Save The Shankill

This pair of boards is outside the Ulster Rangers Supporters Club (Fb) on the Shankill Road.

Above: The painting features a tram going under an Orange arch between the public baths on one side an Spin-A-Disc records on the other, surrounded by notable figures from the Shankill area. (Many thanks to Johnny Dougan of Shankill Area Social History (Fb) for the information below.)

Front, from left to right: Manchester United and Northern Ireland Soccer player Norman Whiteside (WP) and behind him boxer Davy Larmour and community worker Saidie Patterson (see WRDA), boxer Sammy (Cisco) Cosgrove, Senator Charlie McCullough (WP), Tommy Henderson, boxer Jimmy Warnock (original photograph here), Hugh Smyth (see previously Third Class Citizens), artist William Conor (see previously Conor’s Corner, Jack Henning (running), musician Belter Bell, writer Albert Haslett (Northern Visions interview).

Atop the tram: on the left is Jackie Redpath of the Save the Shankill Campaign (note other members of the group with placard on right; Northern Visions has a documentary about the Save The Shankill campaign) and Jack Higgins holding his book The Eagle Has Landed (WP). Up there too is Miss Sands, the music teacher in the Girls Model School, and historian Bobby Foster (Northern Visions interview). On the stairs are May Blood MBE and above her D.I. Nixon.

Below is a board highlighting the roles played by women during WWI as nurses and welders and in the Land Army. “She hasn’t a sword and she hasn’t a gun. But she’s doing her duty now fighting’s begun.”

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Copyright © 2015 Peter Moloney
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Balmoral Furniture Showrooms 1971

“This Poppy Cross is in memory of the two men and two babies murdered at this spot by a no-warning sectarian IRA bomb attack on the Balmoral Furniture shop on 11th December 1971”

The previous (circular) plaque reads, “Balmoral Furniture Showrooms, bombed 12.25 pm Saturday 11th December 1971, 2 adults & 2 babies killed”

Also augmented with poppy crosses: Frizzell’s Fish Shop 1993 | Mountainview Tavern 1975

Shankill Road, west Belfast – the plaque and cross are on the corner of the Shankill Leisure Centre

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Copyright © 2015 Peter Moloney
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Remembering The Hunger Strikers

This is the fourth iteration of the hunger-strikers board in Rockmore Road, which goes back (at least) to 1995. For two earlier versions, see third | first.

Michael Gaughan and Frank Stagg are included alongside the ten deceased men from the 1981 strike.

Rockmore Road, west Belfast

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Copyright © 2015 Peter Moloney
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bobby sands mp 5th may francis hughes 12th may raymond mccreesh 21st may patsy o’hara 21st may joe mcdonnell 8th july michael gaughan 3rd june 1974 frank stagg 12th february 1976 martin hurson 13th july kevin lynch 1st august kieran doherty 2nd august thomas mcelwee 8th august michael devine 20th august st james’s commemoration committee sınn féın

Leonard Peltier

“RNU call for the release of Leonard Peltier – http://www.freeleonard.org“. The lower left-hand panel of the RNU spot on Northumberland Street is serving as a changeable notice-board – it was previously The Popular Front.

Peltier has been in jail since 1977, convicted of killing two FBI agents on the Pine Ridge Reservation in 1975 and sentenced to two life-sentences (WP).

Northumberland Street, west Belfast

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Copyright © 2015 Peter Moloney
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Security Directed Labour Party

In February (2015) the SDLP changed its position on the National Crime Agency (NCA) and the Assembly voted to allow it to operate (beyond ‘customs and borders’ functions) in Northern Ireland – it has been operating in Britain since 2013 (BBC | Irish Times). Sınn Féın continues to oppose the NCA (BBC).

Falls Road, west Belfast

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Copyright © 2015 Peter Moloney
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Poet, Gaeılgeoır, Revolutionary, IRA Volunteer

April 1st:

The Bobby Sands mural in Sevastopol Street has been given a facelift, including the blocking-up of a vent on Sands’s left cheek. Kieran Doherty and Joe McDonnell have been added in place of the 1798 medallions on each side. On the side-wall are Sean McCaughey, ten doves representing the 1981 hunger-strikers, and Long Kesh. Aerosol‘s accordion-player stencil has been also been retained, on the right.

For a full history of the wall, see the Bobby Sands (Sevastopol Street) Visual History page.

The ‘Slí Na Gaeltachta’ plaque off to the left reads:

Ag sráıd Sevastopol cuımhnıtear ar Bobby Sands ı múrmhaısıú a aithnıtear ar fud an domhaın. Ba scrıbhneoır, file, réabhlóıdí agus díograıseoır Gaeılge é Sands. Fuaır sé bas 5 Bealtaıne 1981 tar éıs 66 lá ar stailc ocraıs. As ucht na dıograıse a thaıspeáın Sands agus a chomhchımí ı leıth fhoglaım na teanga faoı choınníollacha uafásacha Bhlocanna H na Ceıse Fada, spreagadh glúın úr chun dul ı mbun athghabháıl na Gaeılge.

Here at Sevastopol Street Bobby Sands is remembered in a mural which has become world-renowned. Sands, a writer, poet, revolutionary and Gaelic enthusiast, died on May 5th 1981 after 66 days on hunger strike. Sands and his fellow prisoners inspired a new generation to reclaim the Irish language enthusing them by the huge efforts they put into learning Irish in the horrendous conditions on the H Blocks of Long Kesh.

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Copyright © 2015 Peter Moloney
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Yeomna Qadm

“Viva Palestine”. This pro-Palestine mural features sky-jacker Leila Khaled (also seen in in Hugo Street) and the emblem of the Popular Front For The Liberation Of Palestine (WP). The Arabic on the right is an equivalent of “Tıocfaıdh ár lá” on the left.

See also: The same elements used in another mural Oppression Breeds ResistanceThe Popular Front in Northumberland Street | “Viva Palestine” in Ardoyne and on Black Mountain/Slıabh Dubh

AMCOMRI Street, off Beechmount Avenue/Ascaıll Ard na bhFeá, west Belfast.

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Copyright © 2015 Peter Moloney
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Cogús

“End internment by remand – End forced strip searches – End controlled movement”.

Fists are raised in defiance of the police state (both PSNI/NIPS and Gardaí/IPS). Cogús (meaning “conscience”) is the division of the Republican Network for Unity (Fb) concerned with political prisoners.

Beechmount Avenue, west Belfast

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Copyright © 2015 Peter Moloney
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