If Walls Could Talk
THE POLITICAL MURALS OF NORTHERN IRELAND
Since the 1960s, artists from Northern Ireland have painted nearly 2,000 murals that depict a running social commentary and narrative of the people and events during “the Troubles,” the name given to the 30 years of violence and conflict between Northern Ireland’s nationalist, primarily Roman Catholic community and its unionist, principally Protestant community. Painting a wall with political slogans or images of local heroes could get you shot or thrown in prison during the Troubles, but in Ireland today, the murals have become a rather popular tourist attraction.
Mural from 1973 in Belfast, Northern Ireland.
The murals function not only as works of art but as political commentary, historical markers, and communal memorials. For these communities, blank walls have always been the appropriate place to commemorate and memorialize the dead and imprisoned, even football heroes, with banners, flowery wreaths, brass plaques, and murals. Previously seen as harbingers of urban blight situated in dangerous locations, the socio-political murals in Northern Ireland are now highlighted attractions on bus tours and are regularly featured in tourist guidebooks. It seems the rest of the world is finally catching up with these “painted” sentiments. —SBR
WHAT IN THE WORLD?
Since 1993, muralists and brothers Tom and Will Kelly and their friend Kevin Hasson have worked together as The Bogside Artists. In 2007, the US government invited them and other Irish muralists from East Belfast to recreate various murals on a gable wall in Washington, D.C. for the Smithsonian Folk Life Festival.