The Famous Murals of the Bogside

The People's gallery of Derry, Northern IrelandTrevor PhilipsNow that the tourist season is upon us once again we decided to visit The Bogside Artists who are back at their studio in The Bogside. Tom Kelly, Kevin Hasson and William Kelly have been doing just that for some time now. Indeed they were the first people to set up a tour of their own murals over six years ago. Now, there are more than a few. At their studio they are relaxed and looking forward to the next spate of curious onlookers coming to meet with them. I had some questions to ask them.

Q: What do tourists say when they arrive at the studio?
William: It is amazing how often we meet people who are only just finding out that there are only three of us responsible for the murals.

Q: And what do you do here?
Tom: Well, we give them a talk, show them a slice of our documentary and generally inform them about our history. By this time they may have already been on a walk around the murals and been to the museum and so forth and so are pretty well clued up as regards the story on the walls. They are very interested in our history. It is our history that brings them here in the first place.

Q: What has been your greatest achievement so far?
Kevin: Creating the gallery in the first place. It is the culmination of a vision we had over a decade ago. In order to even begin tackling a mountain like that we had first to get the Housing Executive to render all the walls for us. They had decided to pebble-dash them as a solution to the graffiti problem that was turning the place into a colossal eyesore second to none.

We went to them with hundreds of signatures. It took a fair bit of persuading on our part but we got it done. That I suppose, when you look back on it, apart from the gallery itself that is, is our greatest achievement. Without that, the gallery would not have been possible. You have to remember too that The Bogside in those days was a dump for want of a better word, graffiti and rubbish all over the place. The yearly influx of tourists has changed all that. People have taken a certain pride in their gardens and so forth. It is great to see that. I think it is fantastic. We are also proud of the fact that, whatever tour operators may think of the murals, we have at least given them something to tour.

Q: Of course people think you are doing quite well here, financially, I mean?
Tom: We would love to see their evidence. Fact is we get no funding from any source and what we make here selling our posters and so forth barely meets our overheads. If we were to make an average wage here we would have to sell a vast amount of posters and have three months to do so. We don’t and we can’t. We don’t even break even. Tourists, like ourselves, are completely flummoxed as to why this should be so. And you have to add the singular fact that local tour operators compete with us and they are vastly better connected than us with the general tourism trade in the North West. No quarter is given and they compete with us openly for reasons best known to themselves. They make a point of marching people past our studio and past our murals as if neither were there.

Q: Why did you call it The People’s Gallery?
William: As history it belongs to the world. Specifically and primarily it belongs to the people who struggled all those years ago for the political and social improvements we all enjoy. It doesn’t of course mean that the houses physically belong to everybody. On that principle you could feel free to walk into somebody’s home and take it over or paint all over their walls without their permission. As for our name The Bogside Artists, well, the Dubliners is one of my favourite groups but I don’t go thinking that this means that everybody in Dublin is a member of the group and can play the fiddle. You can get locked up for thinking like that.

Q: I see you have a new website.
Tom: Yea, that was long overdue. Well, as Will pointed out, it amazed us that people didn’t know who we were. That is our own fault of course - you know this self-effacing Derry thing. I think that is self-defeating. If you run a three minute mile I think you have bragging rights. At a bare minimum you should at least be allowed to tell somebody. Genuine achievement should be encouraged in the city and those who manage to achieve anything should be justly recognized and rewarded. I think this is an education problem. You have to teach kids to rejoice in other’s achievements first of all and give up their tendency towards jealousy and self-loathing.

Throwing stones at the guy who wins the race won’t make you run any faster. And what does it say about you if you do? If people who have made it, elect to live outside the town that is the reason why. They get the "Who does he think he is?" treatment. He probably doesn’t think he is anybody, as a matter of fact, but that attitude which is not found everywhere by the way should be dealt with. Then maybe genuine achievers will get to feel proud of themselves and not feel that they have to flee the city. It is sad state of affairs. Tourists notice it too, the bitterness and general resentment of the achievements of others. Call us whatever you like but we created The People’s Gallery and we state it as a fact on our website. Why? Because it is a fact.

Q: I see you got a book on your website? Li Po?
William: That is a children’s book I wrote way back in 1990. It didn’t get published.

Q: Not good enough?
William: That’s not the reason. You would need to read it to find out.

Q: What’s it about?
William: It’s about a young orphaned boy in search of The Philosopher’s Stone.

Q: You’re kidding.
William: I’m not. We have been selling it here for months at our studio.

Q: Why hasn’t Rowling taken moves to stop you like she has so many others?
William: Why don’t you ask her?

Q: Has nobody……
William: The Derry News were power-gripped by Rowling’s lawyers Schillings for making the connections. That scared everybody else off. For us, however, it is not over until the fat lady sings.

Q: Well then, where do we all go from here?
Tom: Well, we go on with our workshops and of course our gallery here at the studio. We intend to showcase the work of young artists in the city who might not otherwise get a chance to show their work. It is important to us. Whatever they earn they get to keep, as it should be, in our view. We are no friends of capitalism, believe me, but you have to take the world as it is, on its own terms. Even revolutionaries don’t give their stuff away for free, do they?

Q: What about your contribution to the community?
Kevin: Ask the taxi drivers, the tour operators, the hospitality people, the publicans.
William: Ask anybody.
Tom: Our contribution to our community has been vast. Oops, there we go again!

Q: Do you think the Bogside needs a proper police force?
Tom: What The Bogside needs is a sheriff and a jail on every street corner. We began as an independent group and we remain so but the price has been high. As the man says, "if you do something badly you tend to get severely criticized for it. If you do it superlatively well you are likely to get crucified. We didn’t learn that from Shakespeare, either. We have learnt it from our own experience.You can find out all about the murals of the Bogside that the artists have called The People's gallery at Trevor Philips is a freelance journalist and press officer for the group.