Belfast

Out Of The Ashes of 1969

Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

“In Ireland’s darkest hour her sons and daughters have always rallied to her cause” and “out of the ashes of 1969 arose the Provisionals”. Different generations of Irish rebellion are portrayed: there is a 1798/1803 pikeman in the background, an early IRA man on the left, and female and male volunteers from the Troubles in the foreground.

Jasmine Corner/Gardenmore Road, Twinbrook, Dunmurry/Belfast

Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2002 Peter Moloney
M01635

The Celtic Football Club

Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

Scottish club Celtic, which nationalists in Northern Ireland support, had a successful 2000-2001 season, winning the Scottish Cup, League Cup, and league, under the direction of new manager Martin O’Neill, who hails from Kilrea, Co. London-/Derry. The emblems of the four provinces have been added to the leaves of the Celtic emblem. “Dedicated to the youth of Twinbrook.”

Gardenmore Road, Dunmurry/Belfast

Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2002 Peter Moloney
M01636

Hunger Strike 81

Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

Here are two images of a variety of small boards in Gardenmore Road/Laburnum Way, Twinbrook, including three about the RUC, a tricoloured H-shaped board with ten crosses, and a portrait of Bobby Sands who lived in the building that the boards are on. (The portrait and the items in the second image date back to at least 1996. See C01012 and C01007.)

Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2002 Peter Moloney
M01632 M01633

Carol Ann Kelly

Extramural Activity2 Comments

12-year-old Carol Ann Kelly was shot by the British Army on May 22nd, 1981, and died three days later. Eight other children are remembered in this mural: Tobias Molloy, Frances Rowntree, Seamus Duffy, Paul Whitters, Stephen McConomy, Brian Stewart, Stephan Geddis, and Julie Livingstone. Molloy and Rowntree were killed by rubber bullets, the rest by plastic bullets. The mural, by Andrea Redmond, is in Twinbrook Road, Dunmurry, near where Kelly was shot.

Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2002 Peter Moloney
M01630

Let Us Not Forget

Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

Here are two images from Twinbrook Road, Belfast, one of a hunger strike 20th anniversary board with portraits of the ten deceased men and a lark carrying keys in a circle of barbed wire and the other showing “IRA” in green, white, and orange letters.

Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2002 Peter Moloney
M01628 M01629

Reject The ‘New’ RUC

Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

In 2001, under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement, the RUC (Royal Ulster Constabulary) became the “Police Service of Northern Ireland (incorporating the Royal Ulster Constabulary)”. Republicans feared that the change was one of name only, and continued to consider it a sectarian force, with a legacy of “plastic bullets, shoot-to-kill, abuse of human rights, sectarian intimidation, collusion, obstruction of inquiries, torturers”.

Falls Road, west Belfast

Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2002 Peter Moloney
M01627

I nDıl Chuımhne

Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

Three plaques above the Sınn Féın office on the Falls Road, Belfast, the first is to 1981 IRA hunger striker Pat “Beag” McKeown, who worked for Sınn Féın and was elected to Belfast City Council until dying in 1993. The other two are to Michael O’Dwyer, Paddy Loughran, and Pat McBride. O’Dwyer had stopped in to the office to register a complaint; Loughran and McBride were Sınn Féın members. All three were shot in February 1992 by RUC constable Alan Moore, who had been suspended the previous day for driving drunk after firing shots over the grave of a deceased colleague; after killing the SF men he drove to Lough Neagh and took his own life with a shotgun. (NYTimes | Independent | For a somewhat different take, see An Phoblacht)

Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2002 Peter Moloney
M01625 M01626 M01624