LOVE NORTHERN IRELAND!

It is impossible to visit Northern Ireland without coming across murals depicting the many years of our troubled past.

The local artwork proudly presented has always given a clear indication of whose territory you were in, both in the past and still to some extent today.

I have vivid recollections of the gunmen and the flags on the walls of Belfast and the town in which I grew up and depending on your colour (orange or green) you either made a hasty retreat, looking casual of course, or you belonged.

In more recent years, as I drive around Belfast I am amazed at the number of open top Buses on the Mural tours. This is something that no-one would have believed back in the seventies or even in the early nineties when tourism was non existent and most of these areas were considered 'no go'.

More recently some of these images
of war and hatred have been replaced
with paintings of a less sectarian nature, eg, The Titanic, and the street artists of Belfast have been invited to Washington to decorate a gable wall.

How times change!