“Make a difference – Join RNU – Be committed – Stand as one – Implement 12th August Agreement! – End strip searches – End controlled movement.” Cogús is the POW department of the RNU, no longer on-line at http://www.republicannetwork.ie. The board is on the rear of Free Derry Corner, which has its own Visual History page.
“Their sacrifice is our reward”. With the names of locals who served in the Great War 1914-1918, World War II 1939-1945, Korea 1950-1953, and Northern Ireland.
These are four headstones from City Cemetery, Derry, to Irish nationalists who served and/or were killed in the 1920s. In order, they are to “James McGlinchey was founder and commander of Irish National Volunteers in Derry c. 1912-1922”; “Óglach Hugh Morrison, killed on active service at Skeoge 17th June, 1922 [and] Susan Morrison, Cumann na mBan”; “John Gallagher died 21-6-1920 killed in June riots, Derry [and] Hugh Gallagher died 12-12-1922 shot by Free State soldiers at Drumboe Castle”; and, “Edward McMenamin active service during the Irish war for independence.”
A boy — Dylan Wilson from east Belfast, grandson of loyalist community worker Jim Wilson —shakes hands with a girl – Dearbhla Ward, granddaughter of Short Strand Sinn Fein councillor Joe O’Donnell (sources: Al Jazeera | NewsLetter | The Scotsman). The centre was left for locals to make their mark on.
A gable-wall version of this image — without the word “síocháın” (peace), with the girl in green, and with Wilson’s poem ‘No More’ — can be found about half a mile away in Wolfe Close/Kenilworth Place, just across the Newtownards Road. See No More. This mural was part of the re-imaging effort of 2010.
No more bombing, no more murder No more killing of our sons No more standing at the grave side Having to bury our loved onesNo more waking up every hour Hoping our children, they come home No more maimed or wounded people Who have suffered all aloneNo more minutes to leave a building No more fear of just parked cars No more looking over our shoulders No more killing in our barsNo more hatred from our children No more. No more. No more!
By Dee Craig in Edgar Street, Short Strand, east Belfast
“Years from now they will ask you where you were when your comrades were dying on hunger strike. Shall you say that you were with us, or shall you say that you were conforming to very system that drove us to our deaths.” The mural is to Mickey Devine, with a smaller (and much older) plaque to Patsy O’Hara (the plaque was previously information about Devine). Both were INLA volunteers and both died in the 1981 hunger strike, along with Kevin Lynch; Liam McCloskey was taken off the strike by his family after 55 days.
Here is a complete set of all 12 murals to the Troubles-era hunger strikers, two each on six of the New Lodge “houses” (tower blocks) from June and July of 2011. Some were shown in this 2002 post.
“Lest we forget – 1912-2012”: “The four panels of the mural represent images from conflict over the past 100 years … the Great War … Luftwaffe raids during the early years of the Second World War … the dark period in our history known as the Troubles … more recent conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Part of the Arts Council for Northern Ireland’s Re-imaging Communities Programme – thiis project placed artist Jim Russell in the heart of the Sunningdale community to work with local people to create a more welcoming environment for everyone.”
“We seek nothing but the elementary right implanted in every man: the right if you are attacked, to defend yourself.” The mural shows two East Belfast UVF volunteers on manoeuvres.
Together with the We Are The Pilgrims mural that was painted at the same time across the street (both by Dee Craig), this mural can be taken as a good marker of the beginning of re-re-imaging, (that is, of new PUL ‘hooded gunmen’ murals) – see Visual History 11. In particular, this mural, unlike its counterpart, replaced a non-paramilitary mural – the Glentoran Community Trust mural.
At the old Bright Street on the Newtownards Road, Belfast.
For the 30th anniversary of the 1981 hunger strike, the Dockers & Carters mural was replaced by a large mural of republican heroes on Northumberland Street, with Francis Hughes at the centre.
(For more in-progress images, the completed mural, and a list of the portraits, see X00384.)