The names of seven of the 1981 hunger-strikers – “POWs” Kieran Doherty, Joe McDonnell, Kevin Lynch, Martin Hurson, Tom McIlwee [McElwee], Paddy Quinn, Michael Devine – are placed next to outstretched arms wrapped in barbed wire.
The hands-in-barbed-wire design is by Jack Clafferty of Troops Out.
Beechmount Street, Belfast.
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Copyright © 1981 LC
M00120 M00055 M00119
“The right honourable Bobby Sands Esq MP – Murdered by his fellow members of H.M. Govt”, “I have the spirit of freedom that cannot be quenched by even the most horrendous treatment. Of course I can be murdered, but while I remain alive, I remain what I am, a political prisoner of war, and no one can change that.” Barbed wire stretches over an Irish tricolour next to an image of Sands.
Shaws Road, west Belfast
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Copyright © 1981 LC
M00140 M00133 M00054
“Keep RUC out”, “INLA”, “IRSP”, “IRA”, “UTP”. somewhere in Turf Lodge, Belfast
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Copyright © 1981 LC
M00048
“13 Gone [Bloody Sunday, January 1972] But Not For Gotten. We got 18 and Mountbatten” [Warrenpoint and Mullaghmore, Co Sligo, both on 27 August, 1979], “IRA”, “UTP” and an armalite
Falls Road Library, Sevastopol Street, Belfast
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Copyright © 1981 LC
M00047
“The Right Honourable Bobby Sands M.P. RIP” in front of a burning van in Islandbawn Street, west Belfast.
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Copyright © 1981 LC
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Graffiti on the Falls library, Falls Road, west Belfast.
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Copyright © 1981 LC
M00042
Also “Wanted: For murder and torture of Irish prisoners” posters of Margaret Thatcher.
Falls Road (between Lower Clonard Street and Waterford Street; next to Harden’s shop), west Belfast.
Later the site of a mural – T00043.
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Copyright © 1981 LC
M00040
“Smash H Block”, “INLA”, “H-Block”, “Provies”. Carefully-done lettering is a development from simple graffiti and a pre-cursor to the murals of 1981 – see Visual History 03.
Shaws Road/Rosnareen, west Belfast.
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Copyright © 1981 LC
M00022 M00081
Two images of the Busy Bee supermarket in Andersonstown in August, 1981.
There are two galleries, at left and in centre. In the lower (later) image, the central gallery has 12 portraits – McDonnell, Doherty, Hurson, Lynch, McElwee (all with crosses, below, indicating death), Devine, Quinn (no days – he stopped his fast on July 31st), McKeown, McGeown, Devlin, McCloskey, Sheehan. The length of Sheehan’s strike is given as 8 days (in the lower image), which would mean that the (lower) image was taken on August 17th, 1981, the day Jackie McMullen joined the strike. The upper image was taken some time after McCloskey joined on August 3rd but before Sheehan joined on the 10th.
“Give them their 5 demands”, fist smashing H, “support the POWs”, “Ireland unfree shall never be at peace”, tricolour, starry plough, “Support the hunger strikers”.
Andersonstown Road, west Belfast
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Copyright © 1981 LC
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“P.O.W. victory to our blanket-women”, “They die, you die – your warned, British government”, “Smash HBlock”.
Divismore Crescent, Belfast
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Copyright © 1981 LC
M00019
Peter Moloney Collection 