The Bobby Sands Mural

Sometimes it seems that we are led to where we are meant to be.  I had a small window of time in Belfast Northern Ireland as I needed to catch a bus back to Dublin Friday night.  So I went to Irish Tours in order to get a bus ticket for a tour around Belfast from the upper level of the double-decker bus.  I was told that to catch the whole loop tour I would need to walk to a bus stop several blocks away. I began my journey with my marked up map in hand, and GPS on my smartphone weighing in with walking options.  I am not sure how long the young lady that helped me with my ticket expected me to take to walk with three bags and a guitar to the bus stop, but even though I walked directly there, having to ask for help along the way from some schoolgirls, I missed the bus.  The last bus for the day. The gentleman who was still at the bus stop called the ticketing office to inform them, and I was told I could return to the tourist office for a full refund.  So I started back, but by this time I was tired of negotiating my way through these city streets, so I hailed a cab to take me to the office. Upon further reflection, I realized I would have spent in cab fare almost as much as I was about to recover as a refund.  But my tired brain was not thinking along those lines at the time.  The serendipity of the event, is that my driver had posted in his very comfortable cab that he also did private tours of Belfast.  And he was available now to do a “Political Tour” of Belfast delving into the sights and history of “the Troubles” of Northern Ireland.  So we claimed my refund, and turned it into a memorable tour of significant areas of the history of Belfast. These pictures are a small sample of what I was able to observe. “Murals can be described as a mirror of political change, as they have been painted throughout the last century and display all important historic as well as political developments in the scope of unique wall paintings. In 1908 Ulster loyalists started to portray William III of England on a white horse in order to strengthen the Orange identity of Ulster Protestants. Irish republican wall-paintings started in the late 1970s and can be seen in particular as a visual display of a social movement, which was radicalized after the IRA began to fight for a greater political voice and a United Ireland.^[2] Murals are for the most part located in working class areas of Northern Ireland, primarily in Belfast and Derry. Arguably the most well-known and easily identified mural is that of Bobby Sands, on the side wall of Sinn Féin‘s Falls Road office. A close second is the collection of Irish republican and international-themed murals which are located at what is known as ‘The International Wall’, also in Belfast.” >>downloaded from WikiPedia 12 November 2018<<

picture taken 12 October 2018 by Michael Patrick Moran

picture taken by Michael Patrick Moran 12 October 2018