murals

‘Just drawing support’ — Bill Rolston’s latest catch of mural hunting

Allan LEONARD (Mr Ulster) on August 15, 2022, 8:56 am

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Bill Rolston published the first volume of Drawing Support in 1992, which contained images of 100 murals from the previous decade. Thirty years later, the fifth volume has just been published, and at a Feile an Phobail event Rolston spoke about his never-ending “mural hunting”, accompanied by recollections of muralist Danny Devenny. Claire Hackett welcomed and informed the audience that in addition to the latest and previous volumes of Drawing Support available for sale here, Rolson, with Robbie McVeigh, are …

Lyra McKee’s murder must herald a transformation from our society’s complicity to gangs

Michael Walker on June 1, 2019, 2:00 pm

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There were two protest actions that came amongst the outpouring of grief from the murder of Lyra McKee. Both challenged the complicity our society gives criminal gangs operating in Northern Ireland; those which shelter behind historic letters and seep through violent murals. Violent murals act to normalise their criminality, and their suffocation of working class areas across Northern Ireland. As do their gang flags. Put simply, paramilitary murals are the subliminal advertising of criminal organisations in Northern Ireland. To be …

The Mural Hunter and The Writing on the Wall…

Soapbox on December 19, 2015, 12:03 am

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By my estimates, there are around 500 to 600 murals of various shapes and sizes in Northern Ireland. Between 2008 and 2015, I visited and photographed around 400 of them, with just short of 200 of these photographs featuring in my book The Writing on the Wall: A Visual History of Northern Ireland’s Troubles, published in October 2015 by Bluecoat Press. I do not claim to have laid eyes on all the murals in Ireland, but Bill Rolston, Emeritus Professor at the …

The Writing on the Wall (Stuart Borthwick) – gable wall imagery & the history it portrays

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on December 19, 2015, 12:01 am

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VIVID PICTURES from gable walls across Northern Ireland accompanied by intriguing notes and laid out in chronological order to map out how local history has been illustrated over the years.

UVF mural replaces ‘aspirational’ George Best mural in east Belfast…

Mick Fealty on September 4, 2013, 5:07 pm

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So, now you see it. Now you don’t. Here’s the George Best mural in Inverwood Court in Sydenham, as it was. Paid for under Peace III funding. Now it seems, things are going back to business as usual, as the PUP gear up for future elections, back come the UVF murals. It’s not the first time the reimagining project has reverted to paramilitary imagery either. Though the removal of what was intended to be an aspirational image has a certain …

Belfast Black Taxi Tour – political insight or Troubles tourism?

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on May 21, 2012, 11:05 am

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A black taxi tour of Belfast? Chris Jenkins raised questions about the morality of troubles tourism in a recent Guardian Unlimited article. Matthew Symington followed up with an extended interview on Eamonnmallie.com in which Chris again challenged the trend of “money being made from human tragedy” and the DUP’s switch from opposing a “shrine” at Long Kesh to supporting a “Mecca for tourists” at the Maze site. There are huge areas of Belfast that I’ve never visited. Election observing has …

“We now realise that wasn’t a brilliant idea…”

Pete Baker on August 30, 2011, 4:57 pm

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Newshound transcribes a Sunday World report on the recent removal of a ‘women in struggle’ wall mural at Rockmount Street, Belfast, and its controversial replacement – an advert for Northern Property, a Falls Road-based estate agency. From the report Tony Donnelly, director of Northern Property, said his office had been inundated with calls about the mural’s removal. He said it had been taken down by Sinn Féin and his company had then erected its ad separately. “We now realise that wasn’t a brilliant idea …

Oxford academic decries loss of terrorist murals

Turgon on August 7, 2011, 11:10 pm

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There have over the last number of years been serious attempts as part of the Re-Imaging Communities Project to remove the sectarian murals in Belfast and replace them with more positive images highlighting the areas’ cultural and history. The Titanic murals also on the Lower Newtownards Road would be an example: unfortunately since the assembly election two new murals depicting loyalist terrorists have been created. Overall, however, according to the Belfast Telegraph there are fewer sectarian murals now than there …