Belfast Northern Ireland Wall Murals

By Karen Lotter

Taking Photographs of Wall Murals in Belfast, Northern Ireland

Belfast, Northern Ireland was a wonderful surprise. After a month in Dublin I hired a car and drove up to Belfast where I knew I’d have to try to remember to use pounds instead of Euro for just over a week until I drove back into the Republic via Derry.

I didn’t know much about Belfast other than what I’d heard and read. It’s a favorite setting for the kind of novels I read, what we call "skiet en donner" in Afrikaans (roughly translated "shoot and #@! up") – plenty are set in Troubles scenarios. You know the Ronin type stories?

Northern Ireland has been described as "one of the most over-narrativised areas of the world", with novelists making a bad situation worse by reinforcing cliches and stereotypes about the causes of violence.

So before I even drove into Belfast one drizzly July day, I already had an idea of where I wanted to go and what I wanted to see.

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Wall Art? Murals? Graffiti?

Cool Cade is an Artist

Most of the images on this website are from a flickr.com friend of mine who calls himself cool cade.

I love the strength of the colours and the boldness of the images. Hell I'm no art critic but instead of municipalities and residents gathering posses to stop graffiti, why don't they encourage the taggers and the wall painters and let them decorate all those ugly walls and abandoned buildings in our urban landscapes.

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