Republican Belfast: a political tourist's guide

Republican Belfast: A Political Tourist's Guide, written by an Irish republican ex prisoner Rab Kerr is acknowledged as being the first republican tourist book written about Belfast. The book, contains maps, photographs and commentary on all the sites of political and cultural interest in 'Republican Belfast'. Documenting the locations of all republican murals in the Greater Belfast area, as well as memorial gardens, museums and other such sites of interest. The book goes beyond listing the murals, plaques and memorials which can be found in the city and which are seen increasingly as one of Belfasts key tourist attractions.

Belfast's murals tend to be very colourful and touch on the major events in Republicanism. These Republican murals are diverse in nature. They have a unique mix; the local issue as well as the national and the international; the present phase of struggle and the historical event. This type of Street Art has proven successful not just in Belfast but further afield and tend grab peoples' interest and in doing so tell they history of the conflict in Ireland.

Murals in the book focus on such events as the Hungerstrikes of 1981, Collusion, Women in Struggle, deceased IRA Volunteers, Palestine, The Basque Freedom Struggle, Racism and Sectarianism, Easter 1916 and various aspects of the Prison Struggle. Sections of the book are devoted to places such as Milltown Cemetery and Clifton Street Cemetery where many IRA Volunteers and members of the United Irishmen are buried. A section of the book dealing with Milltown Cemetery, Andersonstown Barracks, The Felons Club and some murals can be downloaded from the University of Ulster's CAIN website^[1]

Kerr is married to Sinn Féin politician Jennifer McCann.

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