“Palestine … the largest concentration camp in the world!!! 3.3 million innocent people tortured, denied their freedom!” Flanked on each side by a hand giving the V-for-Victory sign, on Palestinian and Irish flags.
Divis Street, west Belfast
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Copyright © 2002 Peter Moloney
M01757 [M01759] [M01760] [M01761] [M01762] [M01763] [M03943]
“Wani waci yelo ate omakiyayo” is the opening line of a Lakota healing song (here is a version from Robbie Robertson‘s album Contact From The Underworld Of Redboy) meaning “I am praying because I want to live”. The supplicant in this case is Leonard Peltier, who was convicted of killing two FBI agents on the Pine Ridge Reservation in 1975 and sentenced to two life-sentences (WP). “Saoırse do Peltier” = “Freedom for Peltier”. “Sign up on line http://www.LeonardPeltierDefenseCommittee”.
Divis Street, west Belfast
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Copyright © 2002 Peter Moloney
M01753 [M01754]
This is the first full mural from the IRPWA in the Collection (after a 2001 flag in Derry and some 2002 writing in Belfast). It calls for segregation in Portlaoise, Maghaberry, and English jails.
Divis Street, west Belfast
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Copyright © 2002 Peter Moloney
M01758 [M01760]
“Bietan jarrai” is the slogan of ETA (Euskadi Ta Askatasuna [Basque Country and Freedom]) and means “Keep on with both”, referring to the snake (politics) and the axe (armed struggle). “Borrokarako dei eginaz irrintzi bat dabil” means “the call to battle is a piercing one” from the song Batasuna. “Tıocfaıdh ár lá” is Irish for “Our day will come”.
Divis Street, west Belfast
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Copyright © 2002 Peter Moloney
M01752
The names of portraits of the ten deceased 1981 hunger strikers, plus Frank Stagg and Michael Gaughan, are on six of the seven New Lodge “houses” (high-rise buildings), two per house. Other slogans have appeared just below them, such as the “No more human shields – Brits out” shown in the first image, below the portrait of Bobby Sands on Teach Eıthne (perhaps a reference to the Army positions on top of Teach Mhéabha (Maeve House) and Teach Gráınne?). There are some more images in the Seosamh Mac Coılle collection.
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Copyright © 2002 Peter Moloney
M01697 M01692 M01698 M01699
“In memory of the fifteen innocent civilians murdered by a pro-British loyalist gang in a no-warning bomb attack on McGurk’s Bar, Dec. 4th, 1971.” “In memory of those who tragically lost their lives and all those who were injured as a result of the explosion.” These are two memorials at North Queen Street and St George’s Street, Belfast, the site of the former bar, now a Westlink underpass. The “pro-British loyalist group” is thought to be the UVF, though at the time, it was claimed by a little-known group the “Empire Loyalists” (WP).
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Copyright © 2002 Peter Moloney
M01700 M01701
“Murder”, “collusion”. The three-in-one policeman-Orange Order member-loyalist paramilitary is struck through in the style of a road sign.
New Lodge Road, Belfast
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Copyright © 2002 Peter Moloney
M01695 M01696
This pair of murals, on the New Lodge Road, Belfast, contrasts life for young people in the “1900s” to life in “2000”. Instead of working (and dying – in the headlines from the Irish News) in mills, they work in fast-food restaurants and drive black taxis (and suffer unemployment, suicide, and anorexia – again, in the newspaper), and instead of playing in the streets and wrapping themselves in blankets, they sit on walls and drink.
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Copyright © 2002 Peter Moloney
M01693 M01694
Here are six images of the hunger strikers mural in Mountpottinger Road, Belfast. The ten portraits are on cut wooden boards while the rest is painted. On the far right (image 5) is a “spirit of freedom” lark and the names of the ten deceased 1981 strikers. In the centre (image 3) is blanket man Hugh Rooney.
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Copyright © 2002 Peter Moloney
M01688 M01685 M01686 M01687 M01682 M01689
By 2002, the “Time for peace, time to go” mural in Beechfield Street, Belfast, painted in 1997, was beginning to show its age. The image is based on a photograph of British forces in the Falklands.
The image was also produced in Ardoyne (north Belfast), above the Sınn Féın offices/Sıopa Na hEalaíne (west Belfast), on Free Derry Corner, in Shantallow (Derry), and in Letterkenny.
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Copyright © 2002 Peter Moloney
M01691
Peter Moloney Collection 