP), shown below. The wall on the side of the buildings bears a large piece by Asbestos commenting on the intrusiveness of social media.

Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2022 Paddy Duffy
T01633 T01634 T01632 T01631