H-Block

Three Songs To The One Burden

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M00386+

The ten deceased hunger strikers are named, called “H-Block Martyrs”, and their entry into heaven requested: “St. Peter let these men into heaven, for they have served their time in hell” (for info, see I Refuse To Change) alongside a christian cross.

The lower part of the gate is the last stanza of a Yeats poem, Three Songs To The One Burden: “Some had no thought of vi[c]tory but had gone out to die, that Ireland mind be greater, her heart mount up on high; and yet who knows what[‘]s to come[?]”

This is a repainted and greatly changed version of Remember The Hunger Strikers in Westland Street, Derry.

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Copyright © 1986 Peter Moloney
M00386

They Murder The People And Have No Shame

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M00414+

“1941 Auschwitz, Buchenwald; 1981 Long Kesh prisoner of war camp” – a repeatedly vandalised mural in Oakman Street, Belfast. Centrally pictured is the killing of Michael McCartan, shot by an RUC officer named McKeown (named on the right) while painting graffiti in south Belfast. For a detailed description see BritishArmyKillings. “20 years it’s still the same – they murder people and have no shame.”

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Copyright © 1986 Peter Moloney
M00414

Discover Ireland

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M00311 Bligh's Gdns 1985+

Darkly humorous mural in Bligh’s Gardens, Derry, parodying the ‘Discover Ireland’ tourism advertisements: “Discover Ireland: sectarian RUC, loyalist UDR, the H Blocks, plastic bullets, murdering UDA, British thugs, Armagh hell-hole, special courts … but I bet you haven’t seen the half of it.”

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Copyright © 1985 Peter Moloney
M00311

On The Blanket

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M00280 Fahan St 1985+

A prisoner on the blanket stands in front of a brown “H”. On the right hand side, a fist clutches a strand of barbed wire. There are also hunger strikers’ names on the gable wall to the left. Fahan Street, Derry. For the mural on the background-left wall, see IRA (P).

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Copyright © 1985 Peter Moloney
M00280

1916-1982/Break Thatcher’s Back

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M00212+

M00213+

Here is a 1982 image of the Break Thatcher’s Back mural in Rockmore Road, Belfast, showing a blanket man with outstretched arms demanding “status now”, framed by a large “H” and surrounded by barbed wire, Tricolours, and the Starry Plough. In 1981, there was a Sean O’Casey quote on the left, rather than a lily and the year of the Easter Rising — 1916. “Free Belfast” in the top left.

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Copyright © 1982 LC
M00212 M00213