All About Us (web) offers services for teens with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) out of its office in Greystone Mall/Antrim Enterprise. The walls and many of the shutters on the building are covered in art, painted with help from Visual Waste (web) – a few are shown here.
This UDA emblem is on a gable wall at the back of a house in Queen’s Road, but serves as the upper limit between the UVF Steeple (Parkhall Road) and the UDA Kilgreel Road areas of Antrim. Some of the UDA board have gone from Kilgreel Road, and those that remain are in poor condition, but this one was re-painted/repaired relatively recently (c. 2020). The original, which dates back to at least 2008, was black – see the Peter Moloney Collection. The main mural in the estate is kept in good condition.
“In eternal memory, UVF Volunteer Jimmy Fee.” This entry updates 2023’s Pass Not This Spot In Sorrow, which showed a painted UVF flag in memory of Jimmy Fee. This has been replaced by a printed board which contains a photographic portrait of Fee. As reported in that earlier entry, there is no information readily available about Fee, who perhaps died around 2016, when the original mural was painted. The two upper boards (in the shape of gravestones) have been retained from the earlier work, while the “north Antrim/Londonderry battalion, south Antrim brigade – remember them with pride” board is new.
Parkhall Road, Steeple, Antrim. The WWII banner is in the nearby Steeple Park.
“From Queens Park to the house of Windsor: thank you for your devoted service.” This entry updates 2022’s The Longest Reign, which celebrated Queen Elizabeth’s platinum jubilee. Although Elizabeth became queen in February 1952, most of the celebrations took place around the bank holiday Elizabeth in early June. Elizabeth died in September of the same year, and the board (after the interim “Booked“) has now been changed into a memorial.
Golf Digest rated Royal County Down as the world’s number one course. Over the years it has hosted various important tournaments, including the Irish Open (most recently in 2024, won by Rasmus Højgaard).
This mural features six famous golfers, past and present. Clockwise from top: Pádraıg Harrington, Rory McIlroy (holding his Masters trophy and wearing the green jacket), Darren Clarke, Graeme McDowell, Shane Lowry, and Fred Daly, who won the Irish Open in 1946 and the British Open in 1947. In the background of the mural is the Slieve Donard hotel, which is just to the south of the golf course.
Painted by Visual Waste (web) in Donard Place, Newcastle, Co Down
Life and landmarks in Rathfriland, eight miles outside Newry, are presented in this “Community mural, 2010, lead artist Ann McCall, created with young people from the Beacon Centre”.
The four buildings on the left are labelled: Magennis clan of Iveagh 1136-1641 [i.e. until the Confederate Wars], Linen Market 1754, Patrick Brontë [father of the three Brontë authors] homeland 1777, Farmers’ Market. On the right is the Beacon Centre.
The mural was covered over by a printed tarp for a number of (seven?) years, but this has come down and the mural behind it is again visible. The mural in much better condition can be seen on Geograph.
Church Square, Rathfriland, site of the market house or tholsel – here is an image from c. 1915.
The national flower of Thailand is the blossom of the cassia fistula or golden shower tree but the high humidity and high heat also make the country an ideal growing location for more than a thousand species of orchids, making Thailand (one of) the world’s largest exporters of orchids (Nation Thailand | ASEAN Garden). In Thailand itself, they are a mark of respect and are given, for example, to teachers on Teachers’ Day (Thailand Now).
These orchids (perhaps Phalaenopsis Baldan’s Kaleidoscope) are on the shutters of Orchid Thai Massage (web) in Great Victoria Street, Belfast city centre.
The Townsend Enterprise Park, at the Falls end of Townsend Street, was formerly the site of the Soho Foundry, established by brothers James and Robert Shipboy MacAdam, making (among other things, including scutching machines) large turbines for export across the world – “the largest steam-engine ever made in Ireland” (at 62″ in diameter) went to the Nile in Egypt in 1848 (Grace’s | Grace’s). The river portrayed is the Farset, which gives Belfast its name, and which can still be seen in the Park; the vast majority of the Farset had been paved over by 1848 (BBC).
This new mural on the wall of the Enterprise Park recalls the area’s industrial past. By Imogen Donegan (ig) with support from Daisy Chain (web).