St Colmcille

Three new murals are added to the walls of the Lecky Road underpass to brighten it up. Above, St Colmcille (St Columba) sails from Derry to Iona (Scotland), in order to start a monastery there; he founded a Derry monastery in 540. The smaller pieces show the emblem of (Glasgow) Celtic FC and a young mother in front of a (civil rights?) protest beside Free Derry Corner.

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Copyright © 2008 Peter Moloney
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Ernesto Che Guevara Lynch

“Che” Guevara’s father, also called Ernesto Guevara Lynch, was an Argentinian descended from Patrick Lynch, who emigrated from Galway (in 1742?) and married in Buenos Aries in 1749. (Based on these rodovid pages: one | two | three.) Che’s father is the source of the quote at the bottom of the mural: “In my son’s veins flowed the blood of Irish rebels.”

The Irish inscription, ‘Th[ı]ocfadh an réabhlóıdeach a mharú ach ní an réabhlóıd a scríosadh”, means (roughly) “It may be that the revolutionary is killed, but not that the revolution is destroyed.” Fahan Street, Derry. Launched October 13th, 2007 (An Phoblacht).

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Copyright © 2008 Peter Moloney
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Catalonia 300

“Catalonia & Ireland – Saoırse • Llibertat”. Centralised Spanish rule dates back to the Nueva Planta decrees (WP) made by Philip V (shown upside-down in the first zero) between 1707 and 1716. These formed a single Spanish nation and citizenry and ended various regional identities including Catalonian.

Fahan Street, Derry

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Copyright © 2007 Peter Moloney
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Murder In Mind

A small tribute to the Bloody Sunday dead: portraits of fifteen victims with two verses of a song “Murder In Mind”: “They came to our town, the Paras, with murder in mind//As people marched down from Creggan/Towards the Guildhall for civil rights/It was a cold but sunny day/No one could image what was in front of them that sunny day.//The Paras stood in William Street/Laughing and chatting and raring to go/To murder for king and crown/And for Ted Heath 10 Downing Street”. (Also seen in 2002.)

The memorial pillar dates back to 1974.

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Copyright © 2007 Peter Moloney
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Guernica

Picasso painted Guernica to protest the Nazi bombing of the Basque capital of Gernika (at the request of Franco’s forces) on April 26, 1937, during the Spanish Civil War, which resulted in hundreds of deaths. Its reproduction in Derry in 2007 was to protest the Iraq war; it is entitled Iraqnica (Derry Journal).

Guernica was also painted on the International Wall in Belfast.

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Copyright © 2007 Peter Moloney
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Women At Work/Catalonia 300

These two boards are on the fence outside the Pilot’s Row Centre in Rossville Street. The first is a Bogside & Brandywell Women’s Group compilation of women in various occupations (plus Bernadette Devlin breaking up pavement); the second shows support for Catalonia: “300 years of occupation, 300 years of resistance”.

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Copyright © 2007 Peter Moloney
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