ORGANISERS of a parade planned to mark the calender date of the Easter Rising have admitted they placed a poster over the face of Edward Carson on a west Belfast mural saying the image was a "waste of paint".
Sean Cahill of the People's Parade, said that the mural, which is designed to cover the entire International Wall and tell the Belfast story of the 1916 Uprising, was done "without community consultation, is out of context and insensitive".
However, he said that the group responsible for organising the parade due to take place on April 24, did not support paint bomb attacks on the wall or online threats to artists.
It comes amid a row over ownership rights of the wall that attracts thousands of tourists every year and has been used for over 20-years as a platform to highlight local and global political issues.
"We've said that the painting of Carson is a waste of paint, but those throwing paint at it are being just as wasteful.
"I personally don't think Carson should have been put on the wall, or if he was it should have been with proper consultation and to explain exactly what their plans were.
"No one owns all of that wall, other groups have murals on the wall and never at any stage agreed for them to painted over.
"Saying you can't tell the story of the Rising, without painting Carson, is like saying you can't commemorate the hunger strikers without painting a mural of Thatcher.
"We did place the poster over Carson's head. To be honest work appeared to have stopped and we just took the opportunity to advertise the parade. It was done a bit tongue in cheek.
"But my personal opinion is that it shouldn't be there in the first place", Mr Cahill added.
Harry Connolly of Fáilte Feirste Thiar (Visit West Belfast) has called on those responsible for defacing the mural to stop what they are doing saying it "does nothing for the image of west Belfast and republicanism in general in this historic year".
