Image 1 of 1
Image 1 of 1
Image 1 of 1
Image 1 of 1
Oil, cradled panel
30 x 30 cm
2026
Throughout the 1960s and 70s, Loyalist gable walls in Belfast would proclaim 'We will not forsake the blue skies of Ulster for the grey skies of an Irish Republic'. Back from London to clear out my parents' house I revisited the streets that moulded me. North Belfast was - and remains - a sectarian patchwork. Protestant houses become Catholic houses at the turn of a corner. Demolished streets, truncated roads, green spaces, corrugated iron walls, flags and painted kerbstones demarcate a neutered landscape. I'd never been on the Protestant side of the Ardoyne peaceline. In a city layered with irony and meaning, a tattered Loyalist flag fluttered in front of the encroaching grey skies we had been warned about as children. Behind a distant metal wall the Nationalists were biding their time too, on the aptly named Alliance Avenue.
Oil, cradled panel
30 x 30 cm
2026
Throughout the 1960s and 70s, Loyalist gable walls in Belfast would proclaim 'We will not forsake the blue skies of Ulster for the grey skies of an Irish Republic'. Back from London to clear out my parents' house I revisited the streets that moulded me. North Belfast was - and remains - a sectarian patchwork. Protestant houses become Catholic houses at the turn of a corner. Demolished streets, truncated roads, green spaces, corrugated iron walls, flags and painted kerbstones demarcate a neutered landscape. I'd never been on the Protestant side of the Ardoyne peaceline. In a city layered with irony and meaning, a tattered Loyalist flag fluttered in front of the encroaching grey skies we had been warned about as children. Behind a distant metal wall the Nationalists were biding their time too, on the aptly named Alliance Avenue.