This painter on horseback is a third recent piece by Leo Boyd (web) that is set in urban streets in the moonlight, alongside Pints! Pints! Pints! and Pink Moon Gonna Get You All.
This one is in Shaftesbury Square, Belfast.
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Pintsman comes out after dark, under the moonlit sky, and tracks down the creamiest pints to be had in the city centre, one for each hand.
Work by Leo Boyd (web) in Lower Garfield Street, in the middle of Ollie Amscai’s rose from last May’s Paint Jam – see Garfield’s Street.
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This RNU (Fb) board features the closing words from Sands’s prison diary, from March 17th, 1981:
“They won’t break me because the desire for freedom, and the freedom of the Irish people, is in my heart. The day will dawn when all the people of Ireland will have the desire for freedom to show. It is then that we will see the rising of the moon.”
In the corners, funeral volleys are being fired over the coffins of Kieran Doherty and Joe McDonnell, two of the deceased 1981 hunger strikers who were local to the area. For background information, see the board that this one replaces: To Whom Do We Owe Our Allegiance Today?
Bingnian Drive, Andersonstown, west Belfast
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Copyright © 2025 Paddy Duffy
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“The Ark Of Extinction.com – Barn Owl – artist Marc Craig – Thanks to the Bog Meadows Community [Fb] and Ulster Wildlife [web], March 2025 – Bring nature back”.
This giant barn owl at the top (Falls-Road side) of the Bog Meadows is one of several pieces being painted by Craig in various UK locations to highlight local species that are endangered. The other piece, so far, is of a red squirrel in Cornwall. In the case of Belfast and Northern Ireland, only 30 pairs of barn owls remain, at most (Ulster Wildlife).
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In this graffiti outside the Royal Victoria Hospital, west Belfast, a person in a white coat faces a tank bearing an Israeli flag. Israel’s renewed bombardment of Gaza on March 18th killed more than 400 people (Independent), including an OB-GYN specialist in Rafah (Al-Jazeera); on the 23rd, an airstrike on Nasser Hospital killed five (Reuters).
Detailed figures of casualties among health-care workers in Gaza can be found at Healthcare Workers Watch.
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In Irish, the seven bright stars of the celestial group Ursa Major are together known as “an céachta” or “an camchéachta” – the bent plough, though the reason for the modification “bent” is unclear (Vıcıpéıd). (In other cultures they are thought of as a wagon/wain, or dipper, or the hind-quarters and tail of a bear.)
The “starry plough” flag was originally proposed in 1914 for the Irish Citizen Army and flown over the Imperial Hotel during the 1916 Rising (WP); it is now the symbol of the INLA/IRSP (web) and many current anti-Agreement groups,
The starry plough shown here, in Cliftonpark Avenue, north Belfast, has the correct number of stars – seven – but has lost its typical shape.
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“Honour Ireland’s dead – wear an Easter lily”. This year (2025) is the ninetieth anniversary of the founding of Cumann Uaıgheann Na Laocradh Gaedheal, Béal Feırste (the National Graves Association, Belfast (Fb)) which maintains the graves of about 149 republicans in Milltown Cemetery (Belfast Media).
The graves under its care are marked with a red hand – for an example, see the grave of Joseph (Joe) Malone in Far Dearer The Grave Or The Prison.
This new mural, which features a Celtic Cross (emblem of the Association) and Cú Chulaınn (symbol of republican dead), is part (along with Free Palestine) of the side-wall next to Éırí Amach Na Casca. Easter Monday, this year, is April 21st.
See also: the Visual History page on Cú Chulaınn.
Beechmount Avenue, west Belfast
March 23rd:
March 18th:
March 16th:
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Here are three boxes in a row in Ann Street, with a toast to city-centre revellers by Zippy (web). For more city centre boxes, see Pink Moon Gonna Get You All, and for more on the painting of boxes in Belfast, see the Visual History page.
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These Saoradh (web) boards calling for attendance at the national march from Creggan to the new (2022) “People’s Monument” in Rossville Street are in Hugo Street (above) and Beechmount Drive (below):
“National Republican Commemoration Committee national Easter commemoration: assemble at Creggan shops – 2pm Monday 21st April 2025 for march to the People’s Monument — Free Derry Corner. Wear your Easter lily with pride.”
For a full list of this year’s commemorative marches, see Republican News.
Easter Monday falls late this year – April 21st – though still not as late as it did in 1916, when it was on the 24th. The event is typically celebrated at Easter, regardless of its proximity to the 24th, though for the centenary in 2016, anti-Agreement republicans commemorated the Rising on April 24th, specifically, while others paraded at Easter (which was at the end of March).
For the Finucane board, see Pat Finucane.
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This Lasaır Dhearg (web) board in Lenadoon is explicit in defending the use of physical force by Palestinians (specifically by the Popular Front For The Liberation Of Palestine – WP): “Palestine has a right to resist. The Palestinians have a legal and moral right to resist the illegal occupation of their land by the Zionist settler entity known as ‘Israel’. We support a one-state solution: Palestine, free, from the river to the sea.”
At the Suffolk Road end of Falcarragh Drive/Céıde An Fháıl Charraıgh, formerly the site of Car Crime Is A Growing Problem.
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