Derry Murals

In the 1990s and early 2000s, three Derry residents painted a series of murals in Bogside depicting scenes from The Troubles. Most of the slums in Bogside have been razed, but the end of this house with the famous phrase has been preserved. It dates from the Battle of Bogside in 1969, when citizens of the 'hood erected barricades and evicted the Royal Ulster Constabulary from the area.

This mural is titled Petrol Bomber.

Here's Bernadette Devlin. Devlin was elected to the UK parliament...at 21 the youngest MP...and also led protests against British rule and anti-Catholic discrimination. Protestant Ulster paramilitaries tried to assassinate her in 1981 and shot her seven times...despite the fact that her house was being guarded by British troops at the time. But she survived and remains civically active in Northern Ireland.

Bloody Sunday. Note the British soldier standing on a bloodstained civil rights banner.

Left mural is Motorman...this was the name of the military operation conducted by British troops to take back the Bogside. On the right is The Runner.

This one is titled Civil Rights. The protesters in Derry felt they were kindred spirits with anti Vietnam war protesters, civil rights marchers in the US, and other such groups 40 years ago.

Hunger Strike. This commemorates the hunger strikers in the Maze prison in Belfast who went on a protest hunger strike in October 1980. They were arguing for the retention of their status as political prisoners, which had been revoked by the British. They also refused to wear prison issued clothes, thus are clad only in blankets. I remember Bobby Sands, slowly starving to death during that strike, on world news almost every night. It was amazing to me, and a little horrifying, that someone would have such deep convictions to do that. I was kind of neutral in the whole dispute...a nonreligious, non Irish American, but the pictures and stories of that time were still very moving. Ten hunger strikers starved.

Death of Innocence depicts Annette McGavigan, a 14 year old girl shot by British troops on 6 Sep 1971. She was the 100th person to die in The Troubles. The butterfly represents a hope for peace; the broken rifle depicts the failure of violence.

This mural commemorates the 25th anniversary of Bloody Sunday, depicting the 14 people who died.