Gaeilge

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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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
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RIRA – BCRF

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Two armed and masked volunteers hold aloft an RPG, claiming “victory”, even though “our day” is still coming (tıocfaıdh ár lá). This is a crude version of the 1982 PLO -IRA mural in Belfast, but the direct ancestor of this board is the similar one – Victory – on Eastway, Derry, from 2000.

Please get in touch if you know what “BCRF” stands for. “CRF” (by itself) stands for “Catholic Reaction Force”. So, perhaps “Bogside Catholic reaction Force”? Or Bogside-Creggan Reaction Force”?

Fahan Street, Derry

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Copyright © 2002 Peter Moloney
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