Gaeilge

Éıre

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This Short Strand mural packs a lot in, beginning with both ancient Éıre and a celtic cross. Its main panels commemorate 25 years of resistance in east Belfast (probably dating to the Battle Of St Matthew’s in 1970) with portraits of 16 deceased locals (“I measc laochra na nGael go raıbh a naınmeacha”) and two verses from Bobby Sands’s poem Weeping Winds (see below). On the right (in the second image) is a quote from Bobby Sands: “Our revenge will be the laughter of our children”.

Oh, whistling winds why do you weep/When roaming free you are,
Oh! Is it that your poor heart’s broke/And scattered off afar?
Or is it that you bear the cries/Of people born unfree,
Who like your way have no control/Or sovereign destiny?

Oh! Lonely winds that walk the night/To haunt the sinner’s soul/
Pray pity me a wretched lad/Who never will grow old.
Pray pity those who lie in pain/The bondsman and the slave
And whisper sweet the breath of God/Upon my humble grave.

These verses are also used on a board in St James’s.

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Copyright © 2002 Peter Moloney
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McLarnon – McCabe – Doherty

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“Dedicated to the memory of INLA volunteer Matt McLarnon, Nora McCabe and Peter Doherty who were murdered in this area by British state forces during the 1981 H-Block hunger strike. A Mhuıre banríon na nGael guí ar a son”. The area in question is Clonard/Falls. Doherty and McCabe were hit by plastic bullets; McLarnon was shot by a sniper on Divis tower. Erected by a Sınn Féın group (Lower Falls/Clonard Committee) rather than INLA.

old Linden Street, west Belfast

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Copyright © 2002 Peter Moloney
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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