Established in 2004, Cumann Na Fuıseoıge (The Lark) is “ag soláthar spórt Ghaelaıgh don phobal sa cheantar Coılın” [providing Gaelic games to the people in the Colin area]. The club is named after the image of the lark (and barbed wire) used by Bobby Sands in his 1979 article The Lark And The Freedom Fighter. The choice of emblem proved controversial – Slugger.
Previously: a fundraiser for the club.
Jasmine Corner, Belfast/Dunmurry
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Copyright © 2006 Peter Moloney
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For the 25th anniversary of the 1981 hunger strike, portraits of the ten deceased strikers are placed between the watchtowers of Long Kesh on a Cromac Street tarp. The quote is widely attributed to Bobby Sands.
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Copyright © 2006 Peter Moloney
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Charlie Monahan (Cathal Ó Monacháın/Ó Muıneacháın) died along with Con Keating and Daniel Sheehan in a motor accident in Kerry, when their car was driven off a pier on the way to help guide Roger Casement (shown in the top left) land a ship full of weapons. “T’was on Good Friday morning before the break of day/A German ship was signaling way out there in the bay/With 20,000 rifles already for to land/But no answering signal did come from the lonely Banna Strand … And the wild wind sings their requiem on the lonely Banna Strand.” “This mural was sponsored by the Brehon Law Society USA.”
Mountpottinger Road, Short Strand, east Belfast
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Copyright © 2006 Peter Moloney
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For the 25th anniversary of the second hunger strike, a national march and rally is called, going from Dunville Park to Casement Park. The mural shows a blanket man and lark above the watch towers of Long Kesh.
Divis Street, west Belfast
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Copyright © 2006 Peter Moloney
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These two “Join Sınn Féın” boards are above the Sınn Féın office on the Falls Road, Belfast. “Don’t wish for a united Ireland, work for it.”The second, with portraits of Pearse, Carney, and Sands, is an example of the Irish-language rights campaign which becomes a central policy around this time: Is í athgabháıl na Gaeılge athgabháıl na hÉıreann [the repossession of Irish is the repossession of Ireland]. (See previously Cearta Teanga, Cearta Daonna.)
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Copyright © 2006 Peter Moloney
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IRA volunteer Michael Gaughan died in Parkhurst prison in 1974 after 64 days on hunger strike (staılc ocraıs). He was force-fed seventeen times during the strike and his family alleged that he died from food stuck in a punctured lung. The practice was ended after Gaughan’s death.
Frank Stagg was on the Parkhurst hunger strike with Gaughan, and another in Long Lartin prison, and a third in Wakefield in December 1975. He died after 62 days on February 12th, 1976.
Gaughan’s coffin was draped with the Tricolour used to bury Terence McSwiney in 1920, whose famous quote is at the top of the board: “It is not those who can inflict the most but those who can endure the most who will achieve ultimate victory.”
Falls Road, west Belfast
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Copyright © 2006 Peter Moloney
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Flyers flutter among the watch towers of Long Kesh/Maze/H-Blocks reading “Victory to the blanketmen”, “Support the hunger strike”, Political status now”.
Levin Road, Lurgan.
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Copyright © 2005 Peter Moloney
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Joe Cahill joined the Fianna in 1937 and was involved in the republican movement from then until his death in 2004, including being in Tom Williams’s company in 1942 and later a founder member and Chief of Staff of the Provisional IRA. In the centre of the image he is at the end of the table at the August 13, 1971, press conference to comment on the introduction of internment (CAIN). He is honoured in the mural above alongside his brothers Tom and Frank Cahill. (Pat O’Hare is painted between Tom and Frank.)
In the top left are small boards with portraits of Ned Maguire Snr, Ned Maguire Jnr, Sam Holden, Dal Delaney, Rita McParland, Paddy Meenan, Paddy Corrigan, Sean Wallace, John Petticrew, Alex Crowe.
“Never will they label our liberation struggle as criminal – Bobby Sands [March 6th Diary].”
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Copyright © 2005 Peter Moloney
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British Army snipers ensconced into Corry’s timber yard shot dead five people, including three teenagers, from Springhill and Westrock on the summer night of July 9th, 1972. All were unarmed. These images are from the Westrock-Whiterock memorial gardens (“gairdíní cuimhneacháin”) in Westrock Drive, west Belfast.
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Copyright © 2005 Peter Moloney
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This, in 2004, is still the first version of the ‘chained’ Bobby Sands in Sevastopol Street, Belfast, originally painted on the new SF building in 2000. The image from 2001 lacks the paint-bomb.
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Copyright © 2004 Peter Moloney
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Peter Moloney Collection 