Writing's on the wall for Martin

IT'S RATHER a pity that Martin McGuinness is only journeying down for the few weeks.

He's not even in the Phoenix Park and the cultural value of a possible McGuinness presidency is already in evidence on the streets of Dublin.

Photographer Cyril Byrne spotted a lovely mural yesterday (left) adorning the wall of that fine public house The Auld Triangle on Dublin's Lower Dorset Street.

The freshly painted wall features a compact Martin McGuinness billboard surrounded by cameo portraits of four IRA hunger strikers along with a quotation from Bobby Sands and some lines from The H-Block Song by Francie Brolly: "I'll wear no convict's uniform nor meekly serve my time/That England might brand Ireland's fight eight hundred years of crime".

Martin is very unhappy at the continuing media scrutiny of his IRA past.

But raking up the Sands of Time on a gable wall in the 26 counties is a different matter.

Sure it might not be Free Derry Corner, but it's a start.

More "muriels" please.

They've been a godsend to the tourism industries in the six counties.

Why didn't Seán Gallagher think of that?

Beats purchasing advertisements to go on bins, buying rolls and rolls of stickers and mounting expensive slick digital media campaigns, and he could still say he isn't wasting money by putting up posters.

And he would be giving employment to artists.