It is a simplistic sign signaling a complicated history. The cream painted background and basic black lettering is difficult to miss due to its massive size, taking up the entire side of an apartment building at the corner of Lecky Road and Fahan Street in the Bogside of Belfast, Northern Ireland.
“YOU ARE NOW ENTERING FREE DERRY”
The words were painted in 1969 after an unauthorized evening attack by a group of former Northern Irish policemen. After the attack, residents self-declared ‘Free Derry’ as an autonomous nationalist area of Derry in Northern Ireland. Community activists secured the area and built barricades to keep police from entering. This was only one small piece of the puzzle in the conflict that plagued Northern Ireland.
“I’m just an artist,” said Tom with a thick Irish brogue. “I am here to tell you a very human story and to show you real art. This is not propaganda. There’s a very significant difference between propaganda and paintings.” Sporting a checkered navy blue flat cap and a Guinness-loving belly, Tom looks exactly how I pictured a middle aged Irish man would. Tom Kelly has been working on murals with his brother William and their friend Kevin Hasson since 1993, when they first formed their trio called ‘The Bogside Artists.’ With a grave determination to commemorate the lives of those lost in conflict and a passion for creating art, the three artists strive to tell the true story of the ethno-nationalist conflict that devastated Ireland. Tom is here to share his work and tell my class this story. We are visiting Northern Ireland to learn about its calamitous recent history.
I shuffle along the brick sidewalk and look around, slowly taking in the scene. From my foreigner’s perspective, it looks like any other typical suburb. To my right is a collection of uniform cream colored apartments. To my left, the same, but in a burnt reddish-brown color. It is deserted, likely because of the drizzle. The lawns are all the same shade of lime green, giving the neighborhood a certain vibrancy. Yet, the destruction and strife that occurred during the Irish conflict known as ‘The Troubles’ make this area anything but neighborly.
The Troubles began in 1968 and was primarily about the constitutional status of Northern Ireland. The Loyalists wanted Northern Ireland to remain part of the UK while the Republicans wanted a united Ireland. The conflict is most commonly talked about as the Protestants versus the Catholics; however, it was not a religious conflict but rather an ethno-nationalist conflict. Although it has been more than 20 years since its official end, the Troubles left a permanent scar on Ireland.
Next to the sign signaling where Free Derry begins, there is a series of large-scale murals spanning the entirety of Rossville Street. This is the Bogside Artists’ open art gallery, depicting twelve key elements of the thirty-year politically charged conflict. It is called ‘The People’s Gallery.’ The art tells the story of people’s struggle in seeking justice.
Out of the corner of my eye I see a young boy, no older than 16, frantically running away from something. He inhales deeply then covers his mouth as if the air is toxic. A puff of gray clouds form behind him. I can almost feel his rapid heartbeat just by looking at him. Then I see them: British army members with thick gas masks, immune to the canister of tear gas they had just fired. I hear shrieks of terror in the background, the kind of screams people only make when fear meets grief. Gunshots sound in the distance. I realize I am standing in the middle of a riot.
“Good art tells it the way it is. It pushes things forward. We, as The Bogside Artists, don’t create these murals for our egos or to gain attention. We paint the murals and step down, no ego involved. We don’t do it for money, I live on welfare anyway. We just want to tell the real story and for people to feel something.” I feel heavy. The thought of children running away from tear gas sickens me. The color scheme makes the mural appear to be in shadow, the dim design representative of conflict being behind Ireland. The artists painted this piece to serve as a cautionary reminder to young people of the “danger inherent in civil conflict.” War does not see age.
Tom pauses like he is about to say something of extra importance. “A 16-year-old boy was killed right over there.” He points to a spot on the pavement a few feet away. The Irish Republican Army exploded a bomb on the city walls during a Bloody Sunday commemoration march, intending to kill security force members. Charles Love was standing a quarter mile from the bomb explosion and got struck by debris. “We were neighborhood friends. He cried out to me after being struck. I saw him die.” A chill runs through my body. The only sound I can hear is the wisp of the wind tugging on my jacket.
I am standing on the exact grounds where Irish nationalism met British colonialism in the violent, ethno-nationalist conflict that took so many lives. I am observing first-hand how the symbolic landscape of the city manifested the divide between the two sides in what appears to be an intractable conflict that has defined both Ireland’s history as well as its current state.“Again, this, is the story of armed conflict depicted. Conflict is not black and white. It’s murky. But this conflict happened right where you’re standing.” In this moment, it becomes all too real.
Tom continues on, opening up about his religious views. He grew up in an Atheist, communist community. It was all he knew at the time. But after witnessing the horrors of war he turned to religion. “Now, my wife and I are actively involved with the Christian church right up the road because it is a positive community.” Tom views religion as a way to seek reconciliation and peace amidst the brokenness of humanity.
I look up at the next apartment building and notice bullet holes in the wall, real, not painted. Suddenly, I am transported back to January 30th, 1972. Pain shoots through my ear as a gunshot threatens to blow my eardrum. It is a British army member opening fire right before my eyes. He is standing on top of a blood soaked civil rights banner splayed across the grass, holding his gun in a display of power and protection. A group of four men scoop up a fallen boy, who appears lifeless. I stand in disbelief, trapped in the middle of a horror movie. Farther in the distance, thousands of marchers carry a civil rights banner. They scream, shout, and cry but refuse to back down. One of Northern Ireland’s darkest days, Bloody Sunday, happened right where I am standing. British soldiers marched into the Bogside during a protest and opened fire, killing fourteen Catholics.
The steady rainfall fits the mood of the town. For a split second I regret not bringing an umbrella, but then the bitter wind whips my face and I remember that there was no point in bringing it, for the wind would carry it away and present it as a gift to the Irish countryside. Or is it the British countryside? Instead, I embrace my second shower of the day and a fresh, earthy scent fills my nostrils as the sky cries alongside the spirits of those fallen in the conflict.
Tom introduces a young girl named Annette McGavigan. She is dressed in a traditional Irish school uniform, pleated emerald green skirt and all. Her fair skin almost matches the color of her white long sleeve polo blouse. A mane of jet-black hair hangs just below her shoulders. She is beautiful, possessing that look of naivety only found in children. An orange and blue butterfly flutters above her head. Behind her, chaos ensues. The black and blue debris of a bombed-out building piles up in the distance. Annette was the first child shot dead on the Bogside’s streets. The 14-year-old schoolgirl was killed in crossfire. Annette was only one of many innocent adolescent deaths.
But the mural, like the others in the People’s Gallery, is meant to memorialize the past to better the future. Tom describes their art work as pieces that show the wounds but symbolize hope and pushing forward. He explains that “a wound must be cleaned out and examined before it will heal. It is the unexamined wound that festers and finally poisons. Our work shows the wounds.” The butterfly symbolizes new life: a metamorphosis of Ireland. Next to Annette a red rifle the size of her body points downward. It is broken, because violence and armed conflict no longer has a place in Northern Ireland.
“We never claim to be the best artists purely by a visual appeal aspect. But our art goes beyond being visually appealing. We want to tell the story so that young people can learn from it. We want to send them the message to ‘be your own person.’ We want to tell them to stand on their own two feet and to have their own convictions. These murals were made to challenge our own community.” Tom inhales a big breath of air and lets out a sigh, as if that short speech took it out of him. “That was pretty good, wasn’t it?” He chuckles. His cheeky humor seeps through, even though it is a solemn topic. “These murals are created as a cathartic experience. There’s a lot of blood on these streets.”
Tom points out the final mural in the People’s Gallery collection called the ‘Peace Mural.’ The background is 42 squares, each painted a different bright color. Each square is equal in length and size, meant to be symbolize equality for all. At the forefront of the piece is the white outline of a dove. The squares at the base of the mural are darkest, getting lighter toward the top. The dove is rising above the blood and sorrow toward a brighter future. It represents the freedom from conflict that Tom and many others so desperately hope to bestow onto the next generation. My sorrow lingers as Tom says goodbye, but I feel optimistic about Ireland’s future.