Tricolour

O’Casey/Break Thatcher’s Back

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M00211+

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
M00211

In Loving Memory

Extramural Activity1 Comment
M00210+

Rising behind a set of crosses, it’s not clear whether the sunburst in the mural above is only religious in nature or also symbolises the Fianna. It rises between the Starry Plough and the Tricolour. To the left is a list of the deceased hunger-strikers — Roll of honour: Volunteers B. Sands MP, F. Hughes, R. McCreesh, P. O’Hara, J. McDonnell, M. Hurson, K. Lynch, K. Doherty TD, T. McElwee, M. Devine.” — and to the right, a poem: The Volunteer: I stood beside an Irish grave/A green and silent plot/A little cross marked RIP/Was all that marked the spot.

?Berwick Rd, Ardoyne? Belfast

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Copyright © 1981 LC
M00210
locationunknown

Resistance

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M00164+

M00162 Rossville St 1981+

More panels from Rossville Street, Derry, this time showing volunteers firing over a phoenix, a lark in barbed wire, a volunteer kneeling by a fire and a tricolour on a flagpole, and an Armalite rifle with the words “A weapon of the provisionals”.

For the rest of this wall (out of shot on the right), see Murdered By Paratroopers and Éıre Nua.

Rossville Street, Derry

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Copyright © 1981 Peter Moloney
M00164 M00162

Éıre Nua

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M00163+

INLA and IRA murals on Rossville Street, Derry, including a volunteer waving the Starry Plough, a Celtic cross draped in the Irish tricolour and a Starry Plough, the island of Ireland in green, white, and orange, a phoenix, Pearse & Connolly, Thatcher-headed Britain biting/pulling on Ireland – “Get the Brits out!”, and the RPG as “IRA weapon of resistance”.

For the first part of the wall (out of shot on the left), see Resistance and Murdered By Paratroopers).

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Copyright © 1981 Peter Moloney
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