“Comrade, councillor, cara [friend].” Pat McGeown was a 1981 IRA hunger striker whose family intervened when he lapsed into a coma. After his release in 1985 he also worked for Sınn Féın and was elected to Belfast City Council in 1993. He died in 1996 of a heart attack. He is also remembered by a plaque on the Sınn Féın office on Falls Road.
Ballymurphy Road, west Belfast
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Copyright © 2002 Peter Moloney
M01652
Four IRA volunteers “who gave their lives for Irish freedom”, John Stone, Jim McGrillen, Tommy Tolan, and Michael Kane, eat in the kitchen of a Ballymurphy house, perhaps belonging to one of the “republican activists Kathleen McCullough, Elizabeth McGovern.” The large image of Tolan would later be changed to show him in a brown suit and without the assault rifle – see X05055.
Ballymurphy Crescent, west Belfast.
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Copyright © 2002 Peter Moloney
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“And all around are monuments that bear a martyr’s name/True patriots who fought and died to kindle freedoms flame/Jimmy Quigley, [Eamonn] McCormick and [Teddy] O’Neill with [Michael] Magee brave/Remember them, they died for us and found a martyr’s grave.” The words of Ray McAreavey’s song are modified to include four Ballymurphy IRA/Fıanna volunteers. With additional portraits of local stalwarts Alice Franklin and Mary Fegan.
Divismore Way, Ballymurphy, west Belfast
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Copyright © 2002 Peter Moloney
M01648
Copyright © 2004 Peter Moloney
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” … but not the revolution”. Images of a modern IRA volunteer, hero of the 1916 Rising James Connolly (both painted by Mo Chara), Zapata, and a member of the United Farm Workers (both painted by Rubén Ortiz-Torres from the University of California, San Diego). Also, a phoenix and a Mexican eagle, and the colours of Ireland and Mexico. Dedicated to the San Patricios, an Irish battalion in the Mexican-American war.
Ballymurphy Road, west Belfast
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Copyright © 2002 Peter Moloney
M01647
“In proud and loving memory of Volunteers Liam “Bulmer” McParland, Billy Carson, Liam Mulholland, Sean Doyle”. Mulholland – fluent Irish speaker and the oldest person to be arrested during the initial internment sweep – is shown in the background while the other three are in fatigues, (all four in front of Ballymurphy shops). There are four additional portraits, of Rosaleen Russell, Annie Adams, Kathleen Moore, and Frankie Toner.
Ballymurphy Road, west Belfast
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Copyright © 2002 Peter Moloney
M01646
“Grieve not nor speak of us with tears but laugh and talk of us as though we were beside you”. Óglaıgh Na hÉıreann, Belfast brigade, 2nd battalion, B company volunteers Kevin Delaney, Patrick Campbell, Michael Clarke, Anne Parker, and Michael Sloan are shown on patrol in Ballymurphy Parade, the street just to the left of this mural. Campbell was 16 when killed by friendly fire; the oldest at time of death was Delaney, at 26.
Also named on the plaque are “republican activists” Esther Valelly, Theresa Campbell, and Maggie Campbell.
Glenalina Road, Ballymurphy, west Belfast
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Copyright © 2002 Peter Moloney
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Copyright © 2012 Peter Moloney
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Belfast’s Whiterock Road is renamed Bóthar Roıbeaırd Uí Sheachnasaıgh [“Ua Seachnasaıgh”?] or, in the top image, “bother Bobby Sands”.
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Copyright © 2002 Peter Moloney
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A week before Carol Ann Kelly was shot in Twinbrook, 14 year-old Julie Livingstone was also killed by a plastic bullet on May 13th, 1981 in Lenadoon. The stone shown above “was erected by young people of Leicester England”.
Stewartstown Road, Belfast (though not the stone currently at the bottom of Lenadoon Road).
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Copyright © 2002 Peter Moloney
M01639
Bobby Sands takes centre place, while Michael Gaughan and Frank Stagg are added to the cross-bar (on either side of Joe McDonnell, who lived in Lenadoon) in a 20th anniversary “H” on Stewartstown Road, Belfast. In the top right is a lark in a circle and the words “The spirit of freedom”.
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Copyright © 2002 Peter Moloney
M01640
“Our laughter will be the joy of our victory + [the] joy of the people; our revenge will be the liberation of all.” This is perhaps the only appearance of this quote from Bobby Sands’s hunger strike diary, from Thursday March 12th. In the background are the towers of Long Kesh; in the foreground is Sands’s funeral procession.
Gardenmore Road, Dunmurry/Belfast
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Copyright © 2002 Peter Moloney
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Peter Moloney Collection 