“Our flag is the starry plough, our class is the working class, our enemy is foreign imperialism and native capitalism.” IRSP board on the front railings of Costello House.
Forced Upon Us is a play about the history of the RUC, paralleling the foundation of the state in 1922 to the situation in the 1990s. It was put on at Theatre On The Rock (St Thomas’s school on the Whiterock Road) by DubbelJoint and JustUs, written by Brenda Murphy and Christine Poland, and directed by Pam Brighton (IrishPlayography).
“[First Minister and UUP leader David] Trimble will tremble when Ireland reassembles” and “Support the people of the Garvaghy Road” (and “Tiocfaidh ár lá”) on Whiterock Road, Belfast
1999 image of the Upper Springfield Development Trust (formed in 1993 from the Upper Springfield Forum) mural on the Whiterock Road, Belfast, now with a large vent unfortunately sticking out of the middle of it. “Mol an óıge agus tıocfaıdh sí”. (Praise youth and it will flourish.)
Londoner Stephen Lawrence was murdered by stabbing in 1993 and, although arrests were made, no charges were brought. A 1998 public inquiry found that the Metropolitan Police Service was “institutionally racist”. In 2012, two of the original suspects were found guilty of the murder (WP). Catholic Robert Hamill was beaten to death by loyalists in Portadown in 1997 while police in an RUC land-rover looked on (WP). The second image is of a fist smashing a swastika: “Stand firm – break the bigots [sic] back” on top of a Drumcree stand-off mural (which will become visible again in later years). Artana Street, Belfast
1998 version of the Bobby Sands mural in Sevastopol Street, Belfast, previously seen in 1995, on the side of the Sınn Féın offices, advertising An Phoblacht/Republican News.
Two images from the Sinn Fein [sic – Sınn Féın] office on the Falls Road, Belfast. A dove (inside a braided circle) carries a tricoloured ribbon. To the right is a list of prisoners, seen previously in 1995’s Sınn Féın Peace Action Monitor.
October 17th, each year, is the United Nations’ International Day for the Eradication of Poverty. The mural shown above states that “12 of the 16 most deprived wards in Belfast are in W. Belfast”. Mural by Andrea Redmond and Margaret McCann in Dunlewey Street, Belfast, sponsored by W. Belfast Economic Forum and the Falls Women’s Centre, showing children of the world under a rainbow and between a dolmen and a ?parrot?. For close-ups see this 2015 post on Extramural Activity.