by Nicola Guerra
The study focuses on the republican murals painted on the walls of two cities, Belfast and Derry, in May 2009. The idea for the study was born during a trip to Northern Ireland during which I had the opportunity to observe the murals and to talk with some of the authors and with persons who had actually experienced
the events represented in the murals.
The nationalist murals have been studied by the author under different perspectives: language, iconography, political symbolism and social environment.
Murals are, for sure, the community’s reaction to the British political and violent domination on Northern Ireland and they become instruments of rebellion representing a collective request for freedom and independence. But they also represent a more complex phenomenon as they embody values and perspectives of the entire nationalist community in Northern Ireland.
The study analyses the murals both as single artworks and as a collective phenomenon. A strong focus is given at all the political and social themes represented in the murals and at the different linguistic and iconographic styles of communication as well as how different themes and styles combine.
The nationalist murals are also examined under an artistic perspective with a special focus on the figure of the “artista armato”, the artist as a warrior that uses art as an instrument for communicating higher, collective (moral, social, religious, political) values.
This perspective brings the author to draw and analyse a parallel between the phenomenon of nationalist murals and Futurist art: a comparison based on the themes represented in the artworks, on the placing of the art pieces and on the social role of the artists.
If words, pictures and colours used in the nationalist murals become, as analysed in the study, the voice of the Catholic community in Northern Ireland, a voice not so often listened in the EU, it becomes crucial to understand what the artists want to communicate, why and how.
This study aims also to open up to a new research perspective based on a multidisciplinary approach through the integrated use of semiotics and semantics in ethnography in order to offer a more complete and holistic interpretation of the phenomenon of the Northern Irish republican murals.
