It has been painted over by the local authority just weeks ahead of a local Latin-American cultural festival in Kilkee to celebrate links with Guevara. The festival organisers were informed last week the mural would have to be removed because a group of American tourists left the town recently after seeing it. Clare County Council staff removed the 20ft high mural on Tuesday despite agreement at a Kilkee Town Council meeting on Monday that it should stay until the festival was over.
This is the third year of the festival, which was established in 2011 to mark the 50th anniversary of the visit to the area by Che Guevara. Guevara's plane had been grounded at Shannon Airport so he and his entourage spent a night in the west Clare resort town. The world-renowned image was created by Irish artist Jim Fitzpatrick after a chance meeting with Guevara in the Marine Hotel bar in Kilkee during that visit.
YouTube link.
Kilkee Town Council agreed the mural should be painted over and no future murals be located on this wall. Festival organisers were informed last week the mural would have to be removed. Kilkee Chamber of Commerce president Johnny Redmond said: "The festival is not political. It is a festival of Latin-American culture, but once again Clare Co Council is shooting itself in the foot." Clare County Council said the mural was in breach of local government legislation.
5 comments:
Weak, truly weak.
Americans probably bring in more money however.
Barack Obama is just about the only American I know of who "wants" to go to war w/ Syria...
...or anyone else, for that matter.
Not to belabor the point but Guevara was a murderous thug who used to beat people to death with a baseball bat. This is the man that Fidel Castro called "christlike" when he was killed in Bolivia.
While the council was certainly spineless, I don't think you can really blame the American tourists who "supposedly" left.
I apologize for the Americans who could not appreciate either art or history.
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