Book review — Drawing Support 5: Murals, Memory and Identity in the North of Ireland (Bill Rolston)
by Gijs HOEKZEMA
1 June 2023
Drawing Support 5: Murals, Memory and Identity in the North of Ireland is the fifth volume in a series of books by Professor Bill Rolston in which he shows a range of murals in Northern Ireland. The murals presented in this volume are all painted between 2013 and 2021. This period almost perfectly coincided with the “decade of centenaries” and these events continue to be part of the vivid memory of various groups in Northern Ireland.
Drawing Support 5 contains 115 images of murals which are divided into three categories: loyalism, republicanism, and other murals. The murals within the category of loyalism are furthermore divided into three categories: history, paramilitaries, and miscellaneous. The murals within the category of republicanism are divided into five categories: military and memorial, history, internationalism, legacy, and miscellaneous.
The book starts with an introduction to the history of the mural painting tradition and an overview of the different roles that they have played over time. As Rolston explains, the tradition started at the beginning of the twentieth century, when people in Protestant areas painted images of King William III to celebrate his victory over the Catholic King James II. This image remained dominant within the Protestant/Unionist/Loyalist (PUL) community for a long time. After the Anglo-Irish Agreement of 1985 and the loyalist street protests that followed, the loyalist paramilitaries took over the walls. From this point on the dominant image on the walls would be masked UDA or UVF men holding their guns. These images would remain dominant within the PUL community, even after the ceasefires and Belfast/Good Friday Agreement.
For the Catholic/Nationalist/Republican (CNR) community, the tradition of mural painting started very differently. As Rolston explains, there was little room for the CNR community to paint their murals in the first few decades since the creation of the Northern Irish state, because of the Flags and Emblems Act of 1954. This changed in 1981 when republicans started to paint murals in support of the hunger strikers. Following this, there was an explosion of mural painting within the CNR community. From the beginning, the CNR community has used a broad range of themes in their murals. These themes are — broadly speaking — military, elections, history and mythology, internationalism, and memorials. After the IRA and loyalist ceasefires of 1994, the republican muralists decided to no longer paint armed activists in their murals, with the exception of historical events and memorials to dead comrades.
When looking at the whole, five-volume series of Drawing Support books by Rolston, several changes within the content of the murals are noticeable. The main change within the PUL community is the declining number of murals that depict “King Billy”. The murals within the PUL community in this fifth volume more often depict important historical events, such as the Home Rule crisis and references to the First World War. A continuation within the PUL community are the murals depicting images of the different paramilitary organisations. New additions are murals showing images of the celebration of the centenary of the creation of the Northern Ireland state.
The main change within the content of the murals of the CNR community since the first volume of Drawing Support is the declining number of murals that show military images. This is in line with the earlier mentioned decision of republican muralists to no longer paint armed activists in their murals after the ceasefires of 1994. There are many murals within the CNR community in this fifth volume that show historical events linked to the decade of centenaries. Most of these murals show images of the Easter Rising of 1916. Next to this, the murals within the CNR community have continued to show images of the broad range of themes that they had since the beginning.
The category “other murals” is something that is new since the fourth edition of the Drawing Support series. As Rolston explains, a street art scene has emerged in Northern Ireland which was not present before. So, whereas in the first three volumes there were only murals from either the PUL or CNR community, there is now a third category of murals which are not directly related to the two communities and the constitutional question. These murals can have a political message, but more often than not they contain no direct political message at all. These murals show for example images of appreciation for NHS workers during the Covid pandemic, as well as images of social and cultural matters.
The mural scene in Northern Ireland has changed radically since the first volume of Drawing Support in 1992. Since older murals are destroyed or painted over when they are no longer deemed to be relevant, their images get lost. Therefore, the whole series of Drawing Support books by Professor Rolston is one of the only visual overviews of the evolution of the murals. This makes this book — and indeed the whole series — a must-read for anyone interested in the Northern Ireland conflict and the role that these artworks have played in it.
