Gaeilge

Na Cımí Poblachtánacha

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2002 image of the republican prisoners board in Beechmount Avenue, Belfast. In addition to the 1981 hunger strikers and Stagg and Gaughan, the mural mentions Paddy Joe Crawford, Francis Dodds, Patrick Teer, Teddy Campbell, Hugh Coney, Jim Moyne, Henry Henry, Sean Bateson, Pol Kinsella (all from Long Kesh), Tom Smyth, Brendan Seery, Paddy Kelly (Portlaoise), Noel Jenkinson and Sean O’Conaill (who died in English prisons).

“I ndıl chuımhne na gcımí poblachtánacha a fuaır bás ı ngéıbheann ı rıth na coımhlınte reatha seo.” [In memory of the republican prisoners who died in captivity in the course of this ongoing (lit. running) contest.]

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Copyright © 2002 Peter Moloney
M01670

Where ’81 Never Happened

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“HMP Maghaberry = Stormonts’ best kept secret. “Where ’81 never happened” – 32CSM” and a list of “Six County POWs”. First appearance of both 32CSM (32-county Sovereignty Movement) and IRPWA (Irish Republican Prisoners Welfare Association).

Whiterock Road, west Belfast

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Copyright © 2002 Peter Moloney
M01662 M01661

Bryson-Mulvenna

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“In memory of [IRA] volunteers Jim Bryson and Patrick Mulvenna. Died on active service 1973”. The pair were killed by undercover British Army soldiers firing from above the Ballymurphy shops (Broken Elbow). Mulvenna died immediately (August 30th), Bryson three days later. Another plaque will later be added to the centre of the mural.

Ballymurphy Road, west Belfast

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Copyright © 2002 Peter Moloney
M01656 M01657

Pat ‘Beag’ McGeown

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“Comrade, councillor, cara [friend].” Pat McGeown was a 1981 IRA hunger striker whose family intervened when he lapsed into a coma. After his release in 1985 he also worked for Sınn Féın and was elected to Belfast City Council in 1993. He died in 1996 of a heart attack. He is also remembered by a plaque on the Sınn Féın office on Falls Road.

Ballymurphy Road, west Belfast

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Copyright © 2002 Peter Moloney
M01652

I nDıl Chuımhne

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Three plaques above the Sınn Féın office on the Falls Road, Belfast, the first is to 1981 IRA hunger striker Pat “Beag” McKeown, who worked for Sınn Féın and was elected to Belfast City Council until dying in 1993. The other two are to Michael O’Dwyer, Paddy Loughran, and Pat McBride. O’Dwyer had stopped in to the office to register a complaint; Loughran and McBride were Sınn Féın members. All three were shot in February 1992 by RUC constable Alan Moore, who had been suspended the previous day for driving drunk after firing shots over the grave of a deceased colleague; after killing the SF men he drove to Lough Neagh and took his own life with a shotgun. (NYTimes | Independent | For a somewhat different take, see An Phoblacht)

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Copyright © 2002 Peter Moloney
M01625 M01626 M01624

Bloody Sunday

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This Bloody Sunday info board in Rossville Street, Derry, is directed at an international audience, being “dedicated to all those throughout the world who have struggled, suffered imprisonment and lost their lives in the pursuit of liberty, justice and civil rights” and focusing as much on the Widgery report (“branded a whitewash by human rights groups throughout the world”) and continued demands for justice as on the events of the day.

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Copyright © 2002 Peter Moloney
M01605

Join Now

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“Éıre Nua” was (and is) the name of a Sınn Féın plan (pdf | also a social and economic plan pdf) for a federal Ireland, with a semi-independent Ulster parliament; Republican Sınn Féın split off in 1986 and – like Na Fıanna Éıreann and Continuity IRA – still supports the vision outlined in it. Notable here is the inclusion of a (now-defunct) web address.

Divis Street, west Belfast

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Copyright © 2002 Peter Moloney
M01619