London-/Derry

Slán Abhaıle

Extramural Activity5 Comments

Five images of a “Slán Abhaıle” mural, with British soldiers trooping back towards London, being painted on the back of Free Derry Corner, on Lecky Road, Derry. The piece is by Robert Ballagh, taking a famous photograph of British forces in the Falklands marching (“yomping”) towards Port Stanley and placing it in a circle (to suggest a closing eye, perhaps) below tricoloured party balloons. For the original photograph, see the IWM.

The image was also produced in the Short Strand (east Belfast), in Ardoyne, north Belfast, above the Sınn Féın offices/Sıopa Na hEalaíne in west Belfast, in Shantallow (Derry), and in Letterkenny.

Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 1994 Peter Moloney
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The Petrol Bomber

Extramural Activity2 Comments

The Petrol Bomber was the first mural painted by the Bogside Artists – Kevin Hasson, Tom Kelly, and William Kelly – as part of what would become The People’s Gallery (Visual History).

It shows 13 year-old Paddy Coyle (Derry Journal) with a Molotov cocktail and wearing a gas mask (used to protect rioters against CS gas).

The Rossville flats are in the background of the mural (though not of Clive Limpkin’s original photo, included below from this gallery of Limpkin’s images of Derry 1969-1972).

Lecky Road, Bogside, Derry

Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 1994 Peter Moloney
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