Bags in hand and breakfast in our tummy’s we said goodbye to our Pearl Court home in Belfast. Nothing, could prepare us for the amazing day that was ahead of us. It all started with Paddy Campbell's Belfast's Famous Black Cab Tours that took us down Shankill road and till we were standing in front of some of the murals. Seeing the murals in person was truly unreal.
The murals are painted on the sides of homes, two story homes, so no small task. On top of that, they are beautifully done by ar…everyday people, that’s right, not artists. Murals are made to commemorate and symbolize the culture and history of these communities. Some murals have been there since the beginning, some have been painted over, none without documentation of what came before. There have been recent projects to tone down some of the murals aiming to move forward and away from violence.
One of the murals that really stuck with me is the Mona Lisa of Belfast. The tittle comes from the Ulster Freedom Fighter who follows you wherever you go. This mural is located on Shankill road where only Protestants would walk past it. so the UFF would be pointing his gun at people of his own cause. I don’t know the intent of the artist but I feel that this mural is not only symbolizing loyalist but saying that a gun doesn’t care who it shoots, and the way that some of the violence occurred, neither do the fighters.
As if that wouldn’t have been a full trip in itself, our next stop was the Peace Walls. We stopped along Shankill road, at the area with the highest wall. These walls are unlike the Berlin Wall in that the people want them there. They are put in place and have been extended to decrease to violent neighbor on neighbor crimes. On Falls Road the houses also have fences so that petrol bombs, rocks, fireballs, thrown over will bounce off rather than right into their homes. You might think the number of walls decreases every year, but that isn’t the case, more walls are up now then they were when they were first built, and some, like the one separating Shankill road and Falls road has been extended to better do their job.
The murals are painted on the sides of homes, two story homes, so no small task. On top of that, they are beautifully done by ar…everyday people, that’s right, not artists. Murals are made to commemorate and symbolize the culture and history of these communities. Some murals have been there since the beginning, some have been painted over, none without documentation of what came before. There have been recent projects to tone down some of the murals aiming to move forward and away from violence.
One of the murals that really stuck with me is the Mona Lisa of Belfast. The tittle comes from the Ulster Freedom Fighter who follows you wherever you go. This mural is located on Shankill road where only Protestants would walk past it. so the UFF would be pointing his gun at people of his own cause. I don’t know the intent of the artist but I feel that this mural is not only symbolizing loyalist but saying that a gun doesn’t care who it shoots, and the way that some of the violence occurred, neither do the fighters.
As if that wouldn’t have been a full trip in itself, our next stop was the Peace Walls. We stopped along Shankill road, at the area with the highest wall. These walls are unlike the Berlin Wall in that the people want them there. They are put in place and have been extended to decrease to violent neighbor on neighbor crimes. On Falls Road the houses also have fences so that petrol bombs, rocks, fireballs, thrown over will bounce off rather than right into their homes. You might think the number of walls decreases every year, but that isn’t the case, more walls are up now then they were when they were first built, and some, like the one separating Shankill road and Falls road has been extended to better do their job.