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.
Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 1981 LC
M00085 M00086
“Support the hunger strikers”, “Don’t let them die”, with posters of portraits, on “Day 55” of the 1981 hunger strike.
lower Falls Road, west Belfast
Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 1981 LC
M00083
The counter for the 1981 hunger strike reaches 32.
William Street, Derry
Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 1981 Peter Moloney
M00080
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
Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 1981 LC
M00058
“RUC keep out”, “Patsy O’Hara”, “IRA”, “Political status must stay” on flats in Glenfada Park, opposite the Rossville flats in Derry’s Bogside. Here is a guide to the row of murals along the bottom of Rossville flats. A close-up of the left-hand side of the image above is included below.
M00057
Copyright © 1981 Peter Moloney
Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 1981 Peter Moloney
M00057c
“Provos” and “victory to the hunger strikers” next to a circus mural at the rear of Rossville flats, with clowns, a monkey riding a bike, a strong man, people riding horses, a lion-tamer, and a juggler. It was painted by Joe Coyle, Noel Millar, Margo Harkin, and Tim Webster, with financial support from the Department Of Manpower Services (Watson in Circa 8.3, 1983). An anonymous painter is quoted of p.8 of Woods’s Seeing Is Believing? as saying: “The people felt absolutely no connection with it – it has to involve you or it just doesn’t mean anything.”
Chamberlain Street, Derry
Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 1981 Peter Moloney
M00056
The names of seven of the 1981 hunger-strikers – “POWs” Kieran Doherty, Joe McDonnell, Kevin Lynch, Martin Hurson, Tom McIlwee [McElwee], Paddy Quinn, Michael Devine – are placed next to outstretched arms wrapped in barbed wire.
The hands-in-barbed-wire design is by Jack Clafferty of Troops Out.
Beechmount Street, Belfast.
Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 1981 LC
M00120 M00055 M00119
Here are two images, from 1981 and 1983, of graffiti in Bond’s Street, Waterside, Londonderry, reading “More H Blocks”, “Let them die”, with the outline of a coffin and the number “9” on it.
Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 1981 Peter Moloney
M00050
Copyright © 1983 LC
M00074
“They die, you die – Brit Govt”. Above are posters of hunger strikers, some marked with dates of death. From right to left, smaller posters show Sands, Hughes, McCreesh, and O’Hara. From left to right, the larger posters show [McDonnell out of frame?], Doherty, Lynch (both marked as deceased), McElwee, Quinn, Devine, McKeown, McGeown, Devlin.
If the posters are an accurate guide, the date is somewhere between August 2nd and 8th, the dates on which Doherty and McElwee died. Liam McCloskey would join the strike on August 3rd.
The dentist’s office round the corner from Ballymurphy shops, Belfast.
Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 1981 LC
M00049
“13 Gone [Bloody Sunday, January 1972] But Not For Gotten. We got 18 and Mountbatten” [Warrenpoint and Mullaghmore, Co Sligo, both on 27 August, 1979], “IRA”, “UTP” and an armalite
Falls Road Library, Sevastopol Street, Belfast
Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 1981 LC
M00047
Peter Moloney Collection 