The orange lily makes a rare appearance in a paramilitary mural. The hooded gunmen are from the UFF/UDA. Volunteer Stephen “Benson” Kingsberry is remembered in the panel towards the back of the house. He died from consuming tainted ecstasy (perhaps distributed by the UVF). He was included in the roll of honour in Lemberg Street.
Added to the drawing of collusion between security forces and loyalist paramilitaries are portraits and news reports of its victims: John Slane, John Devine, Peter Watterson, Anthony McGrady, Sadie Larmour, Paddy McAllister, Jim ‘Skipper’ Burns, Paddy BRady, Philomena Hanna, Patrick Hamill, and shopkeepers Jim Carson and Sean Hughes.
St James’s supports the hunger strikes – in Long Kesh and Armagh and (on the right) in Turkey.
Various images and posters from 1980 and 1981 are reproduced. Along the top, we see (l-r) a soldier is confronted at the top of Springhill (image at Irish Times), “Wanted for murder [and torture of Irish prisoners]” (image at MSU), “Mothers hunger”, “Blessed are those who hunger for justice“, “Where there is oppression there is resistance”, Armagh hunger-striker Mary Doyle.
Along the bottom: “Stop strip searches“, “Save our children from plastic death”, “Support the hunger strike demands”, and portraits of 1981 hunger-strikers Bernard Fox and Pat Sheehan, both from the Falls Road.
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”?
The original version of this mural (in 1994) had the words “Óglaıgh Na hÉıreann” rather than IRA and lacked the Starry Plough – the sunburst and hooded gunman (with Uzi?) remain the same.
The Young Citizen Volunteers are the youth wing of the UVF. This mural shows them on manoeuvres in the countryside and in the local Donegall Pass area of the South Belfast 2nd battalion.
A hooded gunman welcomes you to “loyalist Sandy Row, heartland of South Belfast Ulster Freedom Fighters. Quis separabit.” The wording is perhaps an imitation of Free Derry Corner.