Evil attacks the good. And there is a very definite force of evil directed at us, The Bogside Artists.

The good that they attack is the simple fact that we really do represent the people.

We named our gallery after THE PEOPLE. We represent them because we set out to tell THEIR story. We represent them because we grew up and were educated with them and went to mass with them and lived with them. We articulated our common experience for them. And we did it for free. The people themselves paid for the murals and the making of them just as, to this day, they are paying for their illumination. And we have documented how we set about doing that in our book The People's Gallery. Many people have read it but there are some we suspect who cannot bring themselves to peer beneath the covers. These make up a vile group of people we have dubbed, not surprisingly, "MORIARTY". Our Moriarty is a beast with many heads. He tells shameless lies about us to those who do not know us and has been doing so for many years.

The gallery of murals we  painted known as The People's Gallery was officially launched by Bishop Daly, a man very highly regarded by the people of Derry and  famous worldwide as a peace broker and key figure during the Bloody Sunday debacle.  Even more highly regarded perhaps, is International Statesman  and Nobel Peace Laureate John Hume recently  voted "Irishman of The Century" and who is also a very good friend.  John launched our book and opened our gallery in the Bogside in 2008. World famous playwright and Derryman Brian Friel not only wrote a foreword for our book but received from us a presentation at our studio in the Bogside on his 80th birthday. This was a very great honour as Brian Friel rarely makes public engagements of any sort. In brief, our backing of the local population in Derry is total. We represent the people as few have ever done or ever will. To claim we do not represent the people when clearly the people and our work have made it abundantly clear that we do and to this day still do, is either idiocy or lunacy, or both . Or, as we are inclined to believe, pure evil.

Moriarty and his buddies DO NOT represent the people and that is just their problem. They represent only those who think like themselves and it is doubtful if they do even that. For, you would need to be bereft of any semblance of humanity, shame or conscience to do what he does, whatever his cause or how noble it may be.

Believing they have a cause to liberate their notion of 'the people' they seek to persuade others that we do not represent the people. On this delusional and self-serving premise they have defamed us and destroyed many projects we have been involved in over the years. This has seriously damaged our livelihoods and the welfare of our families. We would take them to court tomorrow for slander and defamation of character but the fact is Moriarty is protected by very powerful people. Otherwise, he would not be allowed to do what he does. Moriarty is likely being used but is too dumb to know it. Clearly, neither we who work unpaid, nor our shoestring charity, nor our gallery that limps along without any worthwhile subsidy and where we show the work of the disadvantaged young of our community, are not among 'the people' these idiots seek to 'liberate'. We know better. What motivates Moriarty is jealousy. Nothing more and nothing less. It matters not what he dresses it up in or how he justifies his antagonism towards us. That is his problem and he has no shortage of people like himself to help him.  Moriarty takes care to contact his targets by phone so that he doesn't leave a paper trail that we could use against him in a defamation case. That is our situation. If you have been contacted by Moriarty you would be strongly advised to use your own judgment in the light of what is here stated and presented. Just what damage Moriarty has done to us over the years only he knows. But we can tell you, it has been considerable. The good news is, people like this always get found out. If you really want to know what depths of moral inertia Moriarty can drag himself down to take a look at a newsletter on the subject we sent out many years ago - " Crisis in Berlin. There has been no let-up since then.

(Above; Kevin left and Tom centre-left with some of the people on whose gable walls we painted our murals).

                       

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