1The wall that runs along the border between the United States and Mexico, which Donald Trump pledged to extend during the 2016 American presidential campaign, has been turned into a collaborative work of art that is highly political in nature: Enrique Chiu, who is driving the project with the assistance of 4,000 other artists and volunteers, intends to send a pictorial message of peace and hope and to challenge US immigration policy by making the “Mural of Brotherhood” a symbol of unity rather than of division (Houeix 2018; Papathanasiou 2019). This is not a single example of a close connection between borders and murals: thirty years after the Berlin wall came down, the memory of the graffiti and mural paintings that covered sections of it are still vivid, while Palestinian resistance to the wall built by Israel in the West bank has often taken the form of protest art and political slogans (Larkin 2014).

2In Northern Ireland, mural painting became deeply associated with the “Troubles”, an ethno-national conflict, largely caused by the assertion of competing national identities in Northern Ireland: while the unionist majority wishes the province to remain within the United Kingdom, the large nationalist minority view themselves as Irish and are in favour of the Republic playing a stronger role in Northern Ireland1 (Tonge 2002, 1). The Northern Ireland conflict and the enduring political tensions are therefore essentially about the perception of territory and of the partition of Ireland, that is to say the presence of a border between the UK and the Republic, running south of counties Armagh, Tyrone and Fermanagh and east of Donegal. The perception of this border and of partition is one of the fundamental differences between unionists and nationalists. Paul Dixon thus explains that “For nationalists and republicans, the partition of Ireland was seen as an undemocratic imposition by the British to maintain their domination”; they also view partition as “artificial, since the border was not drawn with respect to the will of the people but as a result of power and the threat of force.” (Dixon 2008, 8). On the contrary, “unionists see the partition of Ireland as being democratic and resulting from the South’s decision to secede from the Union. The border of Northern Ireland is formed in a similar way to most others, being the result of conflicts of power rather than just following natural geographical features” (Dixon 2008, 8, 14). These views continued to hold sway, even after the 1998 Good Friday Agreement brought the conflict to an end and allowed a political compromise to emerge. Northern Irish borders, and the wider question of territory, thus remain a very contentious matter, as murals make it clearly visible.

3Besides the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic, which recently received a lot of attention in the context of the negociations on Brexit, there are many other tangible boundaries on Northern Irish soil: the so-called “peacelines” or “peace walls” are physical borders that separate Catholic from Protestant areas in many parts of Northern Ireland and especially in Belfast. These barriers were erected from the 1960s, after the Troubles had led both the authorities and many residents to view them as a necessary protection against violent incursions. Paradoxically, their numbers increased with the ceasefires, and there are still around 100 such “peacelines” in Northern Ireland today (Belfast Interface Project 2017b, 7).

4Residential segregation pre-existed the erection of the peacelines and has continued to exist in certain areas even in the absence of ubiquitous, solid walls or fences. Together with a few other visual displays, the flying of flags in particular, mural paintings participate in the visibilisation of the community divide and of residential segregation. When loyalists initially resorted to mural painting in the early twentieth century to voice their attachment to the Union and their determination to remain British, it also served to make residential segregation more clearly visible: Protestant and Catholic working-class neighbourhoods became identifiable thanks to the presence or absence of mural paintings (Jarman 1998). From the early 1980s, when republicans in turn adopted the practice of mural painting, murals produced on both sides of the sectarian barrier have addressed the question of national and geographical borders in different ways, thus reflecting and indeed reinforcing contested imaginative geographies, but also the essential divide between the two communities.

5The present study explores the multilayered relations between murals and borders in Northern Ireland. It rests on the analysis of a wide corpus of mural paintings produced since the beginning of the “Troubles”, including photographs made by Bill Rolston and published in the series of books Drawing Support, photographs made by Peter Moloney and Cathal Woods that are published online, and the author’s own photographs, taken in Belfast in 2011, 2012 and 2018. Murals will first be considered as images which provide complex and highly political representations of national borders and thus express the contested imaginative geographies of the two communities. As Neil Jarman convincingly argued, murals should also be approached as material artefacts, as objects that have the particularity of having been produced to be seen at fixed sites and in specific locales (1998): as we will show, when murals appear on or very near the peace walls, a powerful interaction is created between the murals, the interface space in which they are located, and their various audiences.

I. Murals and the Contested Imaginative Geographies of Northern Irish Borders

6The mural paintings that adorn the walls of Northern Irish cities are essentially political images that are meant to produce meaning and to express an ideology. In the words of Bill Rolston: “The murals act […] as a sort of barometer of political ideology. Not only do they articulate what republicanism or loyalism stand for in general, but, manifestly or otherwise, they reveal the current status of each of these political beliefs” (Rolston 2010, i). In so doing, they participate in the formation and permanence of the imaginative geographies of both communities. The concept of imaginative geographies was introduced by Edward Said in the first part of Orientalism (1995 [1978]); it has widely been used since to reflect on the ways in which images and discourses shape people’s apprehension and understanding of places. For Derek Gregory, imaginative geographies “are profoundly ideological landscapes whose representations of space are entangled with relations of power” (Gregory 1995, 474). Representations of geographical borders in loyalist and republican murals crucially participate in the projection of the contested politics of space that continue fracturing Northern Ireland.

7The first object of this paper is to explore the ideological implications of such representations through a semiological approach. The necessary primary step to take is therefore to address the following question: how can a border be represented visually? In other words, what are the visual signifiers that can be attached to the signifier “border”? Central here are flags and maps, which both appear in very large numbers of murals on both sides of the sectarian barrier. Indeed, beyond the case of Northern Irish murals, maps provide the most evident visual representation of borders, usually in the form of a continuous or dotted line separating at least two areas belonging to different political or geographical entities. A map can therefore be viewed, according to Pierce’s typology of signs (Rose 2001, 78), as an iconic sign of a border, insofar as the curves and orientation of the graphic line on the map are intended to resemble and imitate the delineation of an actual border2. Yet, as we are going to see, the use of cartography in murals sometimes challenges common representations of the Northern Irish border. With flags, the relationship between the signifier and the signified “border” is not one of resemblance, but of contiguity, making flags indexical signs of a border because of their omnipresence at border posts and border crossings. Concentrating both on maps and on flags, the loyalist and republican geographical imaginations will be successively examined through the representations of borders in mural paintings.

A. Borders and the Loyalist Geographical Imagination

8In keeping with the unionist political ideology which insists on Northern Ireland’s inclusion in the United Kingdom, the loyalist geographical imagination is largely built on references to Britain and Britishness. Just like a flag flying at a border’s post, the representation of Union Jacks on loyalist murals is meant as a reminder that Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom. The very common inclusion of the Union Jack in mural paintings thus expresses the loyalists’ determination to see the Northern Irish territory remain fully within the United Kingdom. This is the message clearly conveyed in the murals that feature either the Union Jack on its own or elaborate inanimate compositions combining the Union Jack with other flags, like the Ulster flag or the Scottish flag (Rolston 2010, 5–9, 21). The Union Jack may also be incorporated in the flag or blazon of the paramilitary group or the flute band that commissioned the mural in question. This was the case of a mural observed in July 2018 in Hemp Street, Belfast, in which the Union flag appeared in the top left corner of a blazon of the East Protestant Boys, thus laying emphasis on the centrality of unionism among the flute band’s values.

9The Union Jack also often appears as a secondary element in the iconography of a mural. The most common single iconographic theme in the loyalist tradition is “King Billy”, that is to say depictions of King William III striding a white horse and crossing a river. Such murals are an explicit reference to the Battle of the Boyne of 1690, which was decisive in defeating King James II during the Jacobite-Williamite War. Through this event, loyalists commemorate what they view as a Protestant victory over a Catholic king and assert their loyalty to the crown but also their opposition to Catholicism. Drawing Support contains several reproductions of King Billy murals which include the Union Jack (Rolston 2010, 2–4). In one of these, painted in Derry in 1982 (Rolston 2010, 2), the main iconographic theme appears in a medallion, surmounted by a crown and framed by two series of three flags: the Union flag, the Ulster flag and the Scottish flag. The flags and crown recall another dimension of the Battle of the Boyne, which secured the throne for monarchs William and Mary and therefore consolidated the English constitutional monarchy. King Billy’s victory is therefore presented here as a major event in a common history that unites Ulster with England and Scotland.

10Several other loyalist murals provide visual glorifications of the Union. The long series of mural paintings commissioned in 2014 by the East Belfast Historical and Cultural Society to adorn Thorndyke Street, Belfast, include an allegory of Britannia, complete with her traditional accessories (the helmet and trident) as well as with her lion (fig. 1).

Fig. 1. Britannia with Ulster flag. Mural. Thorndyke Street, Belfast.

11This powerful symbolism is reinforced by the presence of no less than five versions of the Union Jack, represented as a flag flying on its mast in the lower half of the composition, but also as a more abstract rectangle that hovers over the allegory. Encircling the latter flag, three smaller-scale flags (the cross of Saint George, the cross of Saint Andrews and the cross of Saint Patrick) illustrate the compositional origins of the Union Jack, as a combination of three pre-existing flags. On a more figurative level, they also insist on the United Kingdom being composed of various entities that are held together by the monarchy, symbolized by the crown, which tops the Union Jack.

12While references to the Union are very common in murals through the use of the British flag, references to the South and the Republic are systematically minimized, challenged or completely left out. This is often the case through the use of maps. The mural calling for support for loyalist prisoners, which was photographed on Meekon Street, Belfast, in 1989 (fig. 2) is unique in that it features a map that does not leave out the South of Ireland.

Fig. 2. “We support all loyalist prisoners”. Mural. Meekon Street, Belfast.

13The South, painted orange, white and green, is included here but not to suggest any sense of shared experience; indeed it is being smashed by the clenched red fist of Ulster, one of the strongest symbols associated to loyalism. Often represented encircled by a barbed wire, it is commonly associated to the cause of loyalist prisoners, as is the case in this mural. The border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland is explicitly represented, its line being made all the more visible by the contrast between the fractured surface of the Republic and the solid aspect of Northern Ireland buttressed by the orthogonal lines of the Ulster Flag’s St Georges cross. The geographical imagination that is expressed through this mural thus heavily relies on conflicting relations between North and South and on the assertion of Ulster’s strength and capacity to harm the southern state.

14A far more common iconography in loyalist mural paintings is the use of a map showing the outline of Northern Ireland, detached from the south of the island, as if it had no connection with it whatsoever. Several such murals were produced at different stages during the conflict or since the Belfast Agreement (Rolston 2010, 7, 22). In one of these (Moloney 1988a), we can see a free-floating Northern Ireland coloured as a Union Jack. Together with the kerbstones painted red, white and blue, which appear in the foreground of the photograph, this mural strongly expressed the loyalists’ determination to maintain the Northern Irish territory within the borders of the United Kingdom. However, while this type of map tends to isolate Northern Ireland from the South of Ireland, it also de facto isolates it from Britain. To paraphrase John Donne, such murals represent Northern Ireland as if it were “an island entire of itself” (1990, 272). This effect is all the stronger when, instead of the Union flag as in the previous example, one sees the Ulster flag in association with this type of map. On at least two murals, one photographed in 1988 (Moloney 1988b), the other, in 2018 (fig. 3), loyalist gunmen are featured in front of the map.

Fig. 3. UFF hooded gunmen with outline of Northern Ireland. Mural. Avoniel Road, Belfast.

15Such a representation of the outline of Northern Ireland detached both from the South and from Britain, combined with the presence of one only flag, the Ulster flag, conveys the idea of a totally isolated province, which mistrusts its neighbours and relies instead on the forces of paramilitary groups for the protection of its people and its borders.

B. Borders and the Republican Geographical Imagination

16Since the early days of republican mural painting, the flags and emblems that appear in murals produced in the nationalist community have reflected a strikingly different geographical imagination. During the Stormont era3, the discrimination suffered by the Catholic community in employment and in housing was accompanied by another form of discrimination: while the Protestant community could, and was indeed encouraged to, express its national identity freely through carefully designed and meticulously painted compositions adorning the gable houses of their neighbourhoods, it was forbidden for nationalists even to paint an Irish tricolour on the walls. Hastily painted tricolours, along with IRA graffiti were the first visual expression of republican resistance. From these ornate graffiti, republican mural painting emerged as a massive cultural practice at the time of the hunger strikes of 1981 (Rolston 1989, 76–8). In the first early murals, the tricolour flag often occupied a prevalent position, standing out in bright colours against the black background that was used as a sign of mourning for the dead hunger strikers. In other murals, tricolours would appear as secondary smaller-scale elements, the main topic being an evocation of the plight of the hunger strikers; there, the tricolours merely worked as a reminder of the republican cause for which the hunger strikers had given their life4. Through these murals, the encroachment of the Irish flag upon officially British territory asserted the essential tenet of Irish nationalism, that is to say that the whole island of Ireland was Irish. Beyond the expression of Irish nationalism, representations of the tricolour also served another purpose: as the IRA does not have its own flag, the tricolour often acted as an ambiguous symbol, conveying both the republican geographical imagination, which views the North as belonging to the Republic of Ireland, and political support for the republican paramilitary organisation.

17The Irish tricolour is still to be seen in more recent murals, like the memorial to three republican volunteers on Divismore Way, Belfast (fig. 4).

Fig. 4. Armed republicans. Mural. Divismore Way, Belfast.

18This mural shows three armed republicans from different periods, who are identified by the textual message on the right hand side of the mural painting. The three men stand out against a heavy sky in which a large tricolour flies. Again, the flag serves as a reference both to the IRA and to the idea of a united Ireland for which these republican volunteers took arms. The idea of all-Ireland unity is emphasised through the inclusion of the emblems of all four historical Irish provinces: Leinster, Munster, Connaught and Ulster. Appearing at the top of the mural in the gable area, these emblems articulate the basic tenet of republican ideology and of the republican geographical imagination as they imply that Ulster is one of the four provinces of Ireland and that the border separating Northern Ireland from the Republic has no historical validity.

19Insistence on the unity of Ireland through a representation of the emblems of the four provinces is fairly common. In July 2018, it was thus possible to observe no fewer than three murals containing such representations while walking down the Falls Road. One of these three murals included in its centre a small-scale outline of the island of Ireland. On top of the map, coloured in green, the colour traditionally associated to Ireland, one could read a number, 32. This is a reference to the 32 counties which historically made up Ireland, but of which six were separated through the Partition of 1920 that created Northern Ireland as a separate political entity from the southern State. Such a mural therefore offers another articulation of the republican contestation of the validity of the border which isolates six counties from the other 26.

20Since the early 1980s, many murals have included a map showing the whole of Ireland without any sign of the border between the Republic of Ireland and the northern province. Rolston thus photographed on Kashmir Road in 1981 a mural depicting an IRA gunman on the backdrop of the island painted like a tricolour flag (2010, 37). This mural, which belongs to the first wave of republican mural paintings and was produced at the time of the “long war” waged by the IRA against the British state, was probably intended as a call to arms, aiming to draw more young men to the ranks of the paramilitary organisation, by providing a visual summary of the key principles of republican ideology: Ireland is one, and worth fighting for.

21Other maps and flags often appear in republican murals. The Palestinian flag in particular, as well as maps of Palestinian territories are very common in both early and contemporary murals. There is a strong international solidarity between Irish nationalists and Palestinians (Doyle 2007). The parallelism between Northern Ireland and Palestine is common in republican verbal and visual discourse and has often been used to reinforce the republican view of Northern Ireland as being illegitimately occupied by a foreign force. Similarly, solidarity with Basque and Catalan nationalists has been put forward in murals using maps and flags to support this message. In all these murals, it can be argued that the borders of Northern Ireland are being expanded further, beyond the island of Ireland, to include an international federation of occupied peoples.

22On both sides of the sectarian divide, murals thus allow the representation of complex imaginative geographies, which involve very different appreciations of the notion of borders. Borders however are not merely represented by murals; indeed, murals often act as borders, effectively and symbolically separating communities.

II. Murals, “Peacelines” and the Community Divide

23Drawing on Jarman’s approach of murals as being “site-specific” (1998), this section focuses on those murals that are located close to borders and examines the role such a location has on the production of meaning and on their impact on viewers. Rather than focusing on the international border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, this section concentrates on the many physical borders that exist between nationalist and unionist neighbourhoods, that is to say the so-called “peacelines” or “peace walls” that have been erected since the beginning of the Troubles to separate the two communities in the interfaces where Catholic and Protestant areas border each other. Although these walls or fences exist in other Northern Irish towns like Derry, Portadown or Lurgan, most of them are to be found in Belfast and their exact locations have been mapped by the Belfast Interface Project (2017a). As noted by Peter Shirlow, the number of such boundaries actually increased following the paramilitary ceasefires in the mid-1990s (2008, 79). The latest report published by the Belfast Interface Project identifies 97 such barriers in Belfast alone, a large majority of which were built by the security forces to prevent or reduce sectarian clashes, while others were private initiatives or were erected by the Northern Ireland Housing Executive. They can take many forms: some are high metallic structures or solid brick or stone walls, while others are wooden fences or gates that can be closed or opened to allow traffic (2017b, 7–9). All of them are a striking reminder that Belfast remains a segregated city. Although murals more frequently appear in the back streets of loyalist or republican neighbourhoods (Jarman 1992, 156), some appear either on the peace walls or in their immediate proximity and therefore entertain a particular relationship with these boundaries, acting as fences, gateways or challenges to the other community.

A. Murals as Fences

24One of the longest peace walls of Belfast, and also one of the oldest, part of it having been erected by the security forces in 1969 (Belfast Interface Project 2017b, 25–26), runs along Cupar Way, separating the Catholic Falls Road from the Protestant Shankill area. On the Shankill side, it is now largely covered in graffitis and a few large-scale, well-finished mural paintings, several of which were executed in 2009, as replacements for paramilitary murals (Moriarty, 2009). One of these (fig. 5) is framed by words engraved in the concrete wall: “Israel – Palestine – Falls – Nicosia – Baghdad – Berlin” at the top and “Security – Separation – Perception – Reality – Fear – Trust – Belief” at the bottom.

Fig. 5. “Only a fool would fight if there is a hope for accommodation.” Mural. Cupar Way, Belfast.

25This verbal message gives the appearance of a universalist discourse, raising awareness of issues such as the connection between peace walls and security, separation from and perception of the Other community, about the contrast between reality and fear, and about the importance of trust. At first sight, these words may seem to invite unionist viewers to reconsider their perception and fear of what lies on the other side of this wall (the Falls and its residents) as a possible move towards reconciliation. However, the terms “security” and “separation” are given more weight because they come first in the list and their inclusion may actually serve to legitimize the peace wall which is still viewed by many residents as a necessary protection.

26The mural framed by these two lines of words is even more ambiguous. As shown by other “reimaging” initiatives, the replacement of paramilitary murals with other, apparently less aggressive themes, is not necessarily a guarantee that the visual discourse proposed in the new composition will promote reconciliation between the two communities (Hill and White 2012, Lehni 2015). To the right of the mural, a reference to the 2006 St Andrews Agreement, a major event in the Northern Irish peace process which made power sharing between the Democratic Unionist Party and Sinn Fein possible (Coulter and Murray 2008, 11), needs to be read as a form of support for the peace process and the end of violence. The main textual message included in the mural, a quote by Edward Carson (“Only a fool would fight if there is a hope of accommodation”) may at first come across as pacifist, but the non-violence stance advised is conditional, which minimises the value of this quote as an incentive for the preservation of peace. Moreover, Edward Carson, one of the early leaders of political unionism, who is also represented on the left hand-side of the picture, is a very divisive political figure, who remains famous for his staunch opposition to, and effective activism against the third Home Rule Bill in the 1910s. In the central part of the composition, one can see a member of the Orange Order: this fraternity, which is pledged to the defence of Protestantism and has always had a close relationship with Unionist leaders, has retained an aura of respectability among unionists, but it is widely perceived as a sectarian organisation by nationalists (McKenna n.d.). The Orangeman on this mural is walking gaily with two children, the boy already wearing the sash of the Order. This can obviously be read as a sign of the transfer of unionist values to the new generation, an interpretation reinforced by the motive of the trees with long roots in the background. While this would obviously be viewed as a positive symbol by unionists, nationalists would certainly not share this appreciation. There may well be a further source of division in the central theme of this mural. Indeed, the attitudes of the three characters may be read as support for the continuation of the Orange Order’s marching tradition; parading is a very popular practice among Northern Irish Protestants, but one that has caused some of the most heated disputes between nationalists and unionists since the ceasefires (McKenna n.d.). Finally, the mural contains another verbal message in the form of a date (23rd October 1972) written in small bright red characters at the top of the mural, close to the words “Sacrifice” and “Shankill Road”: this is a reference to one of the most fatal events of the Troubles, when an IRA bomb killed nine Protestant civilians and injured 57 people on the Shankill Road. This reference is probably missed by the many tourists who pass by this mural (the peaceline on Cupar Way being one of the main stops on the Belfast tourist trail) and who would arguably be more sensitive to the universalist discourse analysed earlier. For local Protestant residents it would, however, ring a powerful note, and it is more likely to convince them of the necessity to maintain the wall than to bring it down. All in all, while it is possible to view this mural as a rejection of violence—albeit not a very strong one—, it cannot be read as a plea in favour of the reconciliation of a segregated society.

27On the contrary, another mural just a few hundred meters away expresses a much more straightforward endorsement of reconciliation. Located on North Howard Street, it features young people as well as elements of the Belfast urban landscape on both sides of the sectarian barrier—visual signs of hope and openness—accompanied by the following verbal message: “There is more in common than what divides us”. As revealed by the logos that appear in the bottom right corner, this 2011 mural received financial support from the European Union and the City of Belfast, which are both involved in re-imagining initiatives as a way to achieve reconciliation between the two communities. This mural appears in the buffer zone between the two lines of the peace walls, which may seem the perfect location for such a discourse; however, this is in fact a no-man’s land, where no one lives and few local by-walkers stop. The location of this mural therefore minimizes its influence in transforming attitudes among both communities.

28On another peace wall, located off Springfield Road and separating the Catholic Ballymurphy area from the Protestant neighbourhoods further north, appears a long mural showing different super heroes (fig. 6).

Fig. 6. Superheroes smashing down walls. Mural. Sliabh Dubh View, off Springfield Road, Belfast.

29Because they belong to American popular culture, rather than the nationalist or unionist cultures, they can be considered as common references for both communities and as a shared imagery to which the many drivers passing along this road everyday can relate. Moreover, the mural incorporates a trompe-l’oeil effect which gives the illusion that the super heroes are destroying the wall on which they have been painted, thus conveying a message of hope for a future with no barriers between the two communities. Thanks to Google maps, it is possible to turn one’s attention to the other side of this peace wall, in the Catholic Ballymurphy area, which features a series of murals referring to Palestine (Google Maps 2016; Belfast Interface Project 2017b, 19). These murals, aimed at the republican community living on Springhill Avenue, convey a much more divisive message than the mural on the other side of the peace wall which addresses a mixed audience.

B. Murals as Gateways

30Murals can also appear at the entrance of a particular neighbourhood, making it clear where it belongs in terms of the political and sectarian divide; they therefore act as gateways. The most typical example of this function is to be found in Derry and is certainly the most famous of all murals in Northern Ireland. The Free Derry mural originated as a large graffiti, written in January 1969 on a gable end facing onto what was then known as Fox’s Corner and later came to be referred to as Free Derry Corner (Moloney 2019). The first appearance of this message on the wall is connected to the erection of barricades by republicans to protect the Catholic communities living within the Bogside and adjacent areas against violent incursions by loyalists and the police forces. Thanks to the barricades, the so-called Free Derry became a no-go zone for the police forces for a short while at first and then repeatedly during the Troubles (Jarman 1998). This mural therefore worked as a sort of borders post, marking the difference between the rest of the city and “Free Derry”, an area free of police intervention, a territory therefore reclaimed from the British State and controlled by republicans.

31As an echo to the Free Derry mural, the words “You are now entering Loyalist Sandy Row” were painted in 2001 at the entrance of a loyalist area in Belfast, known as Sandy Row (Moloney 2001). This wording implies that one is crossing a border to enter a distinctive area and indeed Sandy Row is a staunchly loyalist and working-class enclave that lies close to the much more mixed and middle-class city centre. The iconography of the mural is even more striking than its verbal message and reinforces the impression of a border crossing. A hooded paramilitary holding his gun appears in the bottom left corner, as if he were a sentinel guarding the entrance to this neighbourhood. The effect produced on viewers obviously depends on their position as regards the sectarian barrier. It most probably is intended to intimidate passers-by who would not identify as loyalists (or with the UFF, the paramilitary group who commissioned the mural) and discourage them from entering. In that respect, this mural works both as a gateway, signalling the entrance to a distinctive area and as a challenge to Others, be they republicans, the security forces or rival paramilitary groups.

C. Murals as Challenges to the Other

32Like the Sandy Row mural, which is visible from an important thoroughfare leading from West Belfast to the city centre, murals situated in interface areas can sometimes be seen from beyond community borders or peacelines. In that case, they tend to have a dual audience. They are meant for the community who lives in the neighbourhood where they are located, but can also act as a signal to those who live on the other side of the peaceline.

33In 2010, a mural commemorating the five Catholic civilians who were shot dead by the British Army in the Ballymurphy area of Belfast in July 1972 appeared on Springfield Road (fig. 7).

Fig. 7. “Springhill-Westrock massacre.” Mural. Springfield Road, Belfast.

34This mural was painted on one side of a disaffected house which is immediately adjacent to, and indeed an extension of, the fence and walls separating the republican Ballymurphy from the main thoroughfare (Belfast Interface Project 2011, 22). Like many other murals, this one serves as a memorial to local victims of the Troubles. Its function is also deeply political: the presentation of this event as a “massacre” and as the “murder [of] Irish citizens” (the bright red of the lettering emphasising the notion of State violence) is meant to fuel anger at the British state and reinforce Irish nationalist feelings. This mural however is not only meant for the Catholic communities living on Springhill Avenue, from where it is clearly visible. Because it is located exactly on the peaceline, this mural can also be seen from Springfield Road, which has very intense traffic, from parts of the Protestant neighbourhood north of it, and from the Police Station immediately opposite the mural. The mural therefore takes on a new dimension because of its location: it acts as a call on the conscience of all unionist car-drivers and nearby residents who are made to reflect on the actions of the British forces. It is also meant as a challenge to the police forces located opposite, and by extension to the British authorities, by demanding the introduction of a truth commission to investigate this event.

35On the other side of the sectarian barrier, in another interface area of Belfast, a similar double reading can be applied to a World War One commemorative mural which appears on Ulster Tower Street (fig. 8).

Fig. 8. “Ulster Tower.” Mural. Tower Street, Belfast.

36The name of the street was actually modified from the original Tower Street at the same time as the inauguration of this mural, both initiatives being part of the local celebrations of Ulster’s participation in the First World War, which also involved residents transforming the street into a reproduction of the Western Front with piles of sandbags heaped in a corner and canvas used to cover the front walls (Extramural Activity 2016). The main element of the mural painting is Ulster Tower, a memorial tower which was built on the site of the Battle of Thiepval in 1921 to commemorate the contribution of the 36th (Ulster) Division to the war (Somme Association 2019). This is by no means a new iconographic subject: memorials of the First World War were one of the mural themes favoured by the unionist community in the first half of the 20th century and indeed one of those that remained in use during the Troubles, even though paramilitary themes had taken precedence over the traditional subject matters (Rolston 2010). It is clearly a more consensual theme than paramilitary murals depicting hooded gunmen with all their weaponry and the replacement of such themes by less openly violent themes has been encouraged since the 2000s (Hill and White 2012). In the context of the centenary anniversary of the First World War, this iconography became more present than ever before on the walls of loyalist neighbourhoods. In all likelihood, this mural received important local support as the memory of the First World War is still a very potent aggregator for the loyalist community. For the community itself, the mural therefore aims to create a sense of togetherness based on common values and common memories.

37The location of this mural however provides it with added meaning. Indeed, it stands just opposite the peace wall separating the westernmost part of Protestant east Belfast from the Catholic Short Strand. Because the peaceline consists here of a metallic fence rather than a solid wall, the mural is visible from the houses located on the Catholic side of Beechfield Street. Although it is far less aggressive than many paramilitary murals that can still be observed in east Belfast and elsewhere, its presence remains a challenge to neighbouring nationalists. The vivid blue of the background combined with the bright red of the poppies recalls a Union Jack, an association strengthened by the presence of Union flags flying in the immediate vicinity; the mural can therefore be read as a strong territorial claim on the neighbourhood. Moreover, although the barbed wire which appears in the lower part of the mural is intended as a reference to World War One trenches, it cannot but call to mind the metallic fence of the adjacent peaceline. Consequently, the black figures outlined in the lower part of the mural may not merely commemorate the soldiers who battled at Thiepval or the Somme; the mural might indeed be working as a warning to the Catholic community on the other side of the barrier by implying that loyalist paramilitary sentinels are still active in this part of Belfast and ready to defend their community should they feel threatened.

Conclusion

38As we have seen, murals can be deeply connected to the notion of borders, because of their subject matters, their functions and their locations. As images, murals have long contributed to the formation of contested imaginative geographies, the permanence of which illustrates the degree to which Northern Irish society is still divided, not only physically by peacelines, but also by frontiers of the mind. Loyalist and republican murals continue to offer strikingly different visions of national identity, of national borders, of ideals and of worldviews. There have been attempts at encouraging the replacement of the most divisive imagery by more positive themes, as a recognition of the performative power of images (Hill and White 2012; Lehni 2015; Rolston 2012): murals, indeed, do not just reflect divisions, but participate in their creation and their permanence. However, images that truly go beyond the sectarian barrier remain a small minority and most murals continue to address either one or the other of the two communities. With few notable exceptions, like the super-hero mural on Sliabh Dubh View, the messages conveyed by murals that represent borders or are located on or near the peacelines are usually not based on consensus, nor do they often encourage reconciliation. While physical boundaries between neighbouring communities remain and hard international borders may well soon be re-erected with Brexit, the most unsurmountable barriers in Northern Ireland remain the symbolical borders of the mind.