Danny Baker row: Anger after portrait of Sinn Fein ex-Lord Mayor includes photo of IRA hunger striker Bobby Sands

By Philip Bradfield
Published 12th Oct 2022, 10:33 BST
Updated 12th Oct 2022, 17:38 BST
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A newly unveiled portrait of a former mayor of Belfast has been slammed by a UUP councillor for including a portrait of IRA hunger striker Bobby Sands.

The portrait of Sinn Fein councillor Danny Baker, which is reported to have cost ratepayers £15,000, was unveiled on Tuesday.

But former UUP councillor and former mayor Jim Rodgers branded the portrait "totally unacceptable".

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The photo shows Mr Baker in side profile, turning in the direction of a small photo of IRA hunger striker Bobby Sands on a window sill.

The portrait of former Lord Mayor of Belfast Danny Baker, which also features a photo of IRA hunger striker Bobby Sands, in the bottom left of the image.The portrait of former Lord Mayor of Belfast Danny Baker, which also features a photo of IRA hunger striker Bobby Sands, in the bottom left of the image.
The portrait of former Lord Mayor of Belfast Danny Baker, which also features a photo of IRA hunger striker Bobby Sands, in the bottom left of the image.

Mr Rodgers said anyone he has spoken to had the same view as himself "right across the religious divide – totally unacceptable," he told the Nolan Show.

He added that anyone who has spoken to him about it “have indicated that it is totally unacceptable that an IRA hunger striker who had nothing to do with Belfast City Council is on the portrait of former Lord Mayor Danny Baker”.

TUV North Belfast spokesperson Ron McDowell said the actions by Sinn Fein were a major insult to terror victims.

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“The inclusion of convicted IRA terrorist Bobby Sands in a portrait of former Sinn Fein mayor Danny Baker is a gross insult to the many victims of Republican terrorism not just in Belfast but across Northern Ireland,” he said.

Sinn Fein's Danny Baker with party President Mary Lou McDonald.Sinn Fein's Danny Baker with party President Mary Lou McDonald.
Sinn Fein's Danny Baker with party President Mary Lou McDonald.

"Sands has no electoral connection to Belfast having, sadly, been elected in Fermanagh and South Tyrone in a result which poisoned community relations for generations. Sands’s only contribution to life in Belfast was to bomb a furniture company."

According to Ulster University's Cain archive on the Troubles, Bobby Sands grew up in Twinbrook in west Belfast.

As a young man he joined the IRA and in October 1972 he was arrested and charged with possession of four weapons and was sentenced to five years. He was released in March 1976 and was then arrested during an IRA bomb attack on a furniture warehouse in Belfast, after which the IRA men involved fired on police. He was sentenced to fourteen years. He was 27 when he died on the sixty sixth day of hunger-strike in the H-Block prison hospital in 1981.

A Belfast City Council spokesperson said: “Each individual Lord Mayor decides how they are portrayed in their portrait.”

Sinn Fein has been invited to comment.