The Art of Conflict and Peace in Northern Ireland by Bernard Conlon

The peace process, aimed to resolve the Northern Ireland conflict, has come to be regarded as something of a template, providing crucial lessons for conflict elsewhere. The conflict was fought by many and any means. Cultural identity was a cornerstone with cultural expression playing a potent part. A particularly potent cultural expression was the wall mural tradition. Therefore, the evolution of this tradition and its interaction with the highly publicised and documented peace process deserves attention. Similarly the use of art as an active tool for peace building and reconciliation is worth serious consideration.

A cursory glance and brief explanation of N. Ireland’s wall mural tradition is provided here. The Belfast Kids’ Guernica peace mural project, part of the Kids’ Guernica International portable peace mural movement is also described. 1. The Belfast “Portable Peace Mural” is a grassroots example of art being used in the process of building and sustaining peace. Like all Kids’ Guernica paintings it has been produced by children and is therefore relatively free from formed political and other fixed values.

If truth is the first casualty of war, then art is also a casualty, being quickly turned from a cultural ploughshare into a sword for propaganda and psychological warfare. Recycling the sword once more into a ploughshare in the context of “peace process”, peace building and reconciliation is an obvious objective.

It is necessary to place the N. Ireland mural tradition into an historical and political context. How this political art has evolved from conflict and interacts with peace, economic, social and other processes is worth observing. Most recently, for example, public agencies have embarked on a concerted process of replacing wall murals with commissioned art. 2.

The Belfast Kids’ Guernica “Portable Peace Mural” comes from the same contextual soil as the peace process and the mural tradition. N. Ireland is in a “transitional” period and process moving from widespread violence to a future where peace is hopefully sustainable. The Belfast Kids’ Guernica project is, as such, a micro event and experience, which has been determined by a macro peace and painting process. The project is documented here so that it can contribute in some way to tangible outcomes and “solution”.

Such solutions require a process, including an event/s on the wall mural tradition, which will identify the panoply of possible solutions and outcomes. For instance, preserving the images in a safe and neutral way and space is an obvious starting-point. In so doing, they can be historically interpreted, performing an educational role and contribute to “healing through remembering.” 3.

Historical and Political Context

The N. Ireland conflict is the most recent stage of the long colonial relationship between Britain and Ireland. This conflict started in the late 1960s. A “peace process” began in the early 1990s, culminating in the Belfast Agreement (Good Friday Agreement) in 1998. This involved the British and Irish Governments, political representatives from N. Ireland’s two main identity groups and significant United States (US) interest and input.

N. Ireland was created in 1920, marking the start of the partition of Ireland. It was established as a subsidiary state within the United Kingdom (UK) from Ireland’s six north-eastern counties. The remaining twenty-six counties (approximately 80% of Ireland) ceded from the UK in 1922 after a period of armed activity starting with the Easter Rising in Dublin in 1916. Despite failing to win back “the six counties,” an ideological tenet, the larger of the two Irish states eventually achieved sovereign status.

The independent Irish state was conservative, with a predominantly catholic population, ethos, and a mainly agricultural economy. N. Ireland likewise was conservative, ultra British and imbued with a protestant political culture. It was also the most industrial part of Ireland, with Belfast, for instance, building the Titanic in 1912.

N. Ireland’s large catholic minority, with their Irish nationalist identity, was not embraced by, nor did it embrace the new state. They remained disgruntled and quietly yearned for Irish unity, becoming a distinct, introverted community within, what was and remains the UK’s Irish element. Both Irish states followed entirely separate and introverted courses of development until the 1960’s.

N. Ireland’s Catholics were influenced by the American civil rights movement and by the student and protest movements of the 1960’s. 4. Tensions in the deeply polarised society eventually came to a head with violence erupting in 1969. This was sectarian and a clash between competing national identities and ideologies. Strident Irish nationalism came into conflict with N. Ireland’s militia-like police force: the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC), protestant paramilitary organisations and the British Army.

The virtually dormant Irish Republican Army (IRA) split into two factions, encouraged by some high up in political and other circles in the South (of Ireland). The more volatile Provisional IRA achieved a sufficient support base among the North’s nationalist population. This partly resulted from indiscriminate security measures like internment and a blunt use of the British Army by the N. Ireland state. The “Provisionals” launched a crude campaign of violence (“armed struggle”) that became protracted and increasingly sophisticated, lasting until their ceasefires in the mid-1990s.

The British and Irish governments grew closer from the mid-1980s, developing a strong intergovernmental relationship. This was a catalyst for change. Irish America engaged Bill Clinton. He delivered on promises and deployed Senator George Mitchell. The eventual outcome of all this was the 1998 Belfast Agreement – also known as the Good Friday Agreement.

The Agreement has led to a dramatic reduction of violence and a transformed political climate, albeit one still volatile and “transitional.”

This then, very roughly and broadly is the historical and political context for N. Ireland’s famed political art or mural tradition. The murals were conflict by another name. This cultural – artistic tradition and movement has nonetheless been influenced by the peace process and agreement.

The Mural of the Political Art Story

N. Ireland has enjoyed more than a decade of relative peace. Combined with a buoyant economy during the same period and other striking changes, a high level of normality has been experienced.

The mural tradition originated in the early part of the Twentieth Century among urban artisans with a staunchly British and protestant identity. King William of Orange’s victory in the Battle of the Boyne in 1690 has been commemorated for a long time by this community, providing an ideal visual icon. When the N. Ireland state was created this form of commemoration and celebration became ever more outward and elaborate, while celebration of Irish identity and culture became introverted and covert.

When violence erupted in the late 1960’s there was the inevitable spate of crude political graffiti. When violence became more systemic, propaganda and psychological dimensions came into play. However, it was not until after the 1981 Hunger Strike, when ten republicans died, that republican murals really took off. They did so with vengeance and variety, invoking a sense of history driven by popular perception and mythology, which aimed to mobilise support for “armed struggle.” When republicans entered politics murals were also mobilised for electioneering purposes.

Pro-British murals meanwhile, as the troubles progressed, migrated from the image of King Billy to a focus on “inanimate” flags, emblems and other symbols, as well as an increasingly graphic presentation of paramilitary imagery. Ironically, they even started to employ some of Ireland’s mythological legends and characters for their peculiar mural messages.

University of Ulster sociologist, Bill Rolston provides accessible and useful documentation in his series of booklets: Drawing Support.5. Mainly photographs, his short introductory texts nonetheless provide a starting-point for understanding the mural tradition.

Murals, a book by the Bogside Artists, shows how the mural tradition interfaces with mainstream art and exhibition.6. It also catalogues Derry’s (also known as Londonderry) main nationalist murals, which these “artists” mainly painted. Such narratives amply show the evolution of political art and the emergence and the development of the artists coming from the mural mould.

The Belfast mural artist partnership of Danny Devenny and Mark Irvine is generating growing interest. 7. Coming from the opposite spectrum of the political divide, one of their recent commissions was to paint a portrait of John Lennon on a Liverpool wall in the context of Liverpool’s year as a European City of Culture.

There is therefore clearly an interesting discussion to be had about how this artistic energy can be harnessed for the benefit of the entire community and used to dissolve divisions. Historical and other interpretation of the murals could contribute to a broader understanding that can filter into the political, reconciliation and healing processes, for example. Finding the right formulas to achieve such goals is a considerable challenge for the stakeholders concerned.

The Portable Peace Mural Process: Belfast Kids Guernica

The Belfast Kids’ Guernica project exists on a micro level. However, its international connectivity provides it with an important platform and influence.

The broad narrative of the initiative is documented in the accompanying publication for the Kids’ Guernica International Exhibition at Florida State University (FSU).8. To recap: Belfast Kids’ Guernica came about when this writer was invited to a similar exhibition in Athens, in 2007, by Dr Hatto Fischer. A Belfast painting was proposed. After intensive consultation, Cathal Cauldwell, Head of the Art Department in the Little Flower Girls’ Secondary School, Belfast agreed to facilitate a painting.

Mr Cauldwell got a Year 10 (14 year olds) class to produce the artwork. This writer met the young artists and briefed them on Kids’ Guernica and other themes. Within weeks the painting was complete. This was in June 2008. Belfast-based press photographer, Kevin Cooper has photographed the painting and events linked to it. The most notable of such events was the first public exhibition of the painting in Belfast’s prestigious Linen Hall Library. This opened on 21 September 2009 attended by Dr Fischer and Boris Tissot of the Kids’ Guernica International Committee. Northern Visions Community Television produced a short documentary on this event. 9.

The Kids’ Guernica representatives sampled Belfast’s murals and met non-government organisations (NGOs) engaged in practical peace work. Kevin Cooper who was also a former trade union representative for journalists and who is active in human rights activity, facilitated this aspect of the visit. This included a meeting with Roisin Mc Glone, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Interaction Belfast, which facilitates cross-community crisis management in flash-point areas. 10.

In the wake of this intensive briefing process both Kevin Cooper and Roisin Mc Glone spoke about the mural tradition. The Interaction Belfast CEO saw murals as a “useful barometer” of community opinion. She expressed concern about moves to superimpose professional art. She feared that such approaches could bypass people on the ground in what could be seen as an airbrushing exercise.

Kevin Cooper, an equally astute and tough-minded observer, welcomes the more temperate tone of many murals in what he considers a “transitional period” from conflict to peace. However, in the long-term, he would prefer to see more conventional civic art flourish. He vehemently opposes the implicit intimidation, even if subtle and sublime, transmitted by an art form, which has its roots, he asserts, firmly in conflict and division. 11.

Seeking Solution

The peace process and peace building is a work in progress. The Belfast Kids’ Guernica painting provides an excellent educational tool and template. Academic research has a part to play, particularly by employing international and comparative perspectives. With events and/or a dedicated conference on the wall mural tradition, a vast array of crucial issues and questions could be tackled.

N. Ireland’s murals need to be interpreted in a neutral and safe space. The portability employed by Kids’ Guernica can perhaps be applied to view formerly walled images in exhibition? At the very least, murals must be digitally preserved and archived if and when they are removed. This is a plea from a humble journalistic and historical perspective, because without proper information and healthy historical memory liberated from mythology and the effects of conflict, violence can easily be re-ignited. Peace is an ongoing and tedious process, especially when being consolidated.

Peace is not an event and should never be taken for granted. Peace requires acknowledgment, accommodation and an array of other attributes. After centuries of conflict such lessons are still being learnt within Ireland and between Britain and Ireland. Learning the art of peace-building and using art for this purpose is part of the process. The Belfast Kids’ Guernica Portable Peace Mural is an educational experience, tool and template in this context. The angry art of the wall murals is, as Roisin Mc Glone said, a barometer and one that shows that our peace and peace-building is not yet state-of-the-art.

References

Books

Drawing Support: Murals in the North of Ireland, Bill Rolston, First published: 1992, Beyond the Pale Publications, Belfast
Drawing Support 2, Bill Rolston , Beyond the Pale Publications, Belfast 1995
Drawing Support 3, Bill Rolston, Beyond the Pale publications, Belfast, 2003
The Bogside Artists, authored and published by the Bogside Artists, Derry (Londonderry), Ireland, 2001
Kids Guernica 2010 published in connection with the Kids Guernica Exhibition at Florida State University (FSU) Museum of Fine Arts and the Art and Design for Social Justice Symposium organised by the FSU Department of Interior Design and the Department of Art Education

Articles

Belfast Lines Redrawn (The changing face of Belfast’s City’s murals), Neil Carnduff, Irish Times, 15 May 2009

Dissertations

Northern Ireland and the Contemporary Era: The Northern Ireland Civil Rights Movement, June 1968 – August 1969, unpublished MA dissertation, University of Ulster (Coleraine), 1984, Bernard (L.) Conlon BA (Hons.)

Interviews

1. Kevin Cooper, press photographer and human rights activist, Belfast, December 2009

Discussions

Belfast wall mural painting partnership, Danny Devenny and Mark Irvine
Roisin Mc Clone, Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Interaction Belfast, Belfast, December 2009

Audio-visual material

Kids Guernica, Northern Visions Television (NCTV) for the Belfast Area, Belfast October 2009

Footnotes

Kids Guernica is a peace movement which started in 1995 in Japan, fifty years after World War II. It calls on young people to express themselves and promote peace through painting. The original Guernica painting was produced by Picasso in protest against the bombardment of the Spainish/Basque-Country town, Guernica. “Children participating in the making of the murals, unravel their imagination and creativity in dealing with the notions of war and peace. At the same time, adults who share these experiences, can rediscover the enthusiasm that is hidden inside them: children’s art can show us things beyond rational thought.”
Belfast Lines Redrawn (The changing face of Belfast’s City’s murals), Neil Carnduff, Irish Times, 15 May 2009“Healing Through Remembering,” has been paraphrased from the name of a Belfast-based victims’ organisation
Northern Ireland and the Contemporary Era: The Northern Ireland Civil Rights Movement, June 1968 – August 1969, unpublished MA dissertation, University of Ulster (Coleraine), 1984, Bernard (L.) Conlon BA (Hons.)
Drawing Support: Murals in the North of Ireland, Bill Rolston, first Published: 1992, Beyond the Pale Publications, Belfast; Drawing Support 2, 1995; Drawing Support 3, 2003
The Bogside Artists, authored and published by the Bogside Artists, Derry (Londonderry), Ireland, 2001
Various conversations with Belfast wall mural painting partnership, Danny Devenny and Mark Irvine
Kids Guernica 2010 published in connection with the Kids Guernica Exhibition at Florida State University (FSU) Museum for Fine Arts and the Art and Design for Social Justice Symposium organised by FSU the Department of Interior Design and the Department of Art Education
Kids Guernica, Northern Visions Community Television for the Belfast Area, Belfast October 2009
Roisin Mc Clone, Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Interaction Belfast, Belfast, December 2009
Kevin Cooper, photographer and human rights activist, Belfast, December 2009