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
M00164 M00162
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
M00158 M00160 M00159
“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]
locationunknown
Her Majesty’s Mailbox painted in green, white, and yellow on the Springfield/Whiterock Roads, Belfast, 1981. See also Republican Mail.
(See also Homer Sykes?)
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Copyright © 1981 LC
M00155
Portrait of Thomas McIlwee [McElwee] “IRA Vol. POW 1958-1981” and a tricoloured wall on Strabane Old Road, Derry
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Copyright © 1981 Peter Moloney
M00153
Parts of a 1979 Bobby Sands An Phoblacht/Republican News article — The Lark And The Freedom Fighter — are featured in a 1981 mural in Gobnascale, Derry. “I refuse to change to suit the people who oppress, torture and imprison me, and who wish to dehumanize me. I have the spirit of freedom that cannot be quenched by even the most horrendous treatment. Of course I can be murdered, but while I remain alive, I remain what I am, a political prisoner of war.” B. Sands. MP. POW. OC.
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Copyright © 1981 Peter Moloney
M00152
A bugler plays The Last Post over a grave of hunger-strikers from the early part of the 20th century: Thomas Ashe May 25, 1917; Michael Fitzgerald October 17, 1920; Joseph Murphy October 25, 1920; Terence M[a]cSwiney October 25, 1920; Joseph Whittey [Whitty, Witty] September 9 [or 2nd], 1923; Denis Barry November 20, 1922 [1923]. Not included is Andrew Sullivan, who died two days after Barry. Dan Downey died in June 1923 having earlier been on hunger strike.
Beechmount Drive, Belfast
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Copyright © 1981 LC
M00149
Civil Order, Plastic Death: “in memory of those murdered by plastic bullets”. A British Army soldier stands to the right of mural in (the old) Linden Street, next to the spot where Nora McCabe was shot in the back of the head by a plastic bullet by the RUC at 7:45 a.m. on July 9th, 1981, the day after hunger striker Joe McDonnell died. The poster on which the mural is based is below.
The soldier on the left was originally painted with boots on both feet (X05495) but repainted with a peg-leg after the IRA blew up the car of the Marine’s Commandant General Steuart Pringle on October 17th, 1981 – he lost his right leg (WP).
“Done by Springfield Youth [Against H-Block & Armagh]”
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Copyright © 1981 LC
M00148
The conveyor belt of British justice is depicted as inexorably moving arrested republicans from questioning at Castlereagh to jail in Crumlin Road to sentencing in front of Diplock court to prison in the H-Blocks. (For a small board in Derry see The Conveyor Belt.)
Beechmount Avenue, Belfast
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Copyright © 1981 Peter Moloney
M00126
Jeff Perks’s 1979 linotype “The Training Ground” was reproduced on Beechmount Avenue circa 1981. It depicts the history of the British Army in Ireland. Rolston (“Politics, Painting and Popular Culture: the Political Wall Murals of Northern Ireland”, Media, Culture and Society 9.1, 1987) claims (p. 19) that the image would have been familiar to nationalists from the cover of “Ireland: Voices For Withdrawal” (shown below). The baton-wielding policeman on the right was also reproduced in a famous 1996 Derry mural (“68-96 Nothing Has Changed” M01279).
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Copyright © 1981 LC
M00123 M00124 M00125
