painted wall

Glentoran Community Trust

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Glentoran Community Trust (web) is a supporters trust (i.e. an outreach organisation from the club to the community) formalised in 2006. This mural celebrates the 125th anniversary of the club and highlights from its past, starting with the 1914 Vienna Cup (GFC). On the right of the mural, the Detroit Cougars were a locally-branded Glentoran team participating in a short-lived USA league playing during the summer (BelTel). The “proudest moment” (centre bottom) is the 1973-1974 Cup Winners’ Cup, in which Glentoran got through two rounds to reach the quarter finals (where they lost to Borussia Mönchengladbach). Famous players from the past are featured below the advertising hoarding, including Danny Blanchflower who began his career at Glentoran (WP).

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Copyright © 2008 Peter Moloney
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Shipyard Workers

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The Harland & Wolff shipyard is on Queen’s Island, a piece of land formed when the channel into Belfast was expanded. Workers would walk from east Belfast to the shipyard. This is the scene in (modern-day) Armitage Close/Harkness Parade in east Belfast, with a mural of turn-of-the-century shipyard workers by John Johnston, drawing inspiration from William Conor’s Shipyard Workers Crossing Queen’s Bridge and Over The Bridge.

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Copyright © 2008 Peter Moloney
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Ernesto Che Guevara Lynch

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“Che” Guevara’s father, also called Ernesto Guevara Lynch, was an Argentinian descended from Patrick Lynch, who emigrated from Galway (in 1742?) and married in Buenos Aries in 1749. (Based on these rodovid pages: one | two | three.) Che’s father is the source of the quote at the bottom of the mural: “In my son’s veins flowed the blood of Irish rebels.”

The Irish inscription, ‘Th[ı]ocfadh an réabhlóıdeach a mharú ach ní an réabhlóıd a scríosadh”, means (roughly) “It may be that the revolutionary is killed, but not that the revolution is destroyed.” Fahan Street, Derry. Launched October 13th, 2007 (An Phoblacht).

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Copyright © 2008 Peter Moloney
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The Battle Of The Somme 1916

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Soldiers from the 36th (Ulster) Division go over the top at the battle of the Somme – the original photograph can be seen at the BBC. In faded or newly-sketched letters on the right, “At the going down of the sun/And in the morning/We will remember them.”

The UDA mural on the left of the youth club is to Sgt Lindsay Mooney.

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Copyright © 2007 Peter Moloney
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Years From Now They Will Ask You

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“Years from now they will ask you where you were when your comrades were dying on hungerstrike. Shall you say you were with us or shall you say that you were conforming to the very system that drove us to our deaths[?]” INLA (sign the light-pole as well as the flags and red star in the mural) volunteer Patsy O’Hara, from Derry, joined the hunger strike on the same day as Raymond McCreesh (March 22nd) and died, 61 days later, later in the same day (May 21st, 11:29 p.m.) as him (2:11 a.m.).

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Copyright © 2007 Peter Moloney
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D Company Ballysillan

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The memorial in the middle has now (compared to the original mural) been labelled (on a plinth) “In memory of 36th (Ulster) Division” but the names on the stone remain those of UVF volunteers John Bingham and Thomas Stewart.

The plaques are to (left) Davey Phillips, Patrick McEvoy, (top middle) John Bingham, (right) Thomas Stewart, Chin Taylor. The plaque in the middle is to “the officers and volunteers of of D Company 1st Battalion Ulster Volunteer Force”.

Ballysillan Road, north Belfast

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Copyright © 2007 Peter Moloney
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Young Guns

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Sixteen year-old Glen “Spacer” Branagh was killed by a premature blast bomb during a riot on Remembrance Sunday (Nov. 11), 2001. His portrait is on a board at the centre of UDA flags and guns (and the tiger of Tiger’s Bay). “Ulster Young Militants – Terrae filius.” The background was previously yellow.

“If the Provos and the pan nationalist front and the British and Irish governments keep trying to succeed in a united Ireland then they may prepare themselves for another 30 bloody years for the battle will have just begun.”

Edlingham Street, north Belfast

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Copyright © 2007 Peter Moloney
M03827

Andrew Jackson

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The information along the bottom reads: “Andrew Jackson was the 7th President of the USA and the first of Ulster-Scots descent, his family emigrated from Carrickfergus to North Carolina in 1765. After leading the army to victory in the Battle Of New Orleans in 1815 Jackson became a national hero and became known as “Old Hickory” after the tough wood of the native American tree. His “common man” credentials earned Jackson a massive popular vote and swept him into the Presidency for two consecutive terms (1829-1837).” He also hated the British, owned slaves, and signed the Indian Removal Act of 1830, which led to the infamous “Trail of Tears” (Irish Times).

See also the Visual History page on Ulster-Scots murals.

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Copyright © 2007 Peter Moloney
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