Paddy Duffy Collection

It’s A Knockout!

2022-09-162024-07-21Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

It’s A Knockout ran from 1966 to 1982 and entertained millions both live and on television, with teams from neighbouring towns playing ridiculous games in over-sized foam-rubber suits (plus jaunty theme music by Herb Alpert). It was based on a French show that was based on an Italian show, and so broad was its appeal that Belgium, France, West Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Portugal, the Netherlands, and Great Britain (and, once, a team from “Northern Ireland”) – took part in an international version, called Jeux Sans Frontières. (Here’s a ‘best of’ compilation.)

The Conservative party leadership election ran for 54 days, with a series of debates and twelve hustings involving candidates Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak (here are summaries of all twelve hustings, including the one in Belfast), ending mercifully on September 5th with party members electing Truss. In Ciaran Gallagher’s (web) repainted mural (see previously, And In The Blue Corner …) Jacob Rees-Mogg declares Truss – in the Union Flag top and England shorts – the winner while Boris Johnson (still nominally the Prime Minister but who took two holidays, to Slovenia and Greece (HuffPo)) counts out the bloody-nosed Sunak, skipping over the No 10.

In the middle of the mural, Larry (the cat) wants to “Bring back Julian Smith!” Smith was NI Secretary 2019-2020. The task has (eventually) fallen to Euro-skeptic Chris Heaton-Harris, Conservative MP for Daventry (web). He replaces Shailesh Vara, who lasted 62 days, the shortest-lasting NI Secretary ever (BBC).

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Copyright © 2022 Paddy Duffy
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XXXVI

2022-09-132024-07-20Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

The main battles of the 36th (Ulster) Division (“XXXVI”) are listed – Somme, Thiepval, Messines, Ypres, Cambrai, Somme (1918), St. Quintin [St. Quentin], Lys, Courtrai – and those who died are commemorated on this new board. The main board is surrounded by smaller boards, part of the Poppy Trail, bearing the names, ages, addresses, ranks, and units of deceased soldiers. For example: William Lyttle, aged 18, 16 Tenth Street, 9th batt. Royal Irish Rifles, Rifleman 13044.

The same (main) board has also been mounted on the Shankill: see Improving Your Environment.

Replaces: They Haven’t Gone Away and Welcome To The Shankill.

The info board above reads: “Thousands of brave Shankill men marched down our road and off to war, over 1500 of them never returned, with over 150 losing their lives on the 1st day of July 1916.”

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Copyright © 2022 Paddy Duffy
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Operation Lion

2022-09-132024-07-20Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

John Henry Patterson went from Ireland to Kenya, where he killed several lions after months of hunting. He wrote an account of the hunt entitled The Man-Eaters of Tsavo which has inspired three movies; the lions, named The Ghost and The Darkness, were both over nine feet in length. Back in Ireland he commanded a battalion of the UVF and was involved in the Larne gun-running of 1914: Operation Lion.

The final panel (on the right) shows the star of David and a quote from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: “In all of Jewish history we have never had a Christian friend as understanding and devoted.” The interim panels described Patterson’s raising and leading of the Jewish battalions of the Royal Fusiliers in WWI. After dying in obscurity in Los Angeles in 1947, his remains were transported to Israel in December 2014 and reinterred (video). For more, including a recording of Patterson’s voice, see this BBC Magazine article.

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Copyright © 2022 Paddy Duffy
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To All Foreign Nationals Across The Empire

2022-09-132024-07-20Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

“Are you one of Kitchener’s own?” asks this mural in Northumberland Street: “We here pay grateful and everlasting tribute, to all foreign nationals across the empire, who courageously and passionately fought side by side with their British counterparts, for King and country, during the First World War.” The left-hand side (second image) features images of soldiers from the West Indies and India, including “The Flying Sikh”, Hardit Singh Malik and a French lady as she “pins flowers on a regiment containing Muslims, Sikhs, and Hindus.” On the right, images of the “presentation of Colours to the 51st Battalion Canadian expeditionary force” and of Canadian “bluebird” nurses in the Canadian Army Medical Corps.

Replaces (part of) Welcome To The Shankill. See Belfast Live for an image from the launch.

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Copyright © 2022 Paddy Duffy
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Hope And History

2022-09-132024-07-20Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

To celebrate International Peace Day, 2020, the Imagine mural from 2011 between the security gates was extended in three directions. The new panels (printed by Alexander Boyd Displays (web) on aluminium) now take up the whole space between the gates, blocking out, on the left, Mark Ervine’s Global Commodity, on the right, (Manchester) United’s Big Lily, and below, a space used recently by Shankill graffitists to support Donald Trump and Israel and to attack the EU.

Since the new panels are the usual whitewashing of history in favor of landmark buildings and people in black-and-white (i.e. before the Troubles) – though the bottom panel does appear to include a bonfire or riot image (see final image) – this is arguably a net loss.

The City Council held a 45-minute Zoom event of poems and music called ‘Shaping Peace Together‘.

(Out of view to the left) “In understanding, all walls shall fall down” – Kahlil Gibran

(On the right) “A further shore is reachable from here” – Seamus Heaney

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Battle Of The Falls

2022-09-132024-07-20Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

Four people were killed in the course of The Falls Curfew, the 36 hours from July 3rd to 5th in 1970 during which 3,000 houses on the lower Falls were cordoned off after a weapons search of the area devolved into a riot. The curfew ended with a march of women and children from Andersonstown bearing relief (represented in Falls Curfew 1970).

The information in the centre of the board includes an augmented version of the Wikipedia infobox on the event. Erected in the spot previously reserved by “the Official Republican Movement”.

Freedom For Öcalan

2022-09-132024-07-20Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

“Peace is more difficult than war. We were not scared as we resisted; we will not be scared when we make peace.” Turkish-born Kurdistan Workers’ Party founder Abdullah Öcalan has been in prison since 1999, during which time he has changed from advocating violence to advocating a political solution to the Kurdish situation in Turkey. (WP) The conflict has resulted in a minimum of 45,000 deaths. (WP)

The mural dates back to 2014.

Hill Or High Water

2022-09-132024-07-20Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

The Community Rescue Service (web | Fb | tw) respond to calls about missing persons on both land and water. They were involved in the search for Noah Donohoe and in distributing PPE during the pandemic.

The mural was painted by Mickey Doherty and reproduces a Philip Magowan photograph and a photo of founder Sean McCarry (Belfast Live) from the CRS web site. It is sponsored by Cab Tours Belfast (web). It was launched on November 27th, 2021. It replaced the Fidel Castro memorial mural.

On the right: The Irish Republican Prisoners Committee (IRPC) is currently without any web or social-media presence. As with all post-Agreement boards for republican prisoners, it uses only barbed wire and not the lark. For Liam Campbell, see Don’t Hand Him Over.

Northumberland Street, west Belfast