Images in the collection are labelled with what WordPress calls ‘categories’. You are able to quickly search by category using the drop-down menu in the side-bar. Furthermore, category words appear at the bottom of each post. The categories themselves are grouped into the following broader categories, presented here in alphabetical order:
Area Affiliation
Most images that are not from the city centre are categorised as being either PUL (Protestant-Unionist-Loyalist) or CNR (Catholic-Nationalist-Republican), regardless of theme. The labels serve to indicate the dominant community in which the painting or graffiti was/is to be found.
City/Town
Belfast posts are further categorised as north Belfast, east Belfast, south Belfast or west Belfast. The borders between these quadrants are, clockwise from the north-east, the lough, the river Lagan, the M-2, Crumlin Rd. (There is also city centre.)
Castlereagh is included in east Belfast; Dundonald (which includes Tullycarnet and Ballybeen) is not. Dunmurry is included in Lisburn/Dunmurry but CNR artworks in Twinbrook and Colin are included in west Belfast.
(Almost) every image’s location is pin-pointed on the (historical) map; the map also shows many of the so-called “peace” lines in Belfast.
Compositional Features
knot-work: Wall paintings, especially republican ones, sometimes have a (painted) frame or border. This frame is often Celtic knot-work.
internet/social media
sponsored, signature: Older CNR paintings were unsigned; lately signatures or marks of some kind are occasionally appearing, perhaps due in part to the change in genre from political subjects to cultural ones and sponsorship by state agencies rather than local communities only. Street art is almost always signed.
tricoloured: instances of red-white-blue and green-white-orange that are not paintings of flags are included here.
windows in walls: not every painting gets an uninterrupted surface.
Events/People
Frequently-depicted historical events and figures are used as categories:
CNR: Cú Chulaınn (who also appears in some PUL pieces), 1798/pike, the Great Hunger, Connolly, Easter Rising, Bloody Sunday, H-Block, hunger strike, (also barbed wire, blanket, and lark for political prisoners), Bobby Sands
PUL: King Billy, Siege Of Derry, (Sir Edward) Carson, the Ulster covenant, industry/H&W, WWI.
Flags
Independent NI, St Andrew’s Saltire, Tricolour, Ulster Banner, Union Flag.
The flags of Éıre (the Tricolour) and the UK (the Union Flag) are prominent, alongside the Northern Irish flag (Ulster Banner) and St Andrew’s Saltire. (The Ulster Banner uses the red hand on a white background, while the flag of provincial Ulster flag uses the red hand on a yellow background.) The Independent NI flag was created by the UDA and its think-tank.
The Starry Plough and sunburst often appear on flags but about equally they do not, and so they are included as Symbols rather than Flags.
Language
Gaeılge and Ulstèr-Scotch. There is also a little-used category for other language. Languages appearing in paramilitary emblems (Gaeılge and Latin) are not marked. English is not marked.
Organisation
The group that the work is about (which is not necessarily the group that sponsored the work), including most commonly IRA, INLA, UVF, UDA, Sınn Féın, RUC/PSNI, 36th (Ulster) Division, Orange Order.
Paramilitary
assault rifle, barbed wire, bullets – rubber or plastic, funeral volley/graveside mourner, hood/mask/balaclava, lark, POWs, RPG
Sport
boxing, Gaelic games, soccer
Symbols
CNR: Celtic cross, dove, four provinces, Ireland, knot-work, lily – Easter, phoenix, shamrock, Starry Plough, sunburst
PUL: bible/cross/crown/ladder, four nations/flowers, industry/H&W/Flax/Rope, lily – orange, Northern Ireland,
The four provinces are Ulster, Leinster, Munster, and Connacht, represented by their crests.
The four nations are Scotland, Ireland, England, Wales, represented by their flags or flowers (thistle, shamrock, rose, daffodil, respectively).
Each side also has a lily: Easter lily for republicans and (occasionally) orange lily for loyalists.
Outlines of the island of Ireland and of Northern Ireland separated from the Republic Of Ireland are used in CNR and PUL works, respectively.
Themes
children
commercial: For a business (not just on a business’s wall)
community: Local community is meant here, not sectarian community (CNR, PUL). This category is especially relevant in the mid-2000s, in connection with re-imaging.
cultural: On the CNR side, Gaelic games, music, dancing, soccer, Irish language, etc. On the PUL side, soccer, flute bands (though they are almost always associated with a paramilitary group), parading, Ulster-Scots, the reformation, 36th Division. Expressions of fidelity to the UK/crown are included in political. Economic themes, e.g. mills, shipyards, Titanic, are included here, unless more fitting under community. (Trade-unionism falls under social.)
electoral: This category is especially relevant in the mid-1980s, as distinct from militancy. Also included are membership campaigns for political groups.
international: Many CNR artworks are international in theme, drawing parallels between the republican struggle and other oppressed peoples. Very occasionally, a PUL artwork will make reference to Israel. There is a Visual History page on International Solidarity.
physical force: Constitutional politics with (the threat of) violence, and its victims.
Includes historical campaigns (such as 1690, 1798, Ulster Volunteers, 1916). Includes all military and paramilitary groups both before and after the Agreement. (Combined 36th Division – UVF pieces are included here.) Also included are calls for violence against a sect (e.g. “ATAT”) or against the police. Also memorials of deaths by sectarian violence. Also included are accusations of collusion. POWs are also included here. (If you want paramilitary art only, use the IRA, INLA, UDA, UVF, and LVF categories and/or the categories under Physical Force.)
personal: Fits no other category. This category is used for (most) throw-ups, wild-style writing, graffiti-art, and street art, among others.
political: Constitutional politics but without (the threat of) violence. Blanket/dirty/hunger protests are included here.
social: Non-constitutional and non-sectarian issues. Included are issues of care and self-care including drugs (including calls for violence against dealers), mental health and suicide, joy-riding and road safety, environmentalism, racism, conspiracy theories. Also included, because the constitutional question dominates life in NI, are large questions of social structure that in other counties would be “political” – e.g. democracy, socialism, trade-unionism, immigration.
women: This label means that the artwork honours women, whether as victims or activists or in some other way. There is a separate Visual History page on Women In Murals And Muraling.
Type
Here is a list of the categories: banner/tarp, building/structure, glass, graffiti/writing, metalwork, mosaic, painted board, painted wall, plaque, poster/paste-up/sticker, printed board/placard, sculpture, stencil, stone
A painted wall is any painting or spraying on a wall or other surface in the street. It can be on any theme – political or cultural art or community or social or personal/street art. If we are confident a stencil has been used, we mark this. Grafitti art is included with graffiti.
The category graffiti/writing indicates any letting without images – simple graffiti, throw-ups, wild-style writing – plus graffiti art.
When a picture or words are painted or printed on a surface that is itself then affixed to a wall or otherwise displayed in the street, we use banner/tarp, painted board, printed board, poster/paste-up/sticker. All of these can be prepared indoors and then mounted in a single session of work, thus avoiding the rainy Irish weather. Since the 2000s, boards have increasingly become printed (after the artwork has been designed on a computer) rather than painted (or sprayed) by hand. The rear of Free Derry Corner provides an excellent sample of boards over a long period of time; after 2005 they are generally all printed, though there are notable exceptions. (Bill Rolston uses display for printed boards.)
Stencils have also been used as an aid to reproduction of pieces and to speed up the production of outdoor works. Stencils are used for lettering (e.g. No Crown Forces) and in painted/sprayed art.
building/structure Bonfires are included here.
A plaque is on wall/flat surface; if a plaque is on a stone we use stone.
There is no category mural as it combines various categories that we wish to pull apart. We use the word “mural” quite loosely in the entries for individual works, to include paintings on walls, painting on boards, and even printed boards. In the Visual Histories, where we are concerned to track the history and development of different forms of public painting, we are a bit more careful and tend not to use “mural” in the text when referring to community art or (especially) personal art (street art).
See also What Is A Mural?
Copyright © 2018-2024 Extramural Activity CIC
Back to the index of Visual History pages.
Extramural Activity 