blanket/dirty protest

O’Casey/Break Thatcher’s Back

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The quote on the left is from Sean O’Casey, not “Bobby Sands MP”: “You cannot put a rope around the neck of an idea; you cannot put an idea up against the barrack-square wall and riddle it with bullets; you cannot confine it in the strongest prison cell that your slaves could ever build.”

(The quote is reportedly from O’Casey’s prose lament for Thomas Ashe, either the initial pamphlet in November 1917 (?entitled “The Story Of Thomas Ashe”?) or the expanded version of 1918 (entitled “The Sacrifice Of Thomas Ashe” (auction site)), though no copy of this can be found on-line, only the two poems ‘Thomas Ashe’ and ‘Lament For Thomas Ashe’ (eastwallforall).

On the right, an H-Block blanketman is on his knees, protesting for (political) “status now”, surrounded by barbed wire and two flags on halberds: the Irish Tricolour and the Starry Plough.

Rockmore Road, west Belfast

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Copyright © 1981 LC
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I’ll Wear No Convicts Uniform

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Republican prisoners, one with a raised fist: “I’ll wear no convicts uniform, nor meekly serve my time, that Britain might make Ireland’s fight 800 years of crime.” It appears from the fist in the top of the gable that a larger version was initially attempted but then scaled back. The figures are based on a 1981 poster urging the restoration of political status for republican prisoners.

According to Bill Rolston, this is the first mural painted in Belfast, in the spring of 1981. For a history of (republican) proto-murals and murals, see Visual History 02.

Whiterock Road, west Belfast

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Copyright © 1981 LC
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Blessed Are Those Who Hunger For Justice

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Three images of a mural on the Whiterock Road, Belfast, showing a blanketman/hunger-striker and a uniformed volunteer on a tricolour cloth at the feet of an angel holding a banner reading “blessed are those who hunger for justice“. Above are the words “Their hunger, their pain, our struggle“. The shields of the four provinces of Ireland and two shamrocks complete the mural. The third image shows the mural in progress, and it looks as though it has already been vandalised.

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Copyright © 1981 LC
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Victory To The Blanketmen POWs

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An advertising hoarding on the Springfield Road (just before the Whiterock Road), Belfast, is taken over by a republican artist: “H” and “A” for the H-Blocks and Armagh Women’s Prison, with the names of four hunger-strikers (Bobby Sands Patsy O’Hara, Francis Hughes, Raymond McCreesh) and two tricolours.

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Copyright © 1981 LC
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Until The Last Prisoner Is Free

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There is a lot going on in this image: pedestrians pass in front of a row of boarded-up shops, above them is written “Until the last prisoner is free we are all imprisoned” with posters of the hunger strikers, an Irish tricolour and “If they die, you die”; on the left “No, not a dog, but a POW” and a version of the five demands, concerning prison uniforms, work, association, parcels, and remission. 

Ballymurphy shops, west Belfast

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Copyright © 1981 LC
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