Recommended: Click on the ‘Full Screen’ icon (top right, looks like a camera viewfinder) to see a larger version of each map.
Map #1 – All Years, All Areas, All Types
This is a map of the murals, graffiti, street art, and memorials, both past and present, in Belfast/Béal Feirste/Belfawst, London-/Derry/Doire/Derry and elsewhere in Northern Ireland.
Map #2 – Currently-Existing only, Belfast Areas only, Paintings only
This is a map of only the murals/boards and street art – graffiti and memorials are not included – in Belfast at the present time. As of May 2023, there were roughly 700 political and/or sectarian pieces and 260 pieces of street art in Belfast. A spreadsheet listing and counting the current Belfast pieces by area can be found at https://shorturl.at/aejI8 .
In the side-bar of each map, the order of areas covered is:
west Belfast – CNR [Catholic-Nationalist-Republican]
west Belfast – PUL [Protestant-Unionist-Loyalist]
north Belfast
east Belfast
city centre
south Belfast
[and then in the larger map]
Co. Antrim
London-/Derry
Strabane to Bangor
Belfast city borders, “peace” lines, and outlines of old neighbourhoods have also been drawn on the maps. Huge thanks to PRONI and SpatialNI for making historical maps available at https://apps.spatialni.gov.uk/PRONIApplication/
The pins on the maps are of the following styles and colours:
Pin styles indicate the Type of display:
Dot: Image (Mural/Board/Stencil-Image)
No Dot: Words (Graffiti/Banner/Stencil-Word)
Thumb-Tack: Memorial plaque/stone/garden, Building, Scene
Pin colours indicate the sect represented by the display:
Blue: PUL
Green: CNR
Red: Non-Sectarian
Click on a pin for information about, and a photograph of, each work at that location. Many locations, over time, have been the site of multiple artworks; these are listed in temporal sequence and the photographs are likewise presented sequentially.
For each work, information is presented in the following order, separated by semi-colons:
Title/Description ;
Date of creation ; (“und” = unknown)
Artist(s) ; (“unk” = unknown) [see the list of abbreviations below]
Blog post link(s) ;
Reference number of image(s) ; [see the list of references below]
Years floruit ;
Any other information
Artists – some abbreviations:
“GK” = “Gerard ‘Mo Chara’ Kelly”
“DD” = a Short Strand artist
“ML” = “Marty Lyons”
“MD” = “Michael Doherty”
“DC” = “Dee Craig”
“JS” = “John Stewart”
“ROM” = “Risteard Ó Murchú”
“LQ” = “Lucas Quigley”
“BA” = “Bogside Artists”
Reference numbers:
“X” and a five-digit number indicates the Extramural Activity collection;
“M” and a five-digit number indicates the collection of Peter Moloney;
“R” indicates the books of Bill Rolston (R91 = Politics & Painting, R1, R2, R3, R4 are the Drawing Support series) there then follows a page or plate number;
“A” and a three-digit number indicates the collection of Alain Miossec;
“C” and a five-digit number indicates the Tony Crowley collection at CCDL, images used in the maps with permission – for full-size images search the CCDL collection with “mni” then the five-digit number, e.g. mni00627
“J” and a four-digit number indicates the Jonathan McCormick collection at CAIN; we do not have permission to show these images on the map, and at CAIN only (roughly) one in twenty images is publicly available; search at CAIN with the four-digit number in the ‘Description’ field
“D” and a five-digit number indicates the collection of squire93@hotmail.com; images used in the maps with permission
“S” and a five-digit number indicates the collection of S; images used in the maps with permission
“T” and a five-digit number indiactes the collection of Paddy Duffy; images used in the maps with permission
Map copyright © 2012-2023 Extramural Activity. Downloading of the KML (or linking to the KML for live updating) is permitted for personal use only. For all other uses please contact extramuralactivity@gmail.com
Please send corrections to extramuralactivity@gmail.com
Please send offers of funding or hosting or collaboration to extramuralactivity@gmail.com
Is the mural that says The Red Hand of Ulster still there? It’s the one with the cut off hand of Ó Néill clutching the shores of Ireland. Can you tell me the exact location of it if the mural is still there?
Thank you.
This wall (off Shankill Pde) was redeveloped out of existence in stage 1 of the rebuild (circa 2014).
Are the murals listed on this website updated? Like are they removed from the map when they get taken down? There’s still some masked gunman murals in Belfast and in areas near Belfast right?
Sam – Yes, no, yes. The map is primarily intended to serve as a historical record rather than as a guide to current murals – we update the years floruit as best we can (which will give you a sense of what might still be showing in 2021, which does include a good number of ‘hooded gunmen’ murals) but we don’t remove murals that are no longer showing.
Sam – Here is a spreadsheet of current Belfast murals (early 2022):
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1dWkB6TAGq6VJKN8G1WD8VVGJHAxJCm8JOkp3IGNBaww/edit?usp=sharing