“Strength in our hearts, strength of our limbs, consistency of our tongues.” “Na Fianna Ard Eoin 1909-2009 – one hundred years of resistance. In proud memory Fian Davy McAuley … Josh Campbell … Josie McComiskey … Bernard Fox. ‘You may kill the revolutionary, but never the revolution.’ Dedicated by the Republican Network for Unity.” The four deceased are portrayed on four small boards, along with standing figures of Fianna from both centuries.
There are four loyalist paintings on the street surface in Portavogie, beginning with the crest of the Red Hand Defenders flute band (Fb) “Formed in 1979” and the Portavogie Young Volunteers.
A background has been added to the Derry Brigade (IRA) board on Lecky Road (seen in 2012), with Cú Chulainn, an oak leaf with crossed rifles, and a lily.
“In memory of Vol. Denver Smith, murdered by cowards 1st January 2000. Here lies a soldier. He gave his life whilst serving his community. Lest we forget.” Smith was killed by a gang of six men with machetes and pikes; the incident was perhaps drugs-related (Guardian | BBC-NI. For the wider picture An Phoblacht | Irish Times).
The mural originally appeared with seven plaques, then with three plaques, and now with graveside mourners on either side of a single stone, and a bench and three flag-poles to the right.
The UVF flag is between the the Denver Smith and All Gave Some gables.
March 2013 is the 25th anniversary of the Michael Stone’s attack on mourners attending the burials of the Gibraltar 3 in Milltown cemetery. Stone killed three people. The mural combines images of mourners taking shelter from Stone’s attack – links to the photographs represented and in-progress images can be found at Extramural – with the civil war memorial in Ballyseedy, Co. Kerry (WP) which was famously connected to the Gibraltar 3 in a mural prepared for the return of the coffins to Belfast – see A Legitimate Right To Take Up Arms. (Here is a copy of Tragedies In Kerry.) The Gibraltar 3 are portrayed on the left; Stone’s victims are on the right. In the top right is an IRA volunteer who had been shot two days earlier, on the night that the coffins of the Gibraltar 3 arrived in Belfast.
1988 puts us firmly in the era of video, and so you can see footage on youtube relating to each of these events. In chronological order:
Death On The Rock, a famous Thames Television production about the SAS killings of IRA members Mairéad Farrell, Danny McCann and Seán Savage on March 6th in Gibraltar.
Michael Stone’s attack on mourners at their funerals in Milltown cemetery, March 16th, which killed Thomas McErlean, John Murray, and IRA member Caoimhín Mac Brádaigh (Kevin Brady).
The funeral of IRA member Kevin McCracken on March 17th (he had been killed on March 14th) at which British Army corporals Wood and Howes were killed.
“Free Marian Price – another victim of British injustice.” For background, see the initial post of Marian Price slogans, from June 2011.
On the so-called International Wall, Divis St. For the painted “Free Marian Price” posters added to most of the Divis Street murals in 2012, see Scaoil Saor Marian Price.
For the fortieth anniversary of their deaths (during 1972), five young volunteers from the lower Falls are remembered: Daniel McAreavey, Joseph McKinney, Jimmy Quigley, John Donaghy, Patrick Maguire (real name Patrick Pendleton). Maguire, McKinney and Donaghy died together in an explosion (Oct 10); Quigley (Sept 29) and McAreavey (Oct 6) were shot. For further details of the how these five met their deaths, see among others Lost Lives by McKittrick et al. (Archive.org | Amazon UK | US). Biographies of the five begin at 7m46s in this history of D Company.
peter moloney collection 