“We too are strong. We too are a threat to the oppressive enemy. We are revolutionaries. We are the other half of our revolutionary men. We are their equal halves.” The IRA’s Mairéad Farrell is in the top left.
M05150 [M05148] [M05149] [M05151]
Copyright © 2009 Peter Moloney
Local female IRA volunteers Laura Crawford, Patricia Black, Bridie Quinn, Mairéad Farrell and a generic female volunteer with assault rifle on manoeuvres in an Irish landscape strewn with standing stones. “Lenadoon Youth 2000”
M05129 [M05123] [M05124] [M05125] [M05126] [M05127] [M05128]
Copyright © 2009 Peter Moloney
“Fuair siad bás ar son saoirse na hÉireann” [they died for the freedom of Ireland]. Na Fianna Éireann [warriors of Ireland; IRA youth] were begun in 1909 by Countess Markievicz and Belfast man Bulmer Hobson (WP). They took part in the Easter Rising of 1916. The role of honour lists deaths from 1969 to 1984 – the Troubles. After the Agreement, the Fianna are affiliated with Republican Sinn Féin and the Continuity IRA. At the corner of Beechmount Avenue and the Falls Road – see the Visual History of this wall.
M04950 [M04945] M04946 [M04947] [M04948] [M04949]
Copyright © 1985 Peter Moloney
“Everyone tells me I’m a feminist. All I know is that I’m just as good as others, and that especially means men. I am definitely a socialist and I’m definitely a Republican. I believe in a united socialist country, definitely socialist. Capitalism can offer our people nothing and yet that’s the main interest of the British in Ireland – Oglach [sic] Mairead Farrell.” Farrell was one of the Gibraltar 3 (along with Sean Savage and Dan McCann), killed by SAS soldiers in 1988. Painted by Risteard Ó Murchú. Jasmine Corner, Twinbrook.
[M04435] M04436
Copyright © 2008 Peter Moloney
The memorial garden in Beechmount Avenue, Belfast, goes beyond commemoration of IRA volunteers. Moving clockwise: dying volunteer, “local men and women and POWs”, hunger strikers, comhaltaí Shinn Féin, proclamation, na hÓglaigh, “innocent people from the area”, “the unsung heroes off [sic] this area”, Sands quote.
M04423 M04425 [M04426] M04424 [M04427] [M04428] [M04422] [M04429] [M04421] M04414 M04420 M04418 [M04419] M04416 [M04417] M04415
Copyright © 2008 Peter Moloney
These two boards are on the fence outside the Pilot’s Row Centre in Rossville Street. The first is a Bogside & Brandywell Women’s Group compilation of women in various occupations (plus Bernadette Devlin breaking up pavement); the second shows support for Catalonia: “300 years of occupation, 300 years of resistance”.
M03917 M03918
Copyright © 2007 Peter Moloney
Pearse’s famous “Ireland unfree …” is modified to become “Women unfree shall never be at peace” alongside a combined anarchist and female (Venus) symbol. With the rejoinder: “Fuck up and make the tea!” Northland Road, Derry.
M03617
Copyright © 2007 Peter Moloney
This pair of images — “Deserted! Well – I can stand alone” from the anti-Home Rule campaign that continued during WWI and the other a more contemporary scene of “a protestant farmer’s wife guard[ing] her husband against sectarian attack from across the border” — was previously painted in (what remains of) Moscow Street, next to the Rex bar on the Shankill. (See X00066. See also M00558 lower Shankill | M00621 east Belfast | M02302 east Belfast). The plaque on the right was not originally part of the mural (see J2395) and the mural would later be modified by the removal of the Orange Order and St Andrew’s flags (but not the UVF emblem), replaced by a shamrock-strewn banner reading “Fight To A Finish” (M08026).
M03578 Drumtara, Ballymena
Copyright © 2007 Peter Moloney
A famous photo from the Battle Of The Bogside (included below) shows Bernadette Devlin breaking a piece of pavement. The board above – possibly of two independent halves – has her bringing down the pavement on the issues faced by women in Derry, such as water rates, lone parents, breast cancer support, and smoking cessation.
“Bogside & Brandywell Women’s Group – Breaking new ground – Féile 06”
M03299
Copyright © 2006 Peter Moloney
The symbol for female and Venus is stencilled in purple and pink on Lecky Road, Derry.
M02692
Copyright © 2006 Peter Moloney
