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26th Nov 2017

Street artists respond to Dublin City Council with a powerful message

They have been issued a notice to remove their art.

Denise Curtin

“Make Dublin great again.”

At this stage, most people have heard of the iconic mural of Stormzy located in Smithfield, Dublin. A mural so vivid, colourful and detailed, that it grabbed the attention of the man himself, the UK rapper, who went to visit it.

Ain’t dropped nothin for a minute we’re fine.

A post shared by SUBSET (@subsetdublin) on

A post shared by SUBSET (@subsetdublin) on

And if you have never seen it before now, I would recommend going to see this masterpiece soon as Subset, the creators behind this wall art have received a notice from Dublin City Council asking them to remove the mural due to it being an “unauthorised development” that did not receive planning permission.

Subset has since began painting over half of their Stormzy mural plus half of their Rathmines mural, which too has been requested for removal by the council.

Speed bump. – #culture #dublincity

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People were appalled to see these vivid street art masterpieces being removed with one person saying: “Such a shame stunning work taken down for no good reason. Why is it so important to suck the life and colour out of an area that would celebrate such things.”

While another wrote: “Ridiculous. They’re supposed to get behind street art, their programme is called Colour in the City.”

The Council Strikes Again… – #dublincity #culture #stormzy

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Subset, who too seem very upset by this news has taken to a new location within the city centre to create a piece in response to the Council that reflects both their sadness and wishes for the future of Dublin. They created a piece in grey (reflecting the lack of colour the city will have if all their murals are removed) alongside the caption “Make Dublin great again” representing their hopes and wishes to continue injecting colour and life onto the grey streets in Dublin.

“When you build a wall, it’s gotta be grey.” #dublincity #culture #itsgonnabehuge

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Their murals which can be seen throughout Dublin add an “unbeatable joy” to the city, one fan commented, while another added that removing them would be “a bigger crime.”

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‘Forager’. #dublin #art

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