Falls Road Photo | TrekEarth

Photographer’s Note

I had shown you murals in Derry a few days ago, here are now other murals on Falls Road, catholic neighbourhood in the west of Belfast city. At this place, many murals cover the wall of an industrial estate on about 200 meters long. Most of them promote political beliefs about Ireland, but not only about Ireland : Basque Country, Palestine, opposition to Bush or to Cuba blockage. One of the murals (see workshop 1) honours the Black Taxis : they were the only public transport during the troubles while official public transports stopped to serve Falls neighbourhood. Further in the street you can see a mural about Bobby Sands (see workshop 2) on the walls of seat of Sinn Fein, the republican party. Bobby Sands was a member of IRA. He died on hunger strike while in HM Prizon Maze (aka Long Kesh). Many people regard him as a martyr who stood against the intransigence of the British Government.

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Critiques | Translate

Hunkar (4944) 2009-07-28 12:46

A nice meaningful scene of posters,
Good wall composition,
Best regards,

marietom (32108) 2009-07-29 3:38

salut Olivier,

bien vu, ce mur très expressif !
Bonne journée
marie

cdmonson (2771) 2009-07-29 9:33

Hi Olivier:

Another good one. If I'd known about these murals I probably would have made a greater effort to get to Belfast. I lived two years in Santiago, Chile, which is filled with political murals. There are thousands of them everywhere--murals of Allende, murals of other communist or socialist leaders, and of course murals of that over-commercialized icon Che Guevara. So needless to say I love this kind of stuff.

America's greatest failure? Hmm...I don't know, I'd be tempted to vote for Ulysses Grant, James Buchanan, or Warren Harding on that one. But of course no one remembers those presidents. :) Funny mural anyway though.

One difference I found between Chilean and Irish political murals was that, like you mentioned, Irish murals expressed solidarity with various groups all over the world. Other than the U.S. or Cuba, Chilean murals didn't generally mention other countries. But the Irish certainly did.

I mentioned to my dad the overwhelming Irish support for Palestinians, and he was somewhat surprised. I was like, "Dad, look at the history of Ireland. Of course the Irish are going to sympathize with the underdog anytime they believe them to be repressed by a more powerful nation." Makes sense to me.

Anyway, nice photo. Really brings me back to Ireland and Santiago.

Clark