“Thatcher 81 – Ford 2011” refers to Margaret Thatcher, UK Prime Minister at the time of the second hunger strike and David Ford, NI Justice Minister at the time of the campaigns to free Marian Price and Brendan Lillis (BBC).
“Forced to endure years of brutality, humiliation, degradation and torture, the prisoners embarked on hunger-strike.” The 1980 hunger strike involved Brendan Hughes, Raymond McCartney, Tommy McKearney, Tommy McFeely, Leo Green, Sean McKenna, and John Nixon. On December first, three women in Armagh prison also went on strike (newspaper/posters from left to right): Mairéad Farrell on the dirty protest in her cell (for the original image, see Prison Walls), Mairéad Nugent, Mary Doyle.
On the right, Farrell reads An Phoblacht/Republican News reporting on the assassination of politician and hunger-strike activist John Turnley by the UDA (WP). The headline on the cover reads “Don’t let Thatcher fill these [coffins]” and a graffitist has added “because Adams will” – a reference to the allegations of Richard O’Rawe (BelTel | The Blanket).
Initially without the quotation along the top. The mural was launched on the anniversary date: October 27th, 2010.
Short Strand is a Catholic enclave of about 1,000 people in Protestant east Belfast. Throughout 2001 and 2002, the interface saw gun battles and rioting between the two factions. Here is a Guardian account of events in 2002. Above is a rejection of the new PSNI “There are many reasons for not joining the PSNI – this is just one” with a series of wanted posters (seen Collusion! Collusion! and Collusion Is State Murder plus one of Patrick Mayhew). Both parts by Ógra Shinn Féin. Divis Street, Belfast.
Here is the scene in Clowney Street, Belfast, in 2002: the (third? version of the) phoenix mural is 12 years old, and the funeral volley mural above it (seen in 2001) has lost one of its boards.
This 1990 image of the Clowney Street phoenix shows (compared to the 1981 and 1987 versions) that the four provinces have been painted out, perhaps in preparation for repainting, as they would be added again later.
“[The] Anglo-Irish Agreement proved one to be a traitor, the other the murderess she is.” The portraits are presumably of Margaret Thatcher and Garrett FitzGerald, who signed the agreement at Hillsborough Castle in November, 1985, though it is difficult to tell them apart – which is perhaps the point. A good picture of the pair can be found at the top of this Guardian article on the crafting of the document. This is the fifth (extreme right) of five murals on a wall in Ballycolman estate, Strabane.
A hand with tricoloured cuff attempts to stop one with a Union flag from taking the six counties from the rest of the island. The plural imperative would be “stadaigí”. Based on a Cormac cartoon. Beechmount Avenue, Belfast.
Here is a 1982 image of the Break Thatcher’s Back mural in Rockmore Road, Belfast, showing a blanket man with outstretched arms demanding “status now”, framed by a large “H” and surrounded by barbed wire, Tricolours, and the Starry Plough. In 1981, there was a Sean O’Casey quote on the left, rather than a lily and the year of the Easter Rising — 1916.