Three panels portraying the importance of women to the republican movement, though the first seems to be a generic ‘mother and son’ image.

The second shows Molly Childers and Mary Spring Rice aboard the yacht, Asgard, with about 900 of the 1,500 rifles that were smuggled into Ireland on two boats. Asgard docked at Howth on July 26th, 1914; the other rifles eventually came ashore two weeks later at Kilcoole. (Here is a tcd.ie collection of images of Asgard’s journey; image #53 is the one reproduced in the mural. Rice kept a diary of the trip; extracts are included in this RTÉ History Show video. See this RTÉ article for an account of their tortured journey.) The off-loading took place during the day but when the police and army met the marching volunteers at Clontarf they were able to capture only 19 rifles. As the army regiment involved returned to barracks it was pelted with stones or fruit by a crowd and killed three (with a fourth dying a week later). The vintage Mauser rifles were received by members of Óglaıgh Na hÉıreann and Na Fıanna Éıreann.

The final panel shows Colman Doyle’s famous ?1973? image of a (staged) female IRA volunteer with AR-18.

“Commissioned by Links Women’s Group”, “by Síle Na Gig” (who did the Children Of Lear mural in Rockville Street).

South Link, Andersonstown, west Belfast

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Copyright © 1999 Paddy Duffy
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