This mural was painted in 2006 by Danny Devenney as a tribute to Frederick Douglass, who visited Belfast in 1945. Douglass was both impressed by the lack of racial prejudice he was met with during his stay and felt connected to the struggles of the peasantry that he observed, though it is important to note that his experiences with race, “undoubtedly stemmed in large part from the fact that he was moving in the genteel, middle class Protestant milieu from whence Irish support for abolition stemmed” (Rolston 446).
However, Douglass was disappointed in the racist attitudes of Irish immigrants in the United States and in the speech that is quoted on this mural explores the way that prejudice begets prejudice—thus establishing the uniting of global liberation movements as a necessary step in solving a systemic problem: something which the international murals also seem to support. “[Douglass] believed that if [he] could persuade Irish immigrants that the oppression of blacks was part of a larger system of universal human suffering then they would become sympathetic to the Abolition of slavery in the United States.” (Black 18)
Many groups that have fought imperialism have looked to and been inspired by Ireland’s struggle, but particularly early on in the Irish republican movement (before the 1960’s) this support was not always reciprocated. Thus, while there were some abolitionists in Ireland, there were also many who rejected any attempts at fostering a brotherhood between the two causes: creating tension between, “the revolutionary whose emancipatory ideals are confined to his own nation, and […] the internationalist who recognizes the plight of others in that of his own nation” (Rolston 452).
This mural though was certainly created in the tradition of murals with a focus on uniting international struggles—thus abolition, women’s rights, and Irish freedom can be placed right next to each other without any push back and Douglass’s visit to Ireland can be interpreted through a fairly singular lens of supporting the Irish and drawing a connection between subjugated people on a global scale—and in doing this creates a narrative which reflects on the history of Ireland by making use of the connotations associated with abolition in the United States.