Photo: Nick Himmel

Q: What’s up with that mural of IRA activists in East Harlem? —George Berke, Yorkville

A: The 30-by-30-foot mural, located at 230 East 124th Street, was created by Gerard “Mo Chara” Kelly and Tom Billings in 2001 to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Long Kesh Prison hunger strike, in which ten IRA activists starved themselves to death. The strikers were protesting being treated as criminals rather than prisoners of war. “One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter” is how Chara put it (he himself served five years in Long Kesh for possession of explosives, developing his fine brushstroke while in captivity). The mural includes the hunger strikers as well as a quote from their leader, Bobby Sands. It also depicts international civil-rights activists Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr. and Nelson Mandela. So why East Harlem? Simple: A friend of Chara’s owned the building and donated the space for the mural.—DD

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