“Welcome to Creggan – watch your back on the way out” and “Welcome to the Bogside – RUC beware”. The (anti-Agreement/perhaps “New”) IRA volunteers are shown wearing balaclavas and holding an RPG and an assault rifle.
“Derry women made more than shirts – they made communities”.
Here is a Derry mural celebrating the role of women in society, both locally and world-wide.
On the left of the main panel, women march out of one of the city’s gates. The information sheet reads as follows: “On International Women’s Day, March 8th [1991, not 1981 as the hand-written addition suggests], the first ever women’s mural in Derry was unveiled on the back of Free Derry Wall. It was designed and painted by Patricia Hegarty and Joe Coyle, and helpers, both men and women. The mural takes its inspiration from a march in November 1968, after Minister for Home Affairs Bill Craig banned all civil rights marches in the walled city. Women factory workers walked out and spent the afternoon marching in and out of every gate in the city, deliberately “breaking the ban”. Men marched in from DuPont to join them, and a rally was held in the Diamond. In the mural you can find the faces of some of those marching on that historic day, as well as other women who played their part in the ongoing struggle for justice. Civil rights workers Bridget Bond and Women’s Aid refuge founder Cathy Harkin march alongside republicans such as Ethel Lynch, Bridget Sheils, Peggy Derry, prisoners’ rights activists Susie Coyle, and many others. You may find images of your granny, sister or aunt. The mural is dedicated to all those women whose energy and determination have changed their lives and the world about them.”
The board on FDC can be seen in Woods’s Seeing Is Believing?, plate 19.
In the centre of the main panel, a tapestry of images and posters is being sewn by a woman at a sewing-machine in one of Derry’s large shirt- and collar-making factories (one of which, attached to “Fabric World”, is shown on the right).
The tapestry includes flyers/posters of local women banging bin lids at the death of Tom McElwee, marching past the ‘Free Derry’ slogan on Free Derry corner, striking, and protesting; there are also posters supporting Palestine and gay rights, celebrating femininity, and one of Wonder Woman.
Here is a gallery of graffiti from the Bogside (Meenan Square and around the Bogside Inn): “Death to Israel – God bless Hamas”, “RUC scum”, “All touts will be shot dead!”, “End loyalist marches now”, “Kill all RUC members now!”
A Palestinian wearing a keffiyeh sheds a tear in the colours of the Palestinian flag, along with additional tears of blood, over the “genocide” in Gaza due to the long-running Israeli blockade of Gaza, forbidding movement by air and sea and controlling what enters and exits via the three (land) border-crossings, and sanctioning the Palestinian Authority (led by Hamas). The mural has perhaps been prompted more specifically by the recent Israeli airstrikes on Gaza and arrests of Palestinians in the West Bank – see the WP page on the 2014 Gaza War.
Handala is a cartoon character of Palestinian resistance to Israeli occupation and apartheid (WP). He appears here next to the Palestinian flag outside the Museum Of Free Derry (web) in the Bogside.
This Caırde Sınn Féın (Fb) mural joins others in Conway Street sponsored by Australian groups. From left to right, the four are: Australian Aid For Ireland & Saoırse Melbourne | this Caırde Sınn Féın mural | AMWU mural | ETU (the Electrical Trades Union).
A new mural on the International Wall combines two current events. One is the furore surrounding the recent description of Islam as “satanic” by Belfast pastor James McConnell (Tele) (and a ‘Rally Against Racism’ to take place today (Saturday, May 31st) – Tele). The middle of the mural reads “Respect and defend our Muslim brothers + sisters – kardeslik azadi”.
The other is the death of Maya Angelou (WP), who died this past Wednesday (May 28th). Angelou is pictured in the top half of the mural, with Muhammad Ali, along with an Angelou quote: “Prejudice is a burden that confuses the past, threatens the future and renders the past inaccessible.”
In the bottom half appear Padraig Pearse and James Connolly and a line from the Proclamation of the Irish Republic: “Cherish all the children of the nation equally.”
The Australian Manufacturing Workers Union (amwu.org.au) sponsored the mural above in Conway Street, west Belfast.
The painted plaque on the left reads, “Casement Memorial. In proud memory of the 10 Republican prisoners who died on hunger strike in “H” blocks of Long Kesh in 1981. “It is not those who can inflict the most but those who can endure the most who will conquer.” Terence McSwiney. Unveiled by Martin McGuinness, Sınn Féın MP MLA Minister for Education Wednesday 6/12/2000. Donated by AMWU, Craig Johnston State Secretary”. The plaque itself is in Carlton, Australia, named (presumably) for Roger Casement.
Secretary Johnston is on the left in the back. The flag to the right is the flag of the Eureka Stockade.
For the launch of a new organisation that aims to keep people with dementia in the community for longer – Derry Engages and Empowers Dementia (Fb | Family Support) – the front of Free Derry Corner (Visual History) was painted with its butterfly logo in purple and green.
“International pan-Celtic festival – Doıre”. The festival (web) is in its 43rd year and will be held in Derry from April 22nd to 27th (Transceltic).
in the centre, the Derry oak-leaf is painted in the flags of the six Celtic-language nations with “welcome” in the six languages: (by flag, clockwise from left) Irish (Fáılte), Scots Gaelic (Fàılte), Cornish (Dynnargh Dhis), Manx (Failt), Welsh (Croeso), and Breton (Degemer Mat).