Skip to main contentAccess keys help

[an error occurred while processing this directive]
BBC News
watch One-Minute World News
News imageNews image
Last Updated: Thursday, 13 October 2005, 10:19 GMT 11:19 UK
Mural giving Shankill a new image
Old UFF mural
The graffiti artists transformed this old loyalist mural...
A move to soften the image of west Belfast's Shankill Road has seen a loyalist paramilitary mural being replaced by something more colourful.

Graffiti artists have been hard at work painting over the Ulster Freedom Fighters mural which dominated the local landscape for many years.

The work took two days to complete.

Entitled Hidden Treasures, it features some of the best bits of past and present Belfast life.

Murals have often been seen as a symbol of Northern Ireland's divided past, glorifying both loyalist and republican paramilitaries while also marking territory.

In the past few years, they have even become a tourist attraction, with visitors to Belfast taking bus tours along the Shankill and Falls Roads.

Shankill community development worker William Smyth said it was important now to start changing young people's attitudes.

New mural
...to this new scene depicting famous Belfast images
"Our children are conditioned daily by paramilitary murals, and we need to recondition them to life that's non-paramilitary," he said.

The artists were a little surprised find themselves taking on such a project.

Darren Finnegan says this was "definitely the first time" they had done something like this, adding: "Hopefully it's the start of a lot more projects".

Fellow graffiti artist Boyd Hill said he had painted in locations such as Cape Town, New York and France but never anything like this.


SEE ALSO
Catholic face in loyalist estate
19 Sep 05 |  Northern Ireland
Old masters change murals
31 May 05 |  Northern Ireland
Loyalist art of east Belfast
31 May 05 |  In Pictures
The men behind the murals
26 May 05 |  Northern Ireland
In pictures: The Walls of Derry
26 May 05 |  In Pictures

RELATED INTERNET LINKS
The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites



FEATURES, VIEWS, ANALYSIS
Has China's housing bubble burst?
How the world's oldest clove tree defied an empire
Why Royal Ballet principal Sergei Polunin quit

PRODUCTS & SERVICES

AmericasAfricaEuropeMiddle EastSouth AsiaAsia Pacific