Belfast’s International Wall becomes the Palestinian Wall

In a defiant show of solidarity with the people of Palestine a group of mural artists led by internationally renowned artist Danny Devenny has transformed Belfast’s iconic “International Wall” into the “Palestinian Wall” to show off amazing murals designed by Palestinian artists who would have suffered imprisonment, torture and death had they attempted to paint them in their homeland.

Danny Devenny (artist):

Bobby Sands said, back in the day:
“The men of art have lost their heart.
They dream within their dreams.
Their magic sold for price of gold
Amidst a people’s screams.
They sketch the moon and capture bloom
With genius, so they say.
But n’er they sketch the quaking wretch
Who lies in Castlereagh.”

And in this instance, Palestinian artists were not losing their heart, they
were actually painting from the heart. And we were looking at this on our iPod
screens, so we thought well the little thing we can do, because we had trouble
back in our day telling our story, that we’re very aware watching what was taking place.

If those artists start even to go to the West Bank Wall at least they will be typically
taken away and tortured, but probably killed. So, we started the project and I
think you’re witnessing it here around you. People are responding the same way.
Everyone feels they need to do something,
they have to do something to stop this murder taking place.

Pat Sheehan (MLA):

Well this is a great initiative to show solidarity with the
Palestinians in the current context of genocide being carried out against
the people of Gaza. There’s no way that these murals could have been
painted in Palestine because the artist would have been shot dead by the
Israelis. But here today in Belfast a group of artists from around Belfast
have finished these murals here.

They painted images that had been sent to them by Palestinian artists, so it’s just
a great show of solidarity between Belfast Ireland and the Palestinian people.

Here on the Falls Road in Belfast, this is one of the busiest tourist spots
in the whole of Ireland. Thousands upon thousands of tourists come to this spot
every week. This is known as the International Wall, where artists
paint murals reflective of the solidarity that Irish people show with
other countries and internationally and thousands upon thousands of people
from all over the world will see these murals every day from here on in.