Belfast Murals

The adage “If the walls could talk” is not truer anywhere else than it is in Belfast. Owing to the country’s past, and often times, present political and religious divisions, almost 2000 murals have been documented since the 1970s. In a country that has been struck by religious and political disturbance between the 1960s and 1990s, murals have been used by the people of Northern Ireland to commemorate and communicate the history and culture of the country, to pledge allegiance to either the Unionists or Nationalists, and more recently to bring about political and religious change. A walk along some of the streets that have these murals is enough to portray the sentiment of the people of Northern Ireland and what the country has been through in the last century. While most of the murals are either Nationalist (which can be found in Falls road) or Unionist (which can be found in Shankill road), there are many that have nothing to do with religion or politics, or for that matter, Northern Ireland.
For years, murals have been a way for people to portray an identity, but increasingly the political murals are being taken over by more neutral topics like sports, peace, and modern art.