Month: March 1981

I’ll Wear No Convicts Uniform

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M00184+

M00185+

Republican prisoners, one with a raised fist: “I’ll wear no convicts uniform, nor meekly serve my time, that Britain might make Ireland’s fight 800 years of crime.” It appears from the fist in the top of the gable that a larger version was initially attempted but then scaled back. The figures are based on a 1981 poster urging the restoration of political status for republican prisoners.

According to Bill Rolston, this is the first mural painted in Belfast, in the spring of 1981. For a history of (republican) proto-murals and murals, see Visual History 02.

Whiterock Road, west Belfast

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Copyright © 1981 LC
M00184 M00185

Resistance

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M00164+

M00162 Rossville St 1981+

More panels from Rossville Street, Derry, this time showing volunteers firing over a phoenix, a lark in barbed wire, a volunteer kneeling by a fire and a tricolour on a flagpole, and an Armalite rifle with the words “A weapon of the provisionals”.

For the rest of this wall (out of shot on the right), see Murdered By Paratroopers and Éıre Nua.

Rossville Street, Derry

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Copyright © 1981 Peter Moloney
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Éıre Nua

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M00163+

INLA and IRA murals on Rossville Street, Derry, including a volunteer waving the Starry Plough, a Celtic cross draped in the Irish tricolour and a Starry Plough, the island of Ireland in green, white, and orange, a phoenix, Pearse & Connolly, Thatcher-headed Britain biting/pulling on Ireland – “Get the Brits out!”, and the RPG as “IRA weapon of resistance”.

For the first part of the wall (out of shot on the left), see Resistance and Murdered By Paratroopers).

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Copyright © 1981 Peter Moloney
M00163 M00161

Bobby Jackson Mural

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M00065+

King Billy at the Battle Of The Boyne in 1690 and the Relief Of Derry in 1689. This is the “original” mural in its second location (scare-quotes around “original” because the mural was touched up annually).

This (second) location is still in The Fountain (as was the original location), but there is some confusion about the exact location in relation to the original location – they might be very close together. Please get in touch if you can describe this location in relation to the first.

For 1975 images of the mural in its first location, see Bobby Jackson Mural. And for an overall history, see The Jackson Murals.

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Copyright © 1981 Peter Moloney
M00065 M00064

In Honour

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M00158+

M00160+

M00159+

In the first two of these three images from (somewhere on) the Andersonstown Road, nine hunger-strikers are named — Bobby Sands M.P., Joe McDonnell, Francis Hughes, Kevin Lynch, Kieran Doherty T.D., Ray McCreesh, Martin Hurson, Patsy O’Hara, and Tom McElwee — while in the third, Michael Devine’s name has been added and the bottom of the wall painted black. “Smash H-Block” is on the right; “Victory to the prisoners” is on the building on the other side of the road.

Andersonstown, west Belfast

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Copyright © 1981 LC
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Sasanach Amach

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M00156+

“English Out”: Britain in the form of a riot policeman batoning a bloodied Ireland was (and remains) the symbol of the Troops Out Movement, an British pro-(Irish-)Nationalist organisation founded in 1973. The image of Britain in riot gear beating Ireland with a truncheon first appeared in the Irish Citizen newspaper and was designed by Jack Clafferty (Red Mole).

“Sasanach” is one English person, whereas the sentiment is presumably that they [Sasanaigh] should all leave. But that doesn’t rhyme so well.

Andersonstown Road (where exactly?), Belfast

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Copyright © 1981 LC
M00156 [M00157]
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