The Five Demands

Probabilmente il nome Danny Devenny non vi dice nulla, ma chi ha visitato Belfast ed i suoi murales, non può non essersi soffermato dinnanzi al murale ritraente Bobby Sands, sulla facciata laterale della sede del Sinn Fein in Falls Road.
Danny Devenny si racconta al Financial Times, sottolineando come il suo essere artista abbia avuto radici nel Maze, dove imparò a disegnare su dei fazzoletti di carta, dato che il materiale da disegno non era ammesso in quel periodo, ma oggetto di contrabbando.
Diventò volontario dell’IRA a 15 anni, come la maggior parte dei ragazzi di quell’epoca e venne arrestato tre anni dopo, per una rapina in banca.
Da lì si susseguirono periodi di detenzione (nel 1980 si trovava a Long Kesh, nella stessa baracca in cui era confinato Bobby Sands), periodi di libertà, attentati subiti, attività come sostenitore del Sinn Fein, e ad oggi,  promotore del processo di pace.
Il suo primo murale fu nel 1995, chiamanto “International Wall”, uno dei 41 muri ancora in piedi tra le aree protestanti e cattoliche di Belfast. Con il passare degli anni e degli eventi c’è stato un cambiamento dei temi dei murales. Dai soggetti bellici, a quelli pacifisti.
Oggi i suoi dipinti sui muri richiamano l’attenzione sui conflitti e le ingiustizie nel mondo: l’Iraq, Guantánamo, la Palestina. Danny Devenny oltre a dipingere, è impegnato in progetti progetti per promuovere la pace e la comprensione tra le  due comunità, partendo dalle scuole.

Danny Devenny – “I Learnt To Draw In The Maze Prison, On Handkerchiefs”
I learnt how to draw at Long kesh prison. when the troubles arrived in ireland in 1968, people of my generation joined the ira automatically. That’s how 11 out of 13 people in my football team ended up imprisoned or dead. I volunteered at 15, in 1970, and three years later robbed a bank for the IRA, with two 16-year-old mates. We were just kids – we even forgot to bring a bag to put the money in. But there must have been a tip-off, because the police were waiting for us. A passer-by wrestled me to the ground, and I was shot three times as I tried to escape. It was like a scene from Dog Day Afternoon.
At the hospital, I was guarded by two young British soldiers. Even then, I loved drawing, and I would do pictures of Marc Bolan, Michael Jackson, George Best. The soldiers would ask me to draw Tommy guns for them. In return, they played Pink Floyd outside, loudly, so I could hear.
I was sent from the hospital to Long Kesh [the Maze] prison for four years. It was January 1973. We weren’t allowed drawing materials so we smuggled them in, and drew on handkerchiefs – political subjects – then smuggled them out again. As I’d been shot, I couldn’t play football, so I drew to pass the time, and became like the prison artist. We were kept in Nissan huts inside cages, with about 80 men in each cage. Bobby Sands was in the same cage as me, and one of my fellow-robbers, Seanna Walsh, became his closest friend. In 1981 he wanted to join the hunger strike, but Bobby wouldn’t let him. What no one knows is that Bobby, the first Republican hunger striker to die, was a poet, a guitarist, a man of great humanity who loved life. My painting of him on the wall of the Sinn Fein offices in the Falls Road tries to capture that spirit.
When I was released, I became a political activist for Sinn Fein, doing agitprop. I painted on boards, posters, newspapers. So, in 1978, I was arrested again – with Tom Hartley, who’s now the mayor of Belfast – on charges of sedition, but was released after nine months. That’s when I started painting murals, in a protest at the conditions in H-block after special category status for political prisoners was lifted. People were scared to employ me, so I went to Dublin, to do publicity for Sinn Fein. And I got shot again. I was walking back to the office with Pat Magee, and we ran into a UVF gunman, who was probably targeting someone else. Three years later, Pat bombed The Grand hotel in Brighton during the Conservative party conference. I didn’t have a clue.
My first mural on what’s called the “international wall” in the Falls Road – one of 41 walls still standing between Protestant and Catholic areas in Belfast – was in 1995. It dealt with the issue of deaths from plastic bullets. But the murals reflect the mood and political consciousness of our community, so they have become less bellicose since the Good Friday accord in 1998. I am totally committed to the peace process: there has to be a political solution.
Nowadays, my paintings along the wall draw attention to conflict and injustice all over the world – Iraq, Guantanamo, Palestine. I have teamed up with Mark Ervine, the son of a prominent Loyalist leader, and together we painted a mural of Picasso’s “Guernica”. We are involved in several projects to promote peace and understanding between our two communities, including work with children at schools where, for example, a Protestant school is on the boundary of a Catholic area, or vice versa. Mark and I were also invited to paint a series of Beatles murals in Liverpool, for the European Capital of Culture celebrations this year.
Ironically, the West Belfast murals are a big tourist attraction now. I was invited recently to give a talk at a library about the posters I did in prison. In those days, you could be arrested just for having a poster. I seem to have gone from agitator to establishment figure. It gives me hope for the future of Ireland.