A plan for a “peace and conflict resolution” centre at HMP Maze was approved in April 2013 (Guardian) but the plans were scuppered before the end of the year (BBC) thanks in part to unionist objections that it would focus on prisoners rather than victims (BBC).
The other placard also refers to another controversy from 2013, the flying of the Union Flag at Belfast City Hall, which began with the December 2012 decision to fly the flag on 18 days a year, but which petered out the following spring.
“In memory of the unforgotten comrades who died on hungerstrike in the H-Blocks for the cause of Irish freedom. Síochá[ı]n Dé orthu. [Our] revenge will be the laughter of our children – Bobby Sands”.
Michael Gaughan and Frank Stagg, who died in English prisons in the 1970s, are included below the ten deceased 1981 hunger-strikers.
This pair of boards in Irvine Crescent, Enniskillen, is notable for their construction out of pieces of board that have been cut/carved before being layered onto a background board.
They both present the Ulster Volunteers/YCV of 1912 and WWI – in the first, two soldiers are placed alongside the Ulster Tower at Thiepval, France.
“He had the courage to climb out of the traditional trenches, meet the enemy in no man’s land and play ball with him.” David Ervine was a UVF member, arrested in 1974 and served six years in the Maze before turning to politics: he first ran for office in 1985 and represented East Belfast in the NI Assembly from 1998 until his death in 2007. The board shows Ervine’s silhouette in a wreath of poppies along with pictures of and information about his life, including a photograph of Ervine with Gusty Spence, who is shown holding a pipe.
Ervine’s own pipe is included among the items on the “Memory Chair” sculpture by Ross Wilson, along with a ticket for the Titanic and a little (prayer?) book with a poppy on the cover. The prayer book would be for Protestantism, the poppy for loyalism and service in WWI, and the ticket for the shipyard. The boots like the pipe are personal effects of Ervine’s.
“David Ervine 21st July 1953 – 8th January 2007 David Ervine was born in nearby Chamberlain Street, the youngest of five children. A lifelong supporter of Glentoran Football Club he was a true son of East Belfast. David attended Avoniel Primary School and Orangefield Boys High School. Leaving school before his fifteenth birthday he began his working life in an atmosphere of tension and violent confrontation. At nineteen he joined the UF. He was arrested in 1974 and served five years in Long Kesh, a wasteland that he and other prisoners transformed into a place of personal and political growth and development. A founding member of the Progressive Unionist Party and its most articulate spokesperson, he was elected to the Northern Ireland Forum, Belfast City Council and the Northern Ireland Assembly. David Ervine was a truly inspirational leader. With vision and courage he led his community from violence to peace, winning the respect of friend and foe alike. He gave voice to the common man and woman acting always in the interest of peace and his beloved Ulster.”
In the “Belfast Blitz” of April and May 1941, during WWII, 900 people died and half the homes in Belfast were destroyed or damaged (WP). In the apex of this mural, a Nazi bomber sets buildings alight; in the main panel, people, including a milkman, walk among the bombed-out buildings, while others (bottom right) test out a piano that has been moved.
On the side-wall to the right is a painted frame surrounding a manufactured plaque with the names of locals who died in the blitz.
By JMK (Jonny McKerr – Fb) in Hogarth Street, Tiger’s Bay, north Belfast. Both the lamp-post and the electrical box have been painted into the mural.
McKerr also did a piece in the area of images from WWI – see The Home Front.
The central image of soldiers at the battle of the Somme is surrounded by images of various occupations: shipyard workers and miners (perhaps), along with images of women welding, carrying coke, and nursing. It’s not clear what the “fair wartime wage” refers to: there was a general strike at the shipyards in 1919 (The Great Unrest | Workers’ Liberty).
“John Bunting MI5 tout”. This Tiger’s Bay placard is an indicator of the continued tensions within the North Belfast UDA that first came to public attention in December 2013. John Bunting was arrested in September (2014) and charged with the attempted murder of John Borland and Andre Shoukri, from the opposing faction.
“Viva Palestine”. This pro-Palestine mural features sky-jacker Leila Khaled (also seen in in Hugo Street) and the emblem of the Popular Front For The Liberation Of Palestine (WP). The Arabic on the right is an equivalent of “Tıocfaıdh ár lá” on the left.
“End internment by remand – End forced strip searches – End controlled movement”.
Fists are raised in defiance of the police state (both PSNI/NIPS and Gardaí/IPS). Cogús (meaning “conscience”) is the division of the Republican Network for Unity (Fb) concerned with political prisoners.
Peter Moloney Collection 