Northern Ireland’s graphic, political murals inspire Philly’s Jane Golden to bring the cities’ artists together.

When Jane Golden learned she had been nominated for an Eisenhower travel fellowship in 1999, Northern Ireland wasn’t foremost on her mind. Golden, executive director of the city’s Mural Arts Program, explains, "First I was interested in going to South Africa; [Eisenhower] doesn’t have a program set up for Americans there." She was interested in going to Israel, but the situation was the same.

Tim Drescher, a mural historian out of San Francisco State University, suggested Golden consider Belfast. There loyalists -- Protestants who consider themselves British and who want Northern Ireland to remain part of the United Kingdom -- had begun a mural tradition a century ago by painting tributes to William of Orange, a 17th-century Protestant king who defeated King James II, a Catholic. Irish republicans -- the typically Catholic residents who desire a united Ireland -- joined in the '80s with murals depicting jailed hunger strikers who died. And throughout the "troubles," paramilitary groups from both communities have used murals as territorial markers and recruiting posters.

Learning of this history sparked something in Golden, who wondered about the effects unabashedly political murals have on their host communities.

Images in a book by Bill Rolston, a professor at the University of Ulster, however, are what sealed her decision to apply for a grant to visit Northern Ireland: The political, independent, often startling images gracing walls in Belfast and Derry were a sharp contrast to the lush, consensus-driven pieces Golden had been overseeing in Philly for nearly 20 years. There was important context, too. The peace process and IRA cease-fire begun in the Œ90s had been threatening to extinguish the lively art of Irish murals, which have traditionally had short lives.

Because artists in Philly's program create roughly 85 long-term murals each year, know the benefits of government funding and have learned a thing or two about bringing divided neighbors together, Golden began thinking that muralists here could help with an evolution, even a revolution, in mural painting across the Atlantic -- one where, as she sees it, "communities and young people are given a voice."

Golden, who points to a growing "social services program" at Mural Arts, also learned that Derry -- called Londonderry by loyalists and the British —— in particular contains innovative justice-system programs for youth.

Diane Shoemaker, manager of the Eisenhower Fellowships USA Program, says, "The fit with Ireland just made a lot of sense. Jane's vision for using murals to bridge different communities -- that seemed likely to have application in Ireland."

So Golden won the fellowship. A short time later she attended a lecture at Moore College of Art by the Bogside Artists, three muralists named after their staunchly republican Derry neighborhood; their "compelling" story reinforced that her decision to go to Northern Ireland was the right one.

Between March 18 and April 13, Golden spent over two weeks in Belfast and Derry and a week in Dublin. She connected with a network of Irish Eisenhower fellows, as well as social service workers, community organizers, muralists and a few government officials.

Golden is currently working on a proposal to return to Belfast -- she only used half of the time typically devoted to an Eisenhower fellowship so the powers that be might send her back. The plan is to work with Catholics and Protestants on the large "peace wall" that separates their communities. And Golden talks of starting an exchange program for muralists from Philly and Northern Ireland. "It's not enough to go to Belfast and just exchange ideas. It's nice and I think it's helpful. But to me, it's much more useful if we can put it to work in some kind of tangible way."

Shoemaker says Golden's Irish contacts are quite enthusiastic, too. "We even heard that some of these political groups, who previously wouldn't have considered working together, are now broaching the idea. That's a huge thing."

Though Golden admits that prior to leaving she had just "a cursory knowledge of the political situation" in Ireland, she arguably had relevant real-life experience to apply; she recalls more than one person saying to her, "When you go to Belfast, you're going to think about Grays Ferry." Mural Arts has created about eight murals in the Irish- and African-American neighborhood, which has a history of racial strife.

Golden says she did think of Grays Ferry, but that nothing quite prepared her for viewing up close Northern Irish life as depicted on the country's walls. She describes much of the work, which often features gun-toting members of military organizations, as "violent, difficult to look at." Golden loved some of the directness, though. One four-story mural in Derry, by the Bogside Artists, illustrates in black and white a boy wearing a gas mask and carrying a petrol bomb during the 1969 Battle of the Bogside, in which Catholics clashed with British forces.

It was pretty clear, though, that many residents were looking for a break from such imagery, according to Golden. "When I walked through the Bogside, people said, ŒWe're sick of these murals.' What the IRA [mural painters] have told me is, they need to get away from people who have died and people holding guns."

"It's almost like when somebody gets out of prison. What do they do next? There's an identity crisis. There's a strange combination of being relieved that the violence is over and trying to hold on to their identity.

"Even though the themes of their murals are relevant, they need a vision of the future. My advice is to deal with mural making as an affirming of the community, with a respect for the past. And, yes, how do you do both?"

What about diluting the raw power of Northern Ireland murals? Consensus building has never been an essential part of the inspiration for murals over there, and what's more, requires commitment. Golden herself admits that Philly-style murals involve "this incredibly arduous process" of securing community agreement and vision. She says whatever it takes, "the bottom line" is that those seeking to keep Northern Ireland's mural tradition alive "need to do the hard work of thinking what to do next. They need to take risks."

Golden, who makes it clear she doesn't want to come off like some would-be savior, says Northern Ireland artists, activists and civic leaders are already thinking about "building social capital" with art.

"I’d like to engage people in a dialogue, challenge them to think beyond the past," she says. "If we as outsiders can help in some way, I’d feel really wonderful about that."