Bray brushes off racism with inclusive mural
Emer O'Neill and the Bray for Love mural paiinted by artist Holly Perreira on the gable wall of the Harbour Bar, Bray Co Wicklow. Picture: Moya Nolan
The town of Bray has been the target of racist and hate speech graffiti for several months, but the local community has rallied together to tackle it head-on with a giant mural on one of its famous buildings.
The mural depicting people from all over the world has been unveiled on the side of the Harbour Bar - once voted the Best Pub in the World by the Lonely Planet and the bathroom of which was used by Olympic gold medalist Katie Taylor when training for the London games in her nearby boxing gym before it was renovated.
Local woman Emer O’Neill, who has been outspoken about racist abuse she received, started a group called Speak for Racial Justice with other people in her community last May. Bray for Love is their campaign to counteract the graffiti the town has been experiencing.
“When George Floyd was murdered it had a huge impact on me. I felt I just couldn’t stay quiet anymore. I felt I had to voice the racism that I have endured here in Ireland. I felt people needed to know.
“So a number of people reached out to me and we decided to make a group in Bray, called Speak for Racial Justice. We’re just ordinary folks that have that same mind frame that equality is a no-brainer,” said Emer.
After this, racist and hate speech graffiti started appearing in the town.
"We had a GoFundMe page. We raised €3,000. We were able to get an artist (Holly Pereira) in to do a beautiful mural on the side of the wall of the Harbour Bar. There has been a lot of negative graffiti so we decided to do some positive graffiti as such," she explained.
Some of the graffiti has been targeted at Emer specifically, even appearing in her housing estate.
Despite this, she has never felt so supported by the people of Ireland and by her community in particular.
“It’s what has kept me going, the fact that so many people are behind me and vocally, and vocally anti-racist. It’s just given me the strength,” she said.
The group went around to local businesses asking for support and the majority of them placed the Bray for Love sticker in their shopfront window.
“We as a community will not stand for racist graffiti or hate speech,” said Emer.
Anne Waithira Burke is another local woman who has been involved in the group. She is vice-chair of the African Irish society of Wicklow and is mother to two mixed-race children.
“We hope that the rest of the county and the country could follow this example and be active, and positively active at that, so as to stop the far right, hate and discrimination in its tracks,” said Anne.
Local Green Party councillor Erika Doyle, like Emer, was personally targeted by graffiti. While police are investigating the on-going issue she believes one individual is behind the targeted graffiti and several individuals are behind the general hate speech graffiti.
She says that Bray Town Council is working hard to remove the ongoing graffiti as is the local Tidy Towns group.
It is understood that some of the graffiti is triggered by far-right sentiment.
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