political

Until The Last Prisoner Is Free

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M00058+

There is a lot going on in this image: pedestrians pass in front of a row of boarded-up shops, above them is written “Until the last prisoner is free we are all imprisoned” with posters of the hunger strikers, an Irish tricolour and “If they die, you die”; on the left “No, not a dog, but a POW” and a version of the five demands, concerning prison uniforms, work, association, parcels, and remission. 

Ballymurphy shops, west Belfast

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Copyright © 1981 LC
M00058

Circus

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M00056 Rossville St 1981+

“Provos” and “victory to the hunger strikers” next to a circus mural at the rear of Rossville flats, with clowns, a monkey riding a bike, a strong man, people riding horses, a lion-tamer, and a juggler. It was painted by Joe Coyle, Noel Millar, Margo Harkin, and Tim Webster, with financial support from the Department Of Manpower Services (Watson in Circa 8.3, 1983). An anonymous painter is quoted of p.8 of Woods’s Seeing Is Believing? as saying: “The people felt absolutely no connection with it – it has to involve you or it just doesn’t mean anything.”

Chamberlain Street, Derry

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Copyright © 1981 Peter Moloney
M00056

Don’t Let Them Die!

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M00120+

M00055+

M00119+

The names of seven of the 1981 hunger-strikers – “POWs” Kieran Doherty, Joe McDonnell, Kevin Lynch, Martin Hurson, Tom McIlwee [McElwee], Paddy Quinn, Michael Devine – are placed next to outstretched arms wrapped in barbed wire.

The hands-in-barbed-wire design is by Jack Clafferty of Troops Out.

Beechmount Street, Belfast.

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Copyright © 1981 LC
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The Lark And The Freedom Fighter

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M00140+

M00133+

M00054+

“The right honourable Bobby Sands Esq MP – Murdered by his fellow members of H.M. Govt”, “I have the spirit of freedom that cannot be quenched by even the most horrendous treatment. Of course I can be murdered, but while I remain alive, I remain what I am, a political prisoner of war, and no one can change that.” Barbed wire stretches over an Irish tricolour next to an image of Sands.

Shaws Road, west Belfast

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Copyright © 1981 LC
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