Court to decide on status of Dublin murals

Dublin City Council’s prosecution against an artistic collective for three prominent street murals – including one celebrating the life of David Attenborough – will be heard over two days in June.

The murals by the group Subset did not have the all-clear from the city’s planning department.

Dublin District Court heard on Tuesday that expert witnesses will give evidence on whether they were unlawful developments and broke the law.

The council issued warnings and enforcement notices for Subset to remove the paintings.

In October, Paradigm Arts Group Limited, also known as Subset, was ordered to pay €4,500 in fines and legal costs.

In that case, Dublin City Council prosecuted the artists over a mural titled Think & Wonder. It appeared on the gable end of Granthams cafe, 5/6 Camden Market, Grantham Street, facing Pleasant Place, on the city’s south side in 2019.

The council accused the group, with an address at Zion Court, Rathgar, Dublin 6, of not complying with an enforcement notice to remove the mural.

The artists were not represented at the hearing but subsequently succeeded in getting the conviction and order set aside to allow a new trial. The case was listed again on Tuesday to select the date.

Judge Halpin ordered that it would take place on June 17th.

The council’s solicitor Michael Quinlan told Judge Halpin that another prosecution against the art group scheduled for March 3rd would also go back to a later date.

It related to the Attenborough mural just off the South Circular Road and the Horseboy painting on a gable end just off Church Street, Dublin 7.

Judge Halpin ordered it be heard on June 16th, and he noted expert witnesses would be called to give evidence.

He said the issue would be whether each mural constituted a development or had artistic licence if it were not a development.

Describing it as an interesting case, the judge said the evidence about the Attenborough and Horseboy paintings could truncate the evidence in the following day’s hearing over the Think & Wonder mural.