CNR

Mandela Father Of Freedom

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“Happy birthday, comrade”. ANC leader Nelson Mandela turned 70 on July 18, 1988. He spent the day, like every birthday since 1963, in prison; he would not be released until 1990, after which apartheid would be dismantled and Mandela become the first President of South Africa. “The future belongs to you.” The colours of the ANC join the colours of the Irish Tricolour as a background to Mandela’s portrait. Painted by Mo Chara Kelly, with the help of “Sınn Féın Youth”.

Leeson Street, west Belfast

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Copyright © 1988 Peter Moloney
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Welcome To Beirut

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Here are four images of a variety of slogans on the Falls Road. The first lists various resistance groups from around the world: IRA, PLO, ETA, ANC. The second has a phone number for “SAS strippers” and something about “One Brit and his dog”. In the third and fourth: “Óglaıgh na hÉıreann”, “Provisional IRA”, “Tıocfaıdh ár lá”, “RUC black bastards”.

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Copyright © 1988 Peter Moloney
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Bobby Sands – Che Guevara

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Like the “Heroico” image of Che Guevara – see the Visual History page on Jim Fitzpatrick – the smiling Bobby Sands would become the standard one. They differ in that Che is in his uniform (attending a funeral service) while Sands is in civilian clothes, and the attire indicates that Che is a military hero while Sands, who was an IRA volunteer, would become an icon primarily as a hunger-striker. (See the Visual History page on the Sevastopol Street mural of Sands.)

In this mural, which pre-dates the refinement of Sands’s image, the two portraits are combined. Sands is accompanied by flag-bearing Irish volunteers and Che by a Soviet orator (Lenin?) on a tank. perhaps to emphasise the socialist dimension of the republican (and particularly INLA) struggle.

Westland Street, Bogside, Derry

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Copyright © 1988 Peter Moloney
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Sınn Féın

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The Sınn Féın lettering writ large in Creggan Heights, Derry (with the island of Ireland as a background, though this cannot be seen in the image above). The image below gives a much better sense of what the mural looked like under ordinary lighting.

See also All-Ireland Army, which was at the far end of this block of houses, at the junction with Linsfort Drive,

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Copyright © 1987 Peter Moloney
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