“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.
The phrase “There are many things that can only be seen through eyes that have cried” is attributed to Óscar Romero, a Catholic priest in El Salvador. He was a critic of the military government and was assasinated in March 1980 while saying mass. He was made a saint in 2015. (WP)
Sister Janet Mead had a surprise hit in 1973 with a pop-rock rendition of the Lord’s Prayer (youtube).
This mural will be ten years old this (2023) summer, as will the Eileen Hickey Republican Museum mural that it is next to — see Eileen Hickey.
Two types of mourner at the grave of a fallen WWI soldier: on the left, comrades in arms; on the right, members of the family they left behind.
Work on the mural began in December, 2021, but progress seems to have stalled. One of the bayonets is in outline as is the giant poppy overheard. The effect is that the scene seems to be taking place under the stars.
Above and immediately below: banners of two Australian Republican support-groups, holding banners reading “Australian Aid for Ireland QLD [Queensland] Branch – The Spirit of Freedom” and “The Casement Support Group – Saoirse Melbourne”.
Fourth, Australian Manufacturing Workers Union (amwu.org.au) sponsored the mural above in Conway Street. Then-secretary Craig Johnston is on the left in the back. The flag to the right is the flag of the Eureka Stockade. It joins others sponsored by Australian groups: A Bunch Of Live Wires (sponsored by the Electrical Trades Union) | Caırde Sınn Féın | Australian Aid For Ireland & Saoırse Melbourne. “Casement Memorial – In proud memory of the 10 Republican prisoners who died on hunger strike in “H” blocks of Long Kesh in 1981. ‘It is not those who can inflict the most but those who can endure the most who will conquer’ – Terence McSwiney. Unveiled by Martin McGuinness, Sınn Féın MP MLA Minister for Education Wednesday 6/12/2006 Donated by AMWU, Craig Johnston Secretary.”
Finally, the Australian Electrical Trades Union (ETU) in Victoria. “Says Joe, ‘Those that they forgot to kill went on to organise.’” from ‘(The Ballad Of) Joe Hill’.
The ‘Eileen Hickey Irish Republican History Museum‘ — which is across the street from this mural and behind the Conway Mill — is named for Eileen Hickey, a Provisional IRA member who served time in Armagh prison; she died in 2006, one year before the opening of the museum (obituary at An Phoblacht).
Next to the opening hours is an image of a prison cell in the Armagh women’s prison. The museum itself contains a cell door and a bed from the prison.
August 2019 was the 50th anniversary of what are euphemistically called “The Troubles”. The Battle Of The Bogside (Derry) began on August 12th; in Belfast, fighting began on the night of August 14th and before dawn three people in the Divis Street area were dead: Protestant Herbert Roy and Catholics Patrick Rooney and Hugh McCabe, both shot in the Divis flats complex by the RUC’s Shorland armoured cars. (Two other Catholics were killed in rioting in Ardoyne.) This board is on Divis tower, next to the plaque commemorating Rooney and McCabe.
Fáılte Feırste Thıar‘s second mural (the first is outside its offices in the middle Falls – see Fáılte Feırste Thıar) reinforces the claim that (republican) west Belfast begins as soon as you cross the motorway, five minutes’ walk from the city centre. Coıste’s tour of republican murals begins at Divis Tower and the new mural already seems to be drawing tourists – see the final image, below. The previous Coıste mural (M04900) has been deleted and incorporated into the mural, promising tourists “a unique walking tour by former political prisoners”.
The mural is a mix of landmarks – the new Raıdıó Fáılte building (which is located just below the mural), Divis tower, St Peter’s, Conway Mill, the “international wall” of murals, the Bobby Sands mural, the Falls library, the new James Connolly centre, Cultúrlann, and Milltown cemetery – cultural images (Irish dancing and Féıle An Phobaıl) – and sporting images (clubs include Immaculata ABC, Gort Na Móna GAC, St Paul’s GAC). A gay pride ‘rainbow’ stripe runs below the Divis Street portion. Before the previous mural was painted (M07533), there was a Gateway To Belfast board at this spot.
Here is a gallery of the smaller piece on the building below Divis tower (except for the Welcome mural – see Gateway To West Belfast). From right to left (top to bottom in this post) we see a 32 County Sovereignty Movement mural, with the island of Ireland in green, white, and orange, and (representing prisoners) barbed wire and a candle; “Black lives matter” from People Before Profit; 32CSM tarp opposing “British political policing”; IRPWA board declaring the PSNI/MI5/British Army unwelcome; a 32CSM tarp against joy-riding; a Lasair Dhearg poster marking 100 years of … “pogroms, sectarianism, job discrimination, police brutality, imprisonment, collusion, housing discrimination, Orange supremacy, torture, internment, special powers, state sponsored death squads, language discrimination, gerrymandering, women’s rights denied, colonialism.”
John Leathem, chairman of the Divis Tower Falls Residents’ Association, died in his flat on the 19th floor of Divis Tower in August last year (2017), after returning to the Tower four years previously when he was diagnosed with cancer (Irish News | Tele). He was described by Sınn Féın MLA Fra McCann as “a champion for the people of no property” (An Phoblacht). This mural is outside his former office on the first floor.
Lıú Lúnasa is an Irish language festival. The board above shows rocks taken from the wall separating Palestine and Israel being used to build a gaelscoıl (an Irish-language school). The mural was painted by Jımí Mac Fhlannchadha.
Paddy Duffy Collection 