Number of murals on public property growing – and loyalist ones far outnumber republican ones

And while plenty of them are explicitly paramilitary in nature, a great many are much more benign, like depictions of Ulster history and tributes to the dead of the World Wars.

The News Letter previously looked at this issue about five years ago. At that time there were 255 murals recorded on Housing Executive property.

The News Letter recently got hold of updated figures, showing there are now 307.

Things get more intriguing still when the numbers are broken down further.

When the News Letter ran its story about murals in late 2016, this was the overall tally:

> Loyalist: 146 (57%)

> Republican: 43 (17%)

> Neither: 66 (26%)

Now here is the picture, as of December 2021:

> Loyalist: 203 (66%)

> Republican 55 (18%)

> Neither 49 (16%)

‘Neither’ murals include things like anti-drugs campaigns, or efforts at simply sprucing up a neighbourhood without political overtones.

It is not easy to tell precisely how many of the murals are paramilitary related, due to the often rather vague way they have been recorded by the Housing Executive.

However, the News Letter has counted them up as best as possible, based on the descriptions given.

This reveals that in terms of explicit loyalist terror tributes, as of December 2021 there were at least 78 in all:

> 48 UDA murals

> 25 UVF ones

> Five RHC ones

And when it comes to explicit glorifications of modern republican terror, there were at least 29 in all:

> 16 IRA murals

> Six INLA ones

> Seven dissident ones

Comparing numbers of paramilitary murals specifically in 2016 and 2021 is a shaky science, due to variations in the way they have been tallied.

But back in 2016 the News Letter counted some 130 loyalist paramilitary murals (although that included some old historic 1912-related UVF ones, which the News Letter has tried to discount from this 2021 tally), and 37 republican paramilitary ones.

So in simple terms, we can say this: whilst there has been an increase in both loyalist and republican murals, the evidence suggests a drop in the number which explicitly glorify banned groups.

This seems to be at least partly down to recent “re-imaging” projects, which have seen UDA or IRA murals replaced by artwork that – whilst still loyalist or republican – is at least non-violent in nature ( like tributes to sports heroes or the NI centenary).

Sinn Fein, the DUP, and the Alliance Party were all asked to comment for this article. Only Alliance responded.

Its MLA John Blair of South Antrim (the area with the most murals) said: “Murals can be a legitimate form of art and community expression, however there is never any excuse for anything which supports or glorifies terrorism, promotes fear, or exerts control.

“It is time we move away from the images which hark back to the dark days of our past and instead see inter-agency working to encourage those murals to be replaced with those which celebrate the many positive aspects of Northern Ireland such as our sporting, cultural and industrial heritage.”

How the overall number of murals have changed in your local area:

South Antrim (Newtownabbey north to Antrim town)

2016: 46

2021: 58

West (mainly Londonderry)

2016: 33

2021: 34

Lisburn and Castlereagh

2016: 32

2021: 18

North Down and Ards

2016: 28

2021: 31

West Belfast

2016: 27

2021: 37

Mid and East Antrim

2016: 26

2021: 27

South Area (covering Lurgan, Portadown and Armagh)

2016: 22

2021: 23

North Belfast

2016: 15

2021: 17

South and East Belfast

2016: 11

2021: 31

Causeway Area (covering Coleraine and the north coast)

2016: 7

2021: 13

Mid Ulster (Cookstown, Magherafelt and Dungannon):

2016: 6

2021: 12

South Down

2016: 2

2017: 5

South West (Fermanagh)

2016: No survey

2021: 1

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