Paddy Duffy Collection

For National Liberation And Socialism In Ireland

2024-12-262025-05-18Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

This entry updates Let The Fight Go On!!! from December 1st, which showed the new INLA 50th anniversary wall in Oakman Street but without the (pink) roll of honour on the left. Those listed in the roll of honour are: Hugh Ferguson, Danny Loughran, Brendan McNamee, Miriam Daly, Ronnie Bunting, Noel Little, Jim Power, Matt McLarnon, Joe Craven, Paul “Bonanza” McCann, Thomas “Ta” Power, John O’Reilly, Mickey Kearney, Emmanual Gargan, Gino Gallagher, John McColgan, Patrick Campbell, Christopher “Crip” McWilliams, Harry O’Hara, Barry “Bar” McMullan, Martin McElkerney, James McWilliams. The last five post-date the Agreement, starting with Patrick Campbell, who died in 1999 at the hands of drug-dealers in Dublin (Irish Times | Bel Tel).

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Copyright © 2024 Paddy Duffy
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Just A Minute

2024-12-262025-01-30Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

People with learning difficulties and autism who are carrying a “JAM” card (web) (for “Just a minute”) can use it on Translink buses and trains to let drivers and conductors know that they might need some extra time. The other symbols on the side of the train (in the third image, below) denote services for travelers who are visually-impaired, hearing-impaired, blind, or wheelchair-users.

This wall-painting in south Belfast was painted by Blaze FX (ig) with help from young people with disabilities as part of a “Can Do” project (Fb) from Leonard Cheshire (web) and Kids Together Belfast (Fb). With funding from Forward South Partnership (web), Translink, and Belfast City Council (Belfast Live).

In Adelaide Street, opposite Great Northern Railway.

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Writing On The Wall

2024-12-262025-03-25Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

This new piece from Belfast One BID is full of literary references (web). The blackberries (top left of the image above) are perhaps for Seamus Heaney, and the kites (bottom right of the image above) are perhaps for John Hewitt. Comment/Get in touch if you can identify others.

Below the Linen Hall library in Fountain Street, Belfast city centre.

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Copyright © 2024 Paddy Duffy
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The Ledley Hall

2024-12-242025-07-16Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

This is a repainting of the Ledley Hall/Queen’s Jubilee mural at the junction with Kingswood Street, part of the 2016 re-imaging of Lord Street, east Belfast, sponsored by the Housing Executive and CharterNI. The mural shows the hall past and present and features local figures Bob Yarr (OBE), Eddie Witherspoon, John Cross (BEM), John Currans, Sam Rainey, and Reggie Morrow.

The ‘Lord Street Remembers’ piece is from 2015, by Glenn Black and Ken Maze of Blaze FX (web).

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Copyright © 2023 Paddy Duffy
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York Road Civil Defence Hall

2024-12-222025-02-13Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

The HUBB community centre (Fb) in north Belfast has, since 2010, been based in what used to be a World War II Civil Defence air-raid shelter, which it cleaned and renovated (Tele). The original hall is depicted in this mural on the side of the HUBB.

In 1940, Belfast was protected by thirty-eight anti-aircraft guns. The German Luftwaffe flew a reconnaissance flight over Belfast on November 30th, 1940 and a test mission of eight planes on April 7th, 1941 concluded that Belfast’s defences were, “inferior in quality, scanty and insufficient” (Hogg). 150 bombers would blitz Belfast the following week, on Easter Tuesday, April 15th, and the seven guns that had been in operation ceased firing, believing, falsely, that RAF planes were also in the sky (WP).

Belfast was bombed by the Germans four times in April and May of 1941. In the blitz of Easter Tuesday, 1941, more than 900 people died, 1,500 were injured, and half the houses in Belfast were damaged (WP). According to Elaine Hogg’s research in the ‘Darker Side Of Belfast’ series, 100,000 people left the city in the remainder of the month, due to shock, fear, and the squalid conditions and unruly behaviour that followed the bombing.

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Titanic Town 1912

2024-12-222025-01-09Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

“North Belfast dockers, millworkers, shipyard workers – Titanic town 1912″.

The Titanic mural in north Belfast is now twelve years old; it is generally faded and peeling in several places, and the plaster filling a crack in the walls has fallen out (as can be seen in the images above and below). (For the mural previously, see X01139.)

Along the bottom are the names of various Belfast pubs and other businesses: The Waterloo, The Terminus, The Sportsman’s Arms, The White Hart, The Bowling Green, The City Arms, The Orpheus – York Street, Railway Bar – Canning Street [image from 1970], The Edinburgh Castle [the boat of the Union-Castle line, launched 1910, built at H&W?], York Street Mill, The Gibralter [sic] Bar [whose then-owner was killed in 1972], Ye Old Castle [a bar (and restaurant?) bombed in 1971], The White Lion.

St. Vincent Street, north Belfast.

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Fox In The Bluebells

2024-12-192025-01-09Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

Bluebells flower in April and May, which is also the time of year when foxes are frequently seen, foraging to support their new offspring (Discover Wildlife).

This Peaball (web) creation (with support from @daisychaininc) is on a wall at Ellie May’s restaurant (web) in Dunadry, outside Antrim.

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Copyright © 2024 Paddy Duffy
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When It Blows Full Blast

2024-12-122024-12-21Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

In addition to taking out the top of the UVF mural in Mount Vernon (see Taken By Storm), Storm Darragh (on the night of Friday 6th/Saturday 7th) also knocked down part of the long wall on Northumberland Street (Visual History) between the two sets of security gates, taking with it most of the extended “Imagine” board (see Hope And History; the original portion was mounted for International Peace Day (“[2]1st September” visible in the final image) in 2011 – see Imagine).

The piece on the right, with the Seamus Heaney quote, is partly gone, revealing (in the image above) the old mural supporting (Manchester) United’s Big Lily.

For the art on the gates, see Ambassadors For Peace.

Taken By Storm

2024-12-072025-01-24Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

The UVF hooded gunmen mural in Mount Vernon, which “greets” drivers coming off the M2 at the Shore Road, has been damaged by Storm Darragh, which had winds of 90 m.p.h. and more, with the apex and a further 6 feet of masonry coming down. (Belfast Live gallery of NI damage | BBC gallery of UK storm damage.)

This wall is NIHE property (pdf) and the need for repair or reconstruction might delay any repainting of the mural.

The mural in this location dates back to 2001 (here are images from 2006 and 2012) and was touched up in 2022 (T01300 | X10660). The original mural – which dates back to the ceasefire era (1995) – was on a gable at the front of the estate but the entire block of houses was razed – see T00138 | D00382.

An Elephant At Home

2024-12-032025-01-02Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

This new Glengormley street art pays tribute to an elephant from Bellevue Zoo during WWII.

In response to the blitz of April 1941, thoughts turned to what might happen if the zoo was bombed. Thirty-three animals that would be dangerous to the public (if they escaped) were executed. A zoo-keeper, Denise Weston Austin, brought Sheila, an Asian elephant, to her home on the Whitewell Road, where she lived for several weeks, before being returned to the zoo in time for the bombing of May. (See WP for dates of the Belfast blitz.) For photographs of Sheila and Denise, and the tale of how Sheila’s absence was discovered, see Wartime NI.

By DanLeo (web), with DaisyChain (web).

Ballyclare Road (just below Moss Road) in Glengormley, Newtownabbey.