'My whole life erased from the wall': Dublin residents speak out as councils replace community murals with generic images

A long-standing mural on Pearse Street depicting the 1913 Lockout was painted over in March. In its place: a stock photograph of the Liffey at dawn, printed on weatherproof board and bolted to a red-brick wall that locals say has displayed community art for nearly two decades. For people in the area, the swap felt less like urban renewal and less like erasure.

Dublin City Council has been rolling out a visual standardisation programme across several inner-city wards since January 2026, replacing what council documents describe as "unsanctioned or degraded imagery" on public-facing walls and hoardings with council-approved photographic panels. The programme, administered through the Environment and Transportation Department, covers at least 14 locations from Inchicore to East Wall. Residents and community groups say they were not consulted before the work began.

Communities left out of the conversation

The backlash has been sharpest in the Liberties, where a hoarding outside the Iveagh Markets site on Francis Street was stripped of local heritage artwork in February. The National College of Art and Design, whose students had collaborated with the Liberties Community Association on the original piece in 2022, confirmed it had received no formal notice of the removal. Members of the association described finding the replacement image, a generic cityscape, in place when they arrived for a scheduled community clean-up on a Saturday morning in late February.

Similar scenes played out in Stoneybatter. A wall on Manor Street, where the Grangegorman Development DAC had supported a neighbourhood history installation in 2023, was also replaced. The Stoneybatter and Smithfield People's History Project, which helped coordinate that installation, said it learned of the change through a social media post from a local resident rather than any official communication. The group wrote to the council in April seeking clarification under the Freedom of Information Act. As of this week, no substantive response had been received.

Community frustration is not purely about aesthetics. Organising groups argue the murals served a social function, marking territory, building pride, giving young people a visible stake in their neighbourhood. In Pearse Street alone, the original artwork had been cited in a 2024 Dublin City Council-commissioned report on social cohesion in the south inner city, which found that community-led art projects contributed to measurable reductions in anti-social behaviour in designated pilot areas. The report, published in November 2024, named the Pearse Street mural as one of seven successful examples across the city.

What the council says, and what comes next

Dublin City Council's public-facing communications describe the programme as part of a broader Public Realm Strategy adopted in October 2025, aimed at improving visual consistency across arterial routes ahead of a series of major international events expected in Dublin in 2027. The strategy document, available on the council's website, acknowledges that "community engagement protocols" will apply to future phases, but does not specify timelines or detail which locations remain under review.

For affected groups, that is not good enough. The Liberties Community Association has requested a meeting with the council's Chief Executive, currently scheduled for late July, to discuss the programme's scope. The Grangegorman Development DAC said it is reviewing its partnership agreements to determine whether the Manor Street removal constituted a breach of any memorandum of understanding signed with the council in 2021.

Meanwhile, residents on Pearse Street and Manor Street say they are planning to document the original artworks using archive photographs and oral testimony, with a view to proposing formal heritage listing for community murals under Dublin City Council's existing public art register. That register, maintained by the Arts Office on Parnell Square, currently lists 312 works across the city. None of the replaced images appear on it.

Community groups are urging anyone who has photographs of removed murals, from Crumlin to Clontarf, to contact the Dublin Community Art Archive, which launched a dedicated submission portal in June 2026. The process, they say, is about more than preserving images. It is about making sure the city does not quietly forget who put them there in the first place.