Street art in Dublin is not something I thought held great significance to the Irish people, at least not compared to the street art in Philadelphia. Though Dublin is filled with diverse performances of music and theater, I came across only a few remnants of the visual arts created by street artists. But even then, these remnants were hidden within alleys and street corners. So what was the point?
Luckily, I found that point while walking down Rathmines Road during lunchtime. I was not particularly looking for anything, except for food. That was when I came across the “Bernard Shaw”, a small quaint restaurant, like many others, but splashed with a plethora of symbols, quirky characters, vibrant colors, and pop-art style convolution. The paintings were all integrated into the pub’s architecture, turning the latter into a giant canvas. I was almost about to step into the restaurant, but I began to fight a stingy game in my head—should I spend money for lunch at the Shaw or should I wait for the pubs at night? The pubs of course!
But walking away did not turn out to be such a bad idea, especially since I did not expect what lied in store when I decided to wander around the perimeter of the restaurant—a beautiful display of graffiti art that illuminated the surrounding walls.
These super-stylized pop art graffito had more than just an aesthetic quality. They were rough, grotesque, and hopelessly blunt. One artwork of three clowns with the words, “Here Today Gone Tomorrow” seemed to reflect the live-in-the-present attitude of the Irish towards their contemporary surrounding. The clowns, for one, were not even the happy kind. To me they resembled young rebels with war paint on their skin, standing up to the remnants of English authority still prevalent in this part of Dublin.
The best of the work was the graffiti on the alley walls that was interlaced into a beautiful collage. It appeared that people used the alleyway as a shortcut, unlike the graffiti-stained alleys in Philadelphia that were often avoided. But it was interesting to see casual middle-class men and women, even if a few, take a detour through this curving alley full of mesmerizing contemporary street art. They were like an art gallery of their own.
What I really liked about this set of graffiti art was the way it beautified the space rather than demeaned it. Though the Irish sentiment and political strife burns underneath the beauty, it is because of that that I believe this type of art is acceptable to the public. In fact, Dublin is supposedly filled with these types of street art as part of a project started in 2011 called Roadworks. To know the many levels of Irish culture is to view it through its art. If there are other such works throughout Dublin, then I plan to scout them out.
