ABSTRACT
This chapter investigates the intervention of the State to reimage political murals in Northern Ireland and explores the implications this can have on the working-class communities as well as tourism in the Province. The murals re-imaging initiatives involve the replacement of the most political murals with more neutral and non-contentious paintings or, in some cases, images printed on Perspex or aluminum and attached to walls. The government-funded re-imaging initiatives can be seen as seeking to assert the authority of the government over the visual environment of the communities. Not only can government-funded re-imaging initiatives affect the communities' sense of identity and belonging, but people can also have serious implications for tourism. The chapter investigates the effects of the State's intervention to depoliticize and sanitize political murals on the two main communities, Protestant and Catholic, that form Northern Ireland society and the possible implications of these initiatives on tourism, in particular political tourism.
