“Joseph Plunkett Society, Clady – Glebe [Fb]. One Ireland, one vote. Sign the petition online & register your support for Irish Unity @ http://www.1916societies.com [1916societies.ie]. West Tyrone remembers.”
The Clady chapter of the 1916 Societies is named after Joseph Mary Plunkett, one of the seven signatories to the 1916 Proclamation, an IRB member and planner of the Rising, and who was executed on May 4th.
Also included is a “People Should Not Inform” placard in the street.
“Strabane remembers them forever” – the dead of the “unfinished revolution, unfinished business” of the 1916 Easter Rising. The central image on the large tarp is a modified version of the 1941 stamp designed by Victor Brown showing an armed volunteer outside the GPO (stampboards).
The IRPWA (web) board reads, “Gavin Coyle – 4+ years in solitary confinement. End the isolation in MagHaberry.” Coyle is serving ten years for possession of arms and explosives and is now charged with the 2008 death of off-duty PSNI officer (Guardian | BBC). (An identical board was also placed at the Melmount Road roundabout. See M12838.)
The hand-made board reads, “End RUC-PSNI harassment”. For the small mural to the right, see Bobby & Che.
The board in the adjacent Townsend Street commemorates both the 1916 signatories – “We declare the right of the people of Ireland to the ownership of Ireland” – and Troubles-era volunteers Charles Breslin, Michael Devine, and David Devine.
A corrugated metal hut on the outside of Bishop’s Gate has been covered over with fake stone and a fake doorway containing an image of Derry in the old days. The re-model is perhaps part of the “Peacewall Reimaging Project” (Derry Journal) on the railings just out of shot to the right, which was unveiled on December 18th, 2015 (Shared History).
“Yes, ruling by fooling, is a great British art, with great Irish fools to practice on” is the last line of a piece by a James Connolly article in The Irish Worker in 1914.
John O’Mahony was an Irish-born but American-based republican who founded the Fenian Brotherhood, whose goal was to send arms and financial support to the Irish Republican Brotherhood in Ireland (Brittanica).
His words from the IRB newspaper The Irish People are used in this RNU [“www.republicanunity.org“] board in Derry: “Every individual born on Irish soil constitutes, according to Fenian doctrine, a unit of that nation, without reference to race or religious belief; and as such he is entitled to a heritage on Irish soil, subject to such economic, political and equitable regulations as shall seem fit to the future legislators of liberated Ireland. From this heritage none shall be excluded.”
The date given is 1868, but the paper closed in 1865 when its offices were raided and its executives, including manager O’Donovan Rossa, were arrested.
Rossville St, Bogside, Derry. The simpler board is in Lone Moor Road, in the Brandywell.
As can be seen from the images of the information boards that accompany them, these pieces are part of a second wave of re-imaging (Visual History 10) in the lower Shankill estate. Compared to the pieces they replace, these are even more neutral in theme, replacing cultural themes with community (and also all printed rather than painted).
Most of these are in the centre of the estate, alongside various UDA murals. There has also been a small wave of UDA stencilling and signage on the periphery of the estate – see Loyalist Lower Shankill.
Welcome to the loyalist lower Shankill, and specifically the UDA (2nd battalion, C company) lower Shankill.
However, these are somewhat peripheral locations, in California Close, Boundary Way, and Hopewell Crescent. The centre of the estate has been re-imaged a second time – see Lower Shankill Angels.
“Love demands sacrifice”. “‘From this day to the ending of the world … we in it shall be remembered, we few, we happy few, we band of brothers’ for he today that sheds his blood with me shall be my brother’ – Henry V, William Shakespeare”
2015 marks the 75th anniversary of the Battle Of Britain, which was waged from July to October in 1940. This large board is part of an anti-racism project, celebrating the contributions to the Battle made by roughly 145 Polish aviators (WP) and especially the 303 squadron, which was stationed in Northern Ireland for a time (BBC-NI). “The Polish nation – part of us then, part of us now”.
The artist is Ross Wilson. Belfast Live has a report on the launch.
The memorial garden in Mount Vernon, which previously had and Ulster Volunteers mural and UVF stone, has undergone a major redevelopment this year (2015) with a new “cut-out” mural to the 36th (Ulster) Division and stand-alone memorial plaques to six UVF (3rd Belfast Battalion) members who were listed the plaque on the outside wall of the garden. “Murdered in the service of Ulster: Joe Shaw 18-5-1974, Samuel Frame 13-3-1976, Jackie Irvine 16-3-1989. Colin Caldwell 28-11-1991, Bertie Rice 31-10-2000, Mark Quail 1-11-2000.”
“We salute also all volunteers at home and on the mainland who served with dignity and pride.”
“Covenants without swords are only words” is a slight emendation of a line from Chapter 17 of Thomas Hobbes’s The Leviathan: “And covenants, without the sword, are but words and of no strength to secure a man at all.”
It is applied here to the 1912 Ulster Covenant being backed up by the 1914 gun-running. Edward Carson is shown acknowledging the cheers of the Ulster Volunteers, who have been drilling at Glencairn (as seen in this Shankill mural).
Above the Unionist souvenir shop on the Newtownards Road, east Belfast. Seen previously in 2012: Where Ulstermen Shop.
