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Peace walls to tell Shankill story

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Belfast's 'peace walls' are getting an artistic facelift, it has been revealed.
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Images from Northern Ireland's troubled past have been painted on the Shankill Road side of the division.

More than 40 barriers remain in sectarian areas of Northern Ireland despite the peace process.

A half-kilometre stretch through the most polarised parts of west Belfast has been transformed through the initiative by local artists.

Organiser Roz Small said: "This is about giving the Shankill people the opportunity to tell the history to the world if they want to listen to it.

"It is about taking what has been quite a negative energy and transforming that into a positive expression of the Shankill people and community and history."

The first part of the project, If Walls Could Talk, is being unveiled on Wednesday.

Images include traditional brick houses and community life, paintings of Lord Carson, who led resistance to Irish Home Rule, and the original Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF).

Testimonials to those who died at the Somme during the First World War and pictures of Orangemen are shown.

It also features scenes from Baghdad's conflict-blighted Sadr City and Haifa in Israel.

Ms Small, co-ordinator of arts and tourism at the Greater Shankill Partnership, said: "The future vision of this would be to chronicle incidents and event through the period of the Shankill history."

© Press Association

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