This is an end-of-life image – or perhaps a preparation-for-repainting image – of the mural at the corner of Ardoyne Avenue. The mural is still is reasonable shape (compared to 2008) but the 34 medallions with portraits to local volunteers and activists have been removed.
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Copyright © 2014 Peter Moloney
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A British soldier patrols the streets while a girl walks home from school and a boy plays hurley. This is one of the panels in the long mural at the shops on Ardoyne Avenue.
The “Welcome” verbiage is just out of shot on the left-hand side; on the right is “Is fearr Gaeılge brıste ná Béarla clıste” [Broken Irish is better than clever English] and (out of shot) some Celtic knotwork. For close-ups of all of the panels, see Growing Up Too Fast.
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Copyright © 2014 Peter Moloney
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This is a new board at the Crumlin end of Brompton Park – launched on August 6th by Gerry Kelly and members of the Cliftonville football team – in support of Palestine and Gaza, and in particular protesting the deaths of the four Bakr children on the beach at the port of Gaza on July 16th (see Child Killers). The image of the man carrying the boy is from Reuters.
See also: a Where Is The World? mural on the International Wall.
Painted by Mickey Doherty and mounted in Brompton Park, Ardoyne, north Belfast.
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Copyright © 2014 Peter Moloney
M11567
“Belfast’s Bloody Sunday. On the 9th July 1972 the British Army murdered 5 Irish citizens and severely wounded 2 others. It’s time for the truth.”
This is a mural by Mo Chara Kelly (with DD Walker, Michael Kelly, and Ta Heath) commemorating the deaths of five people shot by British Army snipers in 1972: Paddy Butler (39), David McCafferty (15), Margaret Gargan (13), John Dougal (16), Fr Noel Fitzpatrick (40). The snipers fired from JP Corry’s timber yard (shown on the right) and at the time the Westrock bungalows were still standing (shown lower left).
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Copyright © 2014 Peter Moloney
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This is a large mural is by Gerard “Mo Chara” Kelly‘s (video) new work at the top of Springhill Avenue, where it is blocked off from the Springfield Road.
On the left, a figure in a black-and white keffiyeh give the two-finger ‘V for victory’ sign beneath the Terence McSwiney (WP) quote: “It is not those who can inflict the most but those that can suffer the most who will conquer.”
In the middle, a protestor stands up to an Israeli tank with a swastika. (See the adjacent mural in Palestinian Territory.)
On the right, an Israeli Apache helicopter fires a Hellfire missile at a young Gazan boy carrying a teddy-bear (originally a Carlos Latuff (ig) poster).
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Copyright © 2014 Peter Moloney
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“Dedicated to all republican prisoners past and present.” Bobby Sands’s poem The Rhythm Of Time, published in 1981 as part of Prison Poems, is printed in full along with images of Long Kesh and other prisons in which republican prisoners were held.
The tarp was launched 2014-08-10, to coincide with the anniversary of the introduction of interment in 1971 (see e.g. this BBC news report).
Ardoyne Avenue, north Belfast
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Copyright © 2014 Peter Moloney
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This banner just off the Shore Road includes two Palestinian flags and an Irish Tricolour, along with a raised first and the lark of freedom, both in green, black, and red.
This appears to be a hand-painted cloth or tarp.
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Copyright © 2014 Peter Moloney
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The local New Lodge GAA club Cumman An Phıarsaıgh is named in honour of Patrick Pearse, executed after the 1916 rising. The club’s new mural features footballers contesting a ball and Pearse’s image appears at the centre of a Celtic cross along with part of his 1912 poem Mıse Éıre in the bottom corner (shown in the close-up).
Painted by Lucas Quigley and Michael Doherty. Replaces ‘New Lodge 2000‘.
Mıse Éıre: Sıne mé na an Chaılleach Bhéarra.
Mór mo ghlóır: Mé a rug Cú Chulaınn croga.
Mór mo náır: Mo chlann féın a dhíol a máthaır.
[Mór mo phıan: Bıthnaımhde do mo shíorchıapadh.
Mór mo bhrón: D’éag an dream ınar chuıreas dóchas.]
Mıse Éıre: Uaıgní mé ná an Chaılleach Bhéarra.
I am Ireland: I am older than the old woman of Beare.
Great my glory: I who bore Cuchulainn, the brave.
Great my shame: My own children who sold their mother.
[Great my pain: My irreconcilable enemy who harasses me continually.
Great my sorrow: That crowd, in whom I placed my trust, died.]
I am Ireland: I am lonelier than the old woman of Beare.
New Lodge Road, north Belfast.
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Copyright © 2014 Peter Moloney
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“The Market community supports Palestine – End the siege on Gaza – Free Palestine”. Tears of blood flow from a boy’s face, shrouded by a Palestinian flag and behind barbed wire. Along the bottom, in red lettering, is a quote from Malcolm X’s autobiography: “If you’re not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the [people who are being] oppressed and loving the oppressor [the people who are doing the oppressing].”
The mural was launched on 2014-07-29.
Lower Stanfield Street, Markets, south Belfast
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Copyright © 2014 Peter Moloney
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Patrick O’Connor was born on April 15th, 1924, on the lower Falls but after his father emigrated he spent his early years – until age 5 – with his grandparents in East Street in the Markets. It was as a high-schooler in New York that he adopted the name Pádraıc Fıacc (“fıach dubh” is “raven”) and began writing poetry. He settled in Glengormley upon his second and final return; it is not clear that he ever saw East Street lined with British Army soldiers, as shown in the mural above. He wrote of his early life in ‘First Movement’:
Low clouds, yellow in a mist wind
Sift on far-off Ards
Drift hazily …
I was born on such a morning
Smelling of the bone yards
The smoking chimneys over the slate top roofs
The wayward storm birds
And to the east where morning is, the sea
And to the west where evening is, the sea
Threatening with danger
And it would always darken suddenly
Some of Fıacc’s poems are in the TroublesArchive. There are two videos below. The first is an interview with NVTv’s Bernard Conlon; the second is of a reception in Belfast City Hall.
Lower Stanfield Street, Markets, south Belfast
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Copyright © 2014 Peter Moloney
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Peter Moloney Collection 