New mural on Leeside is for ‘conversation, not confrontation’

A striking 50 metre mural has appeared in Cork city aiming to encourage empathy with refugees and asylum seekers in Ireland.

The mural on Sullivan’s Quay reads: “Let no Irishman throw a stone at the foreigner; he may hit his own clan.”

The words were drawn from Irish revolutionary James Connolly’s 1908 essay ‘Harp Strings’.

The large-scale piece was created by a group of students on the Creativity & Change course at the Crawford College of Art and Design MTU and led by artists and course facilitators Claire Coughlan, Helen O’Keeffe, Blanca Rice, and Vicky Donnelly.

Ms Coughlan said: “This project is about creating public spaces for conversation, not confrontation. We want this mural to spark discussion and to remind people of the things that unite us rather than divide us.”

Created last Saturday during the protests and counter protests that gathered on Grand Parade, the mural aims to inspire reflection, reminding all who pass by to remember Ireland’s shared history of migration and oppression and to encourage empathy, in particular, with people who are coming here as refugees and asylum seekers.

The artwork has already drawn significant attention online, with a video of its unveiling being viewed over 500,000 times and receiving over 29,000 likes in 48 hours.

Members of the public are invited to visit the mural and join the conversation by tagging @creativityandchange on Instagram.