What Is A Mural?

Why Are Murals?

Many other modes of mass communication reach larger audiences, given that murals are restricted to passers-by (and re-presentation in media). But a public wall is sometimes the only platform available to some people. Public art and graffiti will exist whenever a group (or person) feels that it is being marginalised and wants to get its message out to those living around them. Murals are typically at odds with the state’s messaging; the purpose of a mural is typically to communicate to the local population in order to build mutual knowledge. Public painting is generally is not aimed, or only secondarily aimed, at other audiences, such as the other sect or the state.

Loyalist murals of the Home Rule era were a response to the threat of being abandoned by Great Britain. Loyalist muralists of the 70s and 80s likewise feel unheard: the police appear unable to prevent the deaths of Protestants and defence associations – and their murals – arise in response to this threat. Paramilitary groups on both sides were not sanctioned by the state and were (eventually) treated as banned organisations, again meaning that they had to seek alternative avenues for communication. In modern PUL paramilitary/gang muraling, the illegal groups assert a mixture of protection and dominance over the local community.

Republican wall painting began (in the 1980s) as a form of guerrilla protest by a community that did not have access to traditional forms of media such as newspapers, radio, and television. The early murals were acts of defiance and as such communicated a message to the powers-that-be but their primary effect was to created commonality in the local population.

For the state’s intentions in muraling, see Visual History 10 and Visual History 11.

What Is A Mural?

In the rest of the world, a mural is a painting on a wall visible to the public; in Northern Ireland, a mural is a wall painting visible to the public on the constitutional question of the status of Northern Ireland. The constitutional question so dominates the intellectual and cultural landscape of Northern Ireland that to define “mural” in broad terms and then use a qualifier to narrow it to “political mural” or “constitutional mural” would be a waste of ink/electrons.

The classic mural in Belfast (and elsewhere in Northern Ireland/north-east Ireland/”here”) …

depicts some aspect of the disputed constitutional situation, either physical force, or political, or electoral, or cultural
is directed at the community (internally) and secondarily at external audiences,
is sponsored by the local community in terms of material, labour, and financing,
is unsigned by the artist(s) and its sponsors are not listed on or around the mural,
is painted
is on a wall (or other surface which serves to separate private from public such as a shutter).

(For a universal and a-temporal list of features, see Categories.)

The high-point of PUL muraling was the first half of the twentieth century. Thus, as an example of a ‘classic’ PUL mural, we present this mural of King William III landing at Carrickfergus, in the Fountain area of Londonderry:

The high-point of CNR muraling was in the late 1980s. An example that illustrates all of the features listed above is the mural of the mythical Rí Nuadha (King Nuada) in the Springhill area of Belfast.

Early Development

Both of these ‘classic’ murals are large and elaborate paintings. Early PUL muraling was born fully-formed; in CNR muraling, it took some time to reach full murals such as Rí Nuadha, above. Compare it to this proto-mural from 1981:

(There is a Visual History page showing the CNR murals painted in 1981.)

We can use the difference between Free! Belfast (and the anti-Agreement artwork of the first section) and the ‘classic’ murals to bring out various of the features of murals listed above and describe the early development of (CNR) muraling.

Theme

In the early and middle twentieth century, murals were painted by the PUL [Protestant-Unionist-Loyalist] sect with images asserting the inclusion of Northern Ireland in the UK. Some of these depicted previous military victories (physical force murals), some asserted inclusion in the UK without mentioning physical force (political murals).

During the Troubles, murals were painted with images of the emblems and people of the modern organisations that took up arms on this question. The CNR [Catholic-Nationalist-Republican] sect likewise painted physical force and political murals, depicting its physical-force organisations – both past and present – and its contrary claim that Northern Ireland should be a part of Ireland; in addition it also painted murals negatively representing the physical force of the British Army and Northern Ireland police. Both sides painted murals of the victims from their respective sects.

To CNR physical-force and political murals were added electoral murals that presented candidates and parties and both CNR and PUL communities each added cultural murals that depicted its respective sports, music, dance, and so on.

One way in which Rí Nuadha was a remarkable mural was that it managed to comment on the constitutional question without any reference to contemporary paramilitaries, historical actions, or traditional symbols of Ireland and Irish nationalism. Indeed, the painter, Gerard ‘Mo Chara’ Kelly, described the purpose and content of Rí Nuadha as a re-assertion of a pre-colonial identity: “The first thing any colonialist does, in any country, is to take the native culture, including its language, and replace it with theirs. The role of the colonist is to make the native people feel bad about their own culture, persuade them through military, legal, economic, social and every other means to abandon their language and culture and adopt the ways of the oppressor. Our kids get Batman and Robin, Sir Lancelot, Robin Hood. They’re all English or American; they’re not our heroes. I wanted the kids to take pride in Irish history and Irish culture.” (An Pobal A Phéınteáıl, Ch. 6) Adults in the area undoubtedly found inspiration in the image of Nuada rising, too: Springhill, like the neighbouring Ballymurphy, suffered from mass unemployment and its residents were in constant conflict with British and RUC forces.

Other themes are discussed under Later Development.

Size

Free! Belfast only partially covers the wall, to a height of about 8 feet, suggesting it was done without ladders, or perhaps only with a step-ladder. King William Landing At Carrickfergus and Rí Nuadha, by contrast, reach the second storey of a gable wall.

Rí Nuadha completely occupies the wall even though it has an unusual shape because of the protrusion at the rear of the flats. King William Landing At Carrickfergus is somewhat unusual (for a mural of this size) in that it does not cover the whole wall; this is probably because it is massive enough already and perhaps because the artist felt the canvas was constrained by the window. In both cases, the artist felt secure enough to spend a lot of time at the wall, high up on a ladder; neither had access to scaffolding or to a crane or scissor-lift.

Gable-end (or simply “gable”) walls are preferred because of their large size and the absence of windows. Houses here are traditionally side-gabled (rather than front-gabled) and so most gable walls are at right angles to the street, but at any junction at least one of the gables will be visible. Here is an image of the the north side of the green in the lower Shankill estate in 2008. Five gables are visible from left to right (two more are off-camera to the right) where rows of houses end at road at the top of the green in the centre of the estate.

Sources & Imagery

King William Landing At Carrickfergus is a copy of a postcard, painted in the Fountain (Londondery) by Bobby Jackson (Sr). Rí Nuadha is a copy of a painting by Dublin artist Jim Fitzpatrick, painted in Springhill (west Belfast) by Mo Chara Kelly.

In addition to Fitzpatrick’s work, republicans drew on the images of the cartoonist ‘Cormac’ (Brian Moore) and artist Robert Ballagh, as well as freely borrowing many specific images; loyalists copied paintings, postcards, and handkerchiefs of King William, and used the figure of Eddie The Head from hard rock band Iron Maiden (Eddie has his own Visual History page), and of Spike (the bulldog) and Tom (from the cartoon Tom & Jerry).)

When a mural does not copy a particular image, it will often rely on familiar symbols and names. In Free! Belfast we see an assemblage of these: Irish Tricolours flying from pikes, a phoenix, a harp, a blanketman on his knees, and the face of Margaret Thatcher.

Background

Free! Belfast has a solid black background. This is already an advance over simple graffiti and a few murals in which the imagery was painted directly onto the bare wall. In ‘classic’ murals’ not only is the whole wall painted but the background is integrated with the imagery in the foreground.

Attribution

One thing that all three murals presented thus far have in common is that the artist does not sign the mural. (The source is also not acknowledged.) That the artist does not claim the work and instead presents it as painted by the community and for the community is some defence against claims of plagiarism when the images of others are used. Some CNR murals in the 1980s were signed as being by “[local area name] youth group” but this was mainly to encourage young people to take part.

Materials & Walls

Rí Nuadha was painted using household paints gathered from the local community applied to the side of a house that technically would have belonged to the owners of the house (which might be a private individual or the Housing Executive). As with the artist (and source), the mural bears no mention of those who contributed towards it. The materials and the wall for King William Landing At Carrickfergus probably also belonged to the local community.

Location & Audience

It is unlikely that Rí Nuadha was intended to be outward-facing, as people not from the immediate area would have little cause to enter Springhill. Police and soldiers did enter the area on patrol and some of them had their picture taken in front of it, apparently acknowledging its power. (It was occasionally paint-bombed by British forces and its great detail and many colours made it difficult to repair – there would not be many murals of this level of detail until after the ceasefire and there would be many during the Troubles which were pointedly simple in their choice of colour and design – as a stark example, see Mandela, Father Of Freedom M00529 which Mo Chara painted the following year, 1988.)

Also, because of their quality, Rí Nuadha and the adjacent Loughgall mural were often used as a backdrop by television news reporters, both domestic and international, reporting on the Troubles. This audience was not available to most murals until the age of the internet and social media.

The location of a mural can limit the (already-small) audience that is exposed to it. Some murals, like the Nuada mural, are located on walls located within neighbourhoods, rather than at their periphery. As an extreme example of local-ness, the following North Belfast UDA Roll Of Honour was in a cul-de-sac off a cul-de-sac within Tigers Bay. The same mural on a wall visible to outsiders (in this case, republicans and neutrals) would also have served to assert the UDA as a threat to those populations.

At the opposite end of the internal-external spectrum (from Rí Nuadha and the North Belfast UDA Roll Of Honour) is the later “international wall” on Divis Street. This long wall is directed at both locals and at tourists. “Locals” in this case means much of republican west Belfast, as Divis Street is highly-trafficked road connecting the city centre with the Falls Road and so the murals are seen by thousands of motorists every day, not just those who live in the immediate Divis and lower Falls areas. The wall is also a tourist hot-spot, as throngs of visitors during the summer months daily climb out of their coaches and taxis to take photographs.

Visitors from the United States are regularly confronted with their administration’s perceived misdoings, as republican ideology is decidedly anti-imperialist. This mural, extant from 2004-2008, put the occupation of Iraq under President George W. Bush in parallel with the Viet Nam war – “America’s greatest failure”. (The International Wall has its own Visual History page; there is also a page on International Solidarity more broadly, though most of these murals are in local areas and directed at locals.)

Later Development

Some ‘classic’ murals are still being painted in Belfast with all of the features listed above, but the majority alter at least one of them and often many of them.

Theme

In terms of theme, wall art might now not depict the paramilitary forces, political assertions, grievances, culture, or history of either sect but instead topics that are in weakly or in no way sectarian.

In terms of subject, the main trend in Belfast murals is the move from paramilitary murals (see especially Visual History 04), towards “issues” murals describing the social and political changes that need to be addressed (see especially Visual History 07 and Visual History 09), which, along with historical and cultural murals, carry on the war by other means, and from there, gradually towards murals not identifiable with either side (see Visual History 10).

This movement is a main thread tracked by the Visual Histories; what follows is an abbreviation:

1995 can be used as a dividing line between the paramilitary and post-paramilitary eras of muraling on the republican side. The IRA ceasefire meant a halt in aggressively paramilitary muraling; today, IRA (and INLA) volunteers can still be found on many walls, but in the form of memorials to deceased volunteers. (Dissatisfaction with the peace process has meant that the support for “physical force” republicanism has never entirely gone away, and the level of support for armed resistance and (as already noted above) the level of organisation of “dissident” groups can to some extent be measured by the sophistication of its wall-art. It is noticeable that it consisted mostly of graffiti and stencils (as well as printed flyers) until 2015 when murals and boards also began appearing, particularly in Beechmount (and in Creggan, Derry);

on the loyalist side, 2002 serves as something of a dividing line, as this marks the first wave of concerted “re-imaging” by the state, which was aimed at removing loyalist gunmen from murals. A famous success in this endeavour was the removal of the UFF mural at the bottom of Sandy Row but overall state programmes have had limited success and loyalist paramilitary organisations and their volunteers are still be found, and still being painted, on large-scale and prominent murals. (The gunmen are still hooded rather than being unmasked portraits of past volunteers – though for a notable exception see C. Coy Street.)

There had previously been some cultural and historical murals, and murals presenting the neighbourhood, but these became more common after the peace. For example, Gaelic games appears as a topic of this mural (from the early 90s or late 80s) in Ardoyne, north Belfast …

… whereas it is only after the peace that the Great Hunger (of the 1840s) begins appearing in murals, as in this New Lodge, north Belfast, mural:

The Great Hunger is still identifiably CNR. Many contemporary murals, however, are intended to be entirely non-sectarian and cross-community. In 2012, for example, there was much attention paid to the one-hundredth anniversary of the sinking of Titanic. Titanic was built in Belfast, and is a symbol of Protestant industry. However, there was an attempt to make Titanic a cross-community icon, perhaps made easier by the fact that the sinking had entered world-wide culture via a blockbuster 1997 movie with a smash-hit song as its theme. Various murals and boards relating to Titanic were sponsored by Belfast City Council and an organisation called the Titanic Foundation. Titanic – both its construction and sinking – was even the subject of a mural in republican west Belfast, outside an Irish-language school. The ‘lifeboat’ section of the much larger mural is included here:

Visual History 10 illustrates the gradual inclusion of topics such as daily life in the neighbourhood (especially in years gone by), global causes (such as migration & racism and the environment), public health issues (such as suicide prevention), children’s and youth imagery; these are intended to be cross-community.

We should also note the rise of street art, which is personal and aesthetic rather than sectarian. Street-art typically has only aesthetic value, though some pieces have expressed political or social themes, local or global. This wall-art is not meant to bind a community or represent a community to an external audience and it is up to individual passers-by to value it if they choose. Although murals are street art in the sense of “art on the streets” (and street art pieces are murals if a mural is not restricted to the constitutional question) we reserve the term “street art” for work that is not about the NI question or a local community. Visual History 11 documents the rise of street art.

Sponsorship

In terms of the relationship between producers and audience, wall art might now not be directed at a community from within, nor represent that community to the outside world, but instead be intended by outsiders to inculcate a value within a community.

The advent of peace brought not only new themes into muraling but also new groups wishing to influence people’s thought. A few years after the 1998 Belfast Agreement (also known as the “Good Friday Agreement”), state agencies got into muraling with the aim of promoting peace to communities that had been maintaining strongly sectarian mindsets for three decades. Because they were outsiders to these community, state agencies risked the appearance of interfering in the local communities and so often worked indirectly, dispersing money to NGOs and local heritage and community associations which were not (or at least, less) concerned with sectarian issues and more with social or cultural missions who would then act as intermediaries.

The following mural, for example, is part of the New Belfast programme. It was painted in the CNR Markets area and celebrates the advancement of women, from homemakers in 1904 to university students and computer-users in 2004. This view of women is revisionist – not mentioned is the relatively recent role of women as paramilitary volunteers and political activists, which the community itself would have encouraged during the Troubles (see, for example, We Must Grow Tough M00100).

This mural of IRA killings was produced under the aegis of the East Belfast Historical & Cultural Society:

In terms of its sponsorship, wall art might now not be locally sponsored and produced but instead the sponsorship for the production of the piece comes from sources outside the community. An obvious case is the state organisations (and NGOs and heritage groups) already mentioned, either directly (hoping to spread non-sectarian values in the community) but even of the earliest murals questions can be raised about the unity of a community’s support for a mural.

(In rare cases sponsorship might come from local businesses: here, the Beehive pub and McPeake’s shop – both on the Falls Road – sponsor a Michael Conlan mural: )

(To be clear, sponsorship by a business is different from a mural depicting a business – see Visual History 11 for examples of commercial wall art.)

Attribution

While artists generally continued not to sign their works, sponsorship plaques became common after the peace and the entrance of state agencies into muraling. Johnny Adair’s lower Shankill stronghold was re-imaged after he was driven out of the UDA Here, for example, is the info board for the “I Am Not Resilient” mural in the lower Shankill, showing the previous two murals on this wall (the anti-Sınn Féın one had been replaced by an Andrew Jackson Ulster-Scots one) and listing the Northern Ireland Housing Executive and the Lower Shankill Community Association as sponsors

There were a few cases of murals being signed or at least marked by the artist(s). As an extreme example of a signed mural, republican painter Lucas Quigley not only signed this mural for Mandela’s 95th birthday but added his phone number (in the bottom right):

Painted

Wall art might now not be painted with brushes but sprayed, either free-hand …

(the remarkable *Mussen Cortège* by street artist Sam Bates a.k.a. SMUG X00490)

… or over a stencil, as in this simple example of QEII in Tigers Bay, …

… or printed, using an image designed on a computer.

(these two UVF boards are in south Belfast’s Village area X00608)

Walls

Wall art might now not be applied directly onto walls but onto boards which are then affixed to walls. The advantages of boards include being able to use computers for designing images and that painting (or other modes of production, but especially painting) can be undertaken indoors, out of reach of the (rainy) Irish weather. Wooden boards tend to have a short life; laminate boards are proving more durable but are subject to peeling and generally do not last any longer than a (painted) mural.

One disadvantage to art on a board is that a large mural will require multiple panels, which means that the seams and screws of the panels are often visible. As an example, compare the long-standing Kieran Nugent (“the first blanketman”) wall-painting …

… with the 2015 painted board that replaced it (after the Catalonia vote) – a moment’s inspection will reveal edges and rivets:

‘Classic’ murals are now a minority of the art publicly displayed today, even when street art is excluded – most pieces are done on boards, many are printed, (and those that are painted often make extensive use of stencils).

Why Are Murals? (Again)

“They’re Crap”

It should be clear from the discussion above that murals play an important role in the political life of many people here. Newton Emerson, columnist for the Irish Times (2019-06-20), describes murals as “amateurish images combin[ing] tired grievances with trite sloganeering”.

It’s true that almost all murals have been painted by amateurs, but they have not all been “amateurish”, as this page and the Visual History pages make clear: some murals have been done with great skill and attention, and are of images that are highly striking.

But the question of the quality of murals is secondary to their purpose. Thus, even if Emerson’s description were not untrue, it is certainly unkind, as it negates the value of murals as a form of public expression, as a record of the dialogue communities have with themselves and with those around them.

(Art critics too have dismissed murals, usually by omission but expressly so in the case of Lippard 1984 p. 12. Rolston 1996 p. 5 suggests that the dismissal is because muralists lack formal training (which is generally but not universally true); see also Rolston 1991 pp. 51-54 on the absence of the Troubles in Irish and Northern Irish fine art; Loftus 1983 p. 10 cites the term “folk art” but without attributing it to anyone specific.)

For this reason, it is our policy at Extramural Activity not to critique the quality of the drawing or the spelling, as sneering at the artist’s competence or spelling is a license to dismiss the sincerely-felt claims of people who feel marginalised and unheard. Yes, the artists (after the end of the PUL heyday, circa 1950) are generally untrained and their murals can be imperfect; yes, the wording on murals and even plaques is sometimes contains mis-spellings or lapses in grammar. What follows from these amateurisms? That the art should be dismissed? But this is the very attitude that has led to the necessity for murals and other public displays in the first place, namely that the powers-that-be have been concerned overwhelmingly with their own status and place in the world, and ignored the lives of the underclasses.

There is, however, something to be learned by gauging the the size and sophistication of murals, namely the extent to which their creators have the time and resources to produce the piece and the confidence that an audience will entertain and perhaps accept the message, at least to the extent that the mural will not be defaced or removed by locals.

As an illustration of this we can consider the works of anti-Agreement or “dissident” republicans in the late-90s and 2000s.

As an example, here are two images, from July and August 2015, of one of the panels on the “international” wall on Divis Street usually reserved for anti-Agreement groups, in this case 32CSM. The first shows hand-painted lettering and, where a painted image was perhaps supposed to go, a printed tarp – since the mid-2000s it is easier to produce placards and tarps than paintings or stencils. The second image shows hand-painted symbols of CNR flags and symbols. The quality is much higher but still fairly amateurish.

(To repeat a point that needs repeating often: the artistic quality is not the point of a mural; rather we take the sophistication of the production to be a rough measure of the group’s popularity and level of organisation. Many people on-line will disparage murals for their artistic deficiencies, especially in faces and hands, and their poor spelling; these people are missing the point.)

2015-07-01 RUC Collusion+ — (2015 X02686)

(Similarly, éırígi, an anti-Agreement political party from 2007 onward, produced stencils (M04501 | M04535) in 2008, a printed poster (M05139) in 2009, and in 2012 a stencilled board (X00679).)

“They’re Propaganda”

In addition to their amateur production, the efforts of working-class people from both sects to present their experiences and aspirations on the walls of their communities has often been called “propaganda”, where “propaganda” is a term used to denigrate wall paintings and distinguish them from “art” (e.g. Brian McAvera in Art, Politics And Ireland cited in Saleeby-Mulligan 2006 p. 56).

But it seems to us that propaganda can be art and art can be propaganda. It is true that murals, like propaganda, impress themselves upon a sometimes unwilling or indifferent public, but it’s not clear that art must be displayed in private or safe spaces such as galleries. And it is true that murals, like propaganda, present an ideological position rather than a universally humanistic one. But murals share with gallery art the aim of changing the viewer by means of pictures. (Even graffiti has its supporters as art.)

These assertions – the skill of the painting is not the point; political art is art – are as didactic as we wish to get. Indeed, these assertions and all of the features under discussion on this page are debatable. Consider the matter for yourself as you view for yourself.

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