Re-imaging Belfast's troubled past

One of the many political murals painted around Belfast's inner city suburbs. Photo / Supplied.

David Stitt rolls up a trouser leg, plants his leg on a table and then turns it slightly so we can see his calf muscle. He points to a prominent reddish scar about 5cm long and says in a thick Belfast accent: "That's where I was shot. And that one there was caused by a hand grenade exploding."

We are in East Belfast a few days before the July 12 Orange Order parades in Northern Ireland.

Stitt, a lean 39-year-old who wears a Rangers Football Club jersey, is an Ulster Loyalist, and a staunch one at that. So much so, in fact, that as a young man he was prepared to kill for his beliefs. He is a former member of the Ulster Defence Association (UDA), a loyalist paramilitary organisation which targeted Catholics during the Troubles.

At the age of 21 he was sentenced to eight years in prison for conspiracy to murder and possession of a firearm. He makes no apologies for his past. He was the type of man venerated by the hundreds of overtly militaristic murals that adorn walls and the gable ends of long terraces of red brick houses in Catholic and Protestant housing schemes across the province. These striking artworks mark territories and tell the story of the Troubles by those affected.

The murals have become part of the fabric of many communities, reflecting a time and a place and offering snapshots of history. Today, they are major tourist attractions in their own right.

But a decade or so on from the signing of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement there is clamour from many people to have some of the more contentious images removed. As violence recedes, people wish to move forward. An initiative launched in 2006 by the Arts Council of Northern Ireland called the Re-imaging Communities Programme has proved massively successful, with 105 murals having been changed completely or toned down. Such was the success of the initial £3.3 million ($7 million) pilot scheme that a further £500,000 was made available in October 2008, in response to a raft of new inquiries. However, despite the fact that the Arts Council has 49 projects to finish and a further 85 new proposals, money is running out and with Northern Ireland facing severe cuts in public spending there is a fear the initiative may stall.

Stitt has been involved in changing murals in his hometown of Bangor and inner East Belfast, where he lives now.

A social science student at university these days, he turned his back on violence in 1997 and took part in the decommissioning talks as a representative of the UDA. He works as an outreach officer with a post-conflict peace body called Charter for Northern Ireland and is a member of the Belfast Conflict Resolution Consortium. "I have three girls aged 21, 16 and 1 years old, and I don't want them to suffer the way that we did growing up. I had friends shot and killed so that's why I got involved with the UDA," he says.

He meets us in a "shared space", which both local Catholics and Protestants use together. The office block is on a main thoroughfare called Newtonards Rd, in the shadow of the giant yellow cranes of the Harland and Wolff shipyard and close to a small Catholic enclave called the Short Strand. This is what is referred to as an interface, a flashpoint where Catholics and Protestants have battled each other for years. Further up Newtonards Rd there is a spot called Freedom Corner, which is home to several imposing UDA murals. One portrays a masked man holding a Kalashnikov beside a logo which depicts the Red Hand of Ulster and the words "UFF. Formed 1973. East Belfast Brigade."

Stitt takes us to another recently redesigned mural on the corner of Lendrick St. It shows St Patrick's Church and Stormont Castle alongside the words "War" and "Peace", written in red and as striking as any of the paramilitary acronyms we have just seen. The design reflects both the new and the old. Painted at the top are the words "Remember the Fallen", alongside a dozen or so red poppies, added as a tribute to locals who lost their lives during World Wars I and II. It's a historical theme, Stitt explains, that's been pre-eminent for Protestant communities wishing to change murals.

"People said yes, they wanted to move away from militaristic murals, but also that they wished to retain their British identities through new ones," he adds. The cranes are also depicted and Stitt talks about the importance of the shipyard to Belfast and how proud the working class people of the city are to have built vessels such as the Titanic, Britannic and HMS Belfast. "They're now building wind turbines there, which is another sign of changing times."

In June, an enormous art piece, designed by Irish artist Ross Wilson and entitled Ship of Dreams, was unveiled at the Short Strand/Newtonards Rd interface to honour the Titanic and the city's shipbuilding tradition. The loyalist mural it replaced was highly controversial as it was close to a Catholic church and portrayed the image of a hooded priest clutching a bomb. It had been commissioned by a senior loyalist figure from East Belfast called Jim Wilson when he was active in a terrorist unit called the Red Hand Commandos, a proscribed group linked to the outlawed Ulster Volunteer Force. Both the UVF and RHC supported the signing of the Good Friday Agreement and in June 2009, they finally announced that they had formally decommissioned their arms. It was a move that Jim Wilson could never have contemplated when he took up arms as a teenager in the 1970s but the 58-year-old was later involved in the peace negotiations and he's been involved in the Re-Imaging programme too.

"I got some stick for changing the loyalist mural from one of the victims' relatives but I explained that I felt it was time to move on. This doesn't mean we'll forget the people who were killed, not at all, it's just that it's time for change," he says.

Wilson, as does Stitt, wants his children and grandchildren to grow up in a place where terrorist atrocities are a part of history. He became involved with the paramilitaries at the age of 19 and was detained as an internee at "Long Kesh" (the Maze) without trial for several weeks. Now, as a member of the Belfast Conflict Resolution Consortium, he regularly meets his former Republican adversaries.

"It doesn't make me any less a loyalist and vice versa and now I understand more about Republicans. top loyalists and top Republicans sitting together, people who were trying to kill each other, who would have thought, but that's the way forward," he says.

Across the city in Ardyone, North Belfast, there is also a realisation that peace can benefit all and Republican murals are being changed to reflect the new mood.

Eilish McKenna works with a body called the Ardoyne Association and her office is in a part of the city that became notorious around the world in 2001 when local sectarian tensions erupted and young Catholic girls - in the face of loyalist attacks - had to be escorted by riot police to Holy Cross Primary School.

McKenna takes us on a tour of Ardoyne and we drive up to the Holy Cross School, passing loyalist homes on the way. Houses closest to the interface are splattered with paint and windows are protected by heavy wire mesh. A massive bonfire has been built in preparation for the 12th beside a "peace wall" that divides Catholics and Protestants. It has a banner tied to it with the words "Loyalist Ardoyne" alongside a Union Flag and the Flag of Ulster. McKenna says Protestant/Catholic relations have improved remarkably in recent years but they remain two divided communities.

Ardoyne was awarded £30,520 from the Re-Imaging programme and four local political murals have recently been changed. McKenna says there were no objections whatever. One of the most contentious murals related to the Holy Cross incident.

The replacement eschews politics. It has the words "Value the laughter of children" and "We believe the children are the future" alongside the badges of 11 schools and a Celtic design as a backdrop.

"Mary McAleese, the Irish President, came to unveil it and we have been inundated with requests from people wanting to do something similar. But the Northern Ireland Assembly is talking about 25 per cent cuts in public expenditure so unless more funding is obtained we fear the project will end," McKenna says.

We drive to a nationalist estate in the Craigavon area of County Armagh. We pass a roundabout where three cars were hijacked and burned a week earlier as youths rioted after a police arrest. It's a stone's throw away from Lismore Manor, where policeman Stephen Carroll was shot dead last March. He was the first member of the Police Service of Northern Ireland to be killed in a suspected terror attack in the province for 12 years. Inside Drumbeg we are welcomed by an Irish tricolour that flutters on top of a tall flagpole which has the letters CIRA (Continuity Irish Republican Army) attached horizontally. Our guide is Marion Weir, Re-Imaging officer with Craigavon Borough Council, who introduces us to local people working at the Drumbeg Reminiscence Sculpture Garden. The site is part of the project and sits on a small hill on the estate overlooking a roundabout that was once an interface.

"Youths used to gather on this hill to fight the police all the time so we wanted to do something positive and engage local people. Then a priest was brought in to bless the ground and make it sacred so now the kids generally won't abuse it," Weir says.

Locals Tommy Sheridan and Ian Astle take us to a new mural directly opposite the CIRA flagpole. It's a mosaic of 24 Celtic squares with the names of the children who helped to design it. It's in stark contrast to a memorial stone a couple of hundred metres away which also bears the names of Katrina Rennie, 17, Eileen Duffy, 19, and Brian Frizzell, 29 - who were shot dead by the UVF in an incident in 1991 that became known as the mobile sweet shop triple murder.

"The people here don't ever want these type of things happening here again," says Astle, adding that locals from Drumbeg now have better relations with people living in the nearby Protestant area.

Sheridan nods as his friend speaks. "Last week was the annual parade at Drumcree at Portadown, just along the road, and it passed off peacefully, hardly making news in the local papers, never mind the national and international news as it did before. Times are changing and we don't want to be dragged back to the past."

Ulster Defence Association

A loyalist paramilitary organisation formed in 1971 to counter Irish Republican paramilitaries.

The UDA's armed campaign during the Troubles lasted for more than 25 years until an official ceasefire in November 2007.

During that time the group and its military wing, the Ulster Freedom Fighters, were responsible for the deaths of at least 259 people, mostly Catholics.

• Billy Briggs is a Herald correspondent