One of Dublin city centre’s busiest streets has been transformed with a “welcome all” mural by Singaporean-Irish artist Holly Pereira.
The new mural – North Strand Welcomes All – was unveiled last week just as Dublin City Council was conducting a review into the issue of Tricolours being erected by anti-immigration campaigners on lamp-posts across the capital.
Pereira, who has been painting murals for 10 years, is one of many female Irish artists working to welcome immigrants to the city, and says it is “nice to be part of the conversation”.
“Ninety-five per cent of people were super positive about it,” Pereira said, “but there was a small amount of people who – at the time it was quite stressful – were shouting at me, ‘No, we don’t welcome all’. It was just far-right people who had a problem with it.
“It was grown men who were shouting at me in the street going, ‘No, we don’t like that’, or one man said, ‘I’m going to come and get some of the lads to paint over that tomorrow’.
“But the majority of people … some of whom would not be as leftie as me … we found common ground on it. They said, ‘I like the colour of it’ and ‘Even if we don’t agree on every issue [such as immigration], we can agree on improving our neighbourhood and community’ – there’s a baseline of m
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