“Stand firm – break the bigots back” – a fist smashes a Nazi swastika. Next to the Stephen Lawrence – Robert Hammil board. For both boards in better condition, see Same Story, Same Bigotry. Artana Street, Belfast.
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Copyright © 2001 Peter Moloney
M01538 M01539
Red, white, and blue kerb stones and bollards around the demolished houses on the old Fountain Street.
Hawkin Street, Fountain, Londonderry
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Copyright © 2001 Peter Moloney
M01533
“‘My forefathers were … the men who had followed Cromwell and who shared in the defence of Derry, and in the victories of Aughrim and the Boyne.’ – President Theodore Roosevelt, 20th US president, 1901-1904.” The “shutting of the gates” of Derry is represented in the bottom left.
The quote is derived from Volume 1, Chapter 5 of Roosevelt’s The Winning Of The West (available at Project Gutenberg), though he is describing the forefathers of the Scotch-Irish, rather than his own forefathers (who, as the name suggests, were Dutch).
He writes, “The Presbyterian Irish were themselves already a mixed people. Though mainly descended from Scotch ancestors—who came originally from both lowlands and highlands, from among both the Scotch Saxons and the Scotch Celts—many of them were of English, a few of French Huguenot, and quite a number of true old Milesian Irish extraction. They were the Protestants of the Protestants; they detested and despised the Catholics, whom their ancestors had conquered, and regarded the Episcopalians by whom they themselves had been oppressed, with a more sullen, but scarcely less intense, hatred. They were a truculent and obstinate people, and gloried in the warlike renown of their forefathers, the men who had followed Cromwell, and who had shared in the defence of Derry and in the victories of the Boyne and Aughrim.”
Some sources claim that an ancestor(s) on his mother’s side emigrated from Gleno, Co Antrim in 1729, but this seems to be her great-great-grandfather James, who was Scots (WP) but appears to have emigrated directly from Scotland, specifically Baldernock, in 1728 or 1729 (WikiTree | Friends Of Bulloch). The search for a connection continues, according to Irish Central.
This mural is one (and perhaps the first to be painted) in the series “From pioneers to presidents”. For more such murals, see the Visual History page about Ulster-Scots murals.
Replaces the King Billy mural in Wapping Lane, the Fountain, Londonderry.
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Copyright © 2001 Peter Moloney
M01532
The Orange Order had not marched to Drumcree church in 1998, 1999, 0r 2000 (WP). This banner in Wapping Lane, Londonderry, reminds people to “be prepared” for the current year’s conflict.
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Copyright © 2001 Peter Moloney
M01531
The Sınn Féın offices and shop on the Falls Road at Sevastopol Street were torn down and rebuilt in 2000. A mural had been on the gable wall since 1982, initially advertising An Phoblacht/Republican News, and later included Bobby Sands. (1989 white | 1990 blue)
The mural on the new gable, shown above, removes the full An Phoblacht/Republican News masthead and instead includes the visual part of it (most prominent in the earliest mural on the wall An Phoblacht – Official Organ): the crest of 1798’s United Irishmen – “Equality” and “It is new strung and shall be heard” around a Maid Of Erin harp and the cap of liberty.
Otherwise the wall is devoted to “Irish republican, revolutionary, poet, Gaeligeoir, visionary” Bobby Sands/Roıbeaırt Ó Seachnasaıgh, adding another famous saying of his, namely “our revenge will be the laughter of our children” alongside “everyone, republican or otherwise, has their own particular part to play”. [Diary, March 14th, 1981]
The mural also adds a border of breaking chains (and a lark) and (not visible in the apex) a phoenix and the word “saoırse”. The multi-coloured border is perhaps the most unusual element, working with the sky-blue background and Sands’s smiling face to give the mural a positive feel.
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Copyright © 2001 Peter Moloney
M01489
“1980” is included with “1981” for the twentieth anniversary of the hunger strikes, with portraits of the ten deceased 1981 hunger strikers.
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Copyright © 2001 Peter Moloney
M01488
Commemoration of the 20th anniversary of the 1981 hunger strikes on an advertising hoarding on the Springfield Road, Belfast, previously the site of Vote Adams X and before that, Victory To The Blanketmen.
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Copyright © 2001 Peter Moloney
M01484
Another “H” formed of images of the ten deceased 1981 hunger strikers on the 20th anniversary of the strike.
Glen Road, west Belfast
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Copyright © 2001 Peter Moloney
M01480
The 20th anniversary of the 1981 hunger strike is commemorated on the side of the Felons club with Bobby Ballagh’s Legacy Of The Hunger Strikes, showing ten doves breaking out of a H-Block. For the controversy over the image, see this Guardian article. Falls Road/Lake Glen Drive.
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Copyright © 2001 Peter Moloney
M01471
The Gibraltar Three (Maıréad Farrell, Sean Savage, Dan McCann) – “executed by British crown forces in Gibraltar 6th March 1988” – are memorialised with a plaque and the last three verses of Bobby Sands’s Rhythm Of Time: “It is found in every light of hope/It knows no bounds nor space/It has risen in red and black and white/It is there in every race.//It lies in the hearts of heroes dead/It screams in tyrants’ eyes/It has reached the peak of mountains high/It comes searing ‘cross the skies.//It lights the dark of this prison cell/It thunders forth its might/It is the undauntable thought, my friend/That thought that says ‘I’m right!'”
Hawthorn Street, west Belfast
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Copyright © 2001 Peter Moloney
M01455
Peter Moloney Collection 