Remembrance mural for school girl finished
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City centre painting completed as a symbol of peace
By Eamonn Houston
One of the North’s most famous murals depicting the Troubles was completed yesterday as a symbol of hope and peace.
Click mural to view
The mural of Annette McGavigan – a 14-year-old school girl shot dead by a British soldier on a Derry street in 1971 – had been deliberately left an unfinished work until the guns of the Troubles had become a thing of the past.
The huge mural on a gable wall in Derry’s Bogside will be completed today.
The Bogside artists did not paint a butterfly outline on the top left of the mural until they were satisfied that peace had been achieved in the North.
It now boasts bright colours and, according to the artists, is a fitting testimony to all of the innocent children who died during the course of the conflict.
“We left the butterfly and the gun until we felt it appropriate – when we felt that the gun had been removed from the equation,” said artist Tom Kelly.
Artist Kevin Hasson was putting the final touches to the mural yesterday.
In a separate development, the Bogside artists received the support of three prominent Canadian academics.
Dr Stewart Donovan of St Thomas University, Cyril Donahue of Canada’s Irish Festival on the Miramichi and Denis Noel of the Irish/Canadian Association of New Brunswick have written a letter to Derry City Council urging it to pour financial support into what has become known as “the people’s gallery”.
“These mural walls have the iconic status of the Derry/Londonderry walls and as such surely they deserve the respect, admiration and promotion that has been accorded those historic walls,” they wrote.
