The Writing Keeps Changing On The Wall

That’s more like it…

ack in the 1980s, it carried the longstanding call for political prisoner Nicky Kelly to be freed, a heartfelt people’s cry to the powers that be.

Although the same graffiti in Blackrock attracted the subhead, With Every Packet Of Cornflakes.

In more recent times though, that infamous Glen Of The Downs wall that greets southbound N11 traffic has also taken on other, rather less serious-minded, hand-painted S.O.S. missives.

August 2024

Such as a declaration of undying love between Mick and Liz. Or a call to the family of Conor McGregor’s August 2017 opponent Floyd Mayweather to go feck themselves. Or words to that effect.

More recently, the wall has taken a darker turn though, as commuters woke up in August to the slogan Newtown Says No, the increasingly familiar cry of those in the town who object to Trudder House (aka River Lodge) being turned into an IPAS centre for immigrants.

Just who then painted a Union Jack opposite the Irish flag is hard to say. And we’ll probably never know who changed Newtown Says No a few weeks later to the hip-hop-friendly Newtown Says Yo.

And now, with Christmas just around the corner, some festive prankster has changed the lengthened slogan Newtown Says No RTE Lies to Newtown Loves Mince Pies.

All of which reminds us of our favourite piece of graffiti mischief. Back when the Reverend Ian Paisley was in Full Mental Jacket mode, he wasn’t having any of 1985’s Anglo-Irish Agreement which was designed to bring Northern Ireland into a closer relationship with Ireland itself. And so, he had the banner Belfast Says No hung across the top of the city’s town hall.

Overnight, someone handy with a spray paint can referenced a then-popular juice advertising slogan by adding, ‘But The Man From Del Monte Says Yes‘. Which raised a few laughs around Belfast the following morning.

But not as many as the next line of graffiti added later that week which read, ‘And he’s an orange man’…