“No extradition! Don’t play England’s game” – after years of legal wrangling, Liam Campbell was extradited to Lithuania on charges of procuring weapons for the Real IRA (BBC | Saoradh). See previously: Silence Is Complicity. Cıarán Maguire was handed over to the PSNI by Gardaí in April 2021 (Donegal Daily).
Braemar Street, west Belfast, with a 40th anniversary hunger strike board below.
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“Welcome to West Belfast.” The sights of nationalist west Belfast are depicted in (part of) a new mural by Mickey Doherty and Marty Lyons on the side wall of the tourist office. From left to right: The (2015) Bobby Sands mural in Sevastopol Street, tourists being introduced to the IRA D Company memorial garden on the lower Falls by Peadar Whelan, Conway Mill, Divis tower, RISE at the bottom of Broadway (better known as the “Balls on the Falls”), the Falls library, the “international wall” in 2012 (with marchers in support of a nondescript international cause, crocodiles for the Irish language, and gay rights), St Peter’s pro-cathedral, a black taxi, the Connolly statue outside Comhaırle Phobaıl an bhFál, and the model for the new Casement Park stadium.
Below: Michael Conlan (tw | ig) won his first title and tenth professional bout on Saturday night (December 22nd), in Manchester, by defeating Englishman Jason Cunningham (BBC). He is featured here alongside the traditional Gaelic games of hurling, camogie, football, and handball.
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“Don’t join the PSNI” – This Lasaır Dhearg board takes the “poster officer” from the 2021 recruitment campaign and puts them against a backdrop of riot officers firing plastic bullets. “17 people have been killed by plastic bullets, including 8 children.” “It is believed that the PSNI retain a stockpile of over 50,000 deadly plastic bullets.” The British state does not use plastic bullets anywhere but occupied Ireland.” “The PSNI is not a normal police force.” Here is the 2021 Amnesty report on the use of water cannon and “Attenuating Energy Projectiles” in the north. In November, relatives of Carol Ann Kelly went to Stormont to call for an end to the use of plastic bullets (BelTel).
Iveagh Parade, west Belfast
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The United Campaign Against Plastic Bullets organised a march on July 16th, from Divis to the middle Falls, ending in Islandbawn Street with the launch of a new mural commemorating 17 victims of rubber or plastic bullets (Irish News). (Belfast Media has a gallery from the march.) Amnesty International last year released a report on the continued use of Attenuating Energy Projectiles (AEPs).
“Seeking justice for victims of rubber and plastic bullets. Plastic bullets = murder, main & mayhem”
For the previous plastic bullets board in Islandbawn Street, see Plastic Death.
Francis Rowntree, Tobias Molloy, Thomas Friel, Stephen Geddis, Brian Stewart, Michael Donnelly, Stephen McConomy, Paul Whitters, Julie Livingstone, Henry Duffy, Carol Ann Kelly, Norah McCabe, Peter Doherty, Peter McGuinness, John Downes, Keith White, Seamus Duffy.
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On October 18th, 1922, the third Dáıl/second Provisional Government Of Southern Ireland approved – in the absence of anti-Treaty members – a bill entitled the “Army Emergency Powers Resolution” which introduced martial law, including martial courts with the death penalty for anyone found in possession of an illegal firearm – “illegal” meaning not sanctioned by the nascent pro-Treaty Free State. Under these powers, seven IRA volunteers were executed on November 17th and 19th, followed on the 24th by Erskine Childers (a member of the team that negotiated the Treaty but subsequently against it). In response, the IRA declared that TDs who had voted for the bill were fair game, and on December 7th Seán Hales of Cork was shot and killed. In reprisal, the government ordered the execution of four more volunteers, one from each province: Liam Mellows, Joe McKelvey, Dick Barnett, Rory O’Connor. The four had been arrested five months earlier, on June 30th, 1922, at the start of the Civil War, after surrendering the Four Courts. By the end of the war, 81 executions had taken place. (An Phoblacht | Irish Times | The Irish Story | WP | WP)
For the left-hand side of the wall, on the shipyard clearings and the McMahon murders, see Belfast Butchery.
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“Belfast Pogroms 1920-1922.” Against the backdrop of the first Dáıl, the War Of Independence, and the debate in Westminster over the fourth Home Rule bill (it would be passed in November 1920), northern Protestants began to assert their de facto independence from the rest of Ireland – both in economic and in military terms.
On July 12th, 1920, Edward Carson spoke to a crowd in Derry and, addressing the government in Westminster, said “if you are yourself unable to protect us from the machinations of Sınn Féın, and you won’t take our help; well, then, we tell you we will take the matter into our own hands.” (Treason Felony). Nine days later, the “clearings” of Catholics from Belfast shipyards and mills began, with about 5,700 Catholics and 1,850 socialists (“rotten Prods“) being expelled from Workman Clark and Harland & Wolff yards, and in total 10,000 workers from yards and mills over the next two weeks (History Ireland). In combination with the straitened economic circumstances of the time (post WWI) thousands (23,140 according to this mural, which reproduces a flyer derived from the Irish News of October 6th, 1920 – via The Irish Story’s account of the start of the “Belfast Pogrom”) were on relief.
Militarily, in October, 1920, the Ulster Special Constabulary was established (drawing on members of the Ulster Volunteers, which had been reconstituted in June 1920, and the 21,000 members of the Ulster Imperial Guards (WP)) as an alternative to the Royal Irish Constabulary in fighting actions by the IRA in Belfast, Derry, and elsewhere in the north. On March 23rd, 1922, two officers of the Specials were killed in Belfast city centre by the IRA. In reprisal, two Catholic civilians were killed in the Short Strand, and in the early hours of March 24th, a party of five men, four dressed in RIC uniforms, burst into the home of Catholic businessman Owen McMahon and shot McMahon, his six sons, and one of his employees – only two of the sons survived. District Inspector John Nixon of the RIC was suspected of leading the attack on the McMahon household – see The RIC Murder Gang and Pat And Dan Duffin. (The headlines are from the Freeman’s Journal of March 25th, 1922 – see Joe Baker’s 80-page account of the murders of summer 1922; the photograph of the McMahon corpses that is reproduced in the mural can be seen at Slugger.)
This is the first half a new mural in Ascaıll Ard Na bhFeá; the “1922” part can be seen in Executed.
“Belfast Expelled Workers – How Carsonism has disgraced Belfast – Help from all quarters of the globe for victims of sh[a]meful pogrom – Drain on Ex[p]elled Workers[‘] Relief Fund. Total number of expelled workers registered – 8,104; Applications for registrations yesterday – 500; Average number of persons receiving relief daily – 23,140.”
“Belfast Butchery – Horrif[y]ing story of massacre of McMahon family – Dying man[‘]s declaration – Murderers dressed in police uniform and spoke with Belfast accents.”
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Pieces of the long Beechmount Avenue wall have moved to different locations due to the construction of new fencing and other improvements. The WBTA Alternative Transport board is now above the longest-surviving mural in Belfast, the Clowney Street phoenix.
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This board was mounted in AMCOMRI Street for the fortieth anniversary of the 1981 hunger strike, with photographs from the area in the background, including the Revolution mural at the bottom of Beechmount Avenue in 1996-1997.
“Everyone, Republican or otherwise, has their own particular part to play. No part is too great or too small, no one is too old or too young to do something.”
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Paddy Duffy Collection 