The writing is on the wall for traditional city tours. Dublin’s newest visitor attraction will highlight the capital’s trail of graffiti to let people judge for themselves whether it is art or vandalism.
Seán Bryan, a 24-year-old graffiti artist known as Konk, is launching two-hour walking tours of the capital’s street art after leading 30 people on his first last Sunday, at a cost of €10 each.
The tour mirrors similar ones held in cities such as London, New York, Melbourne and Buenos Aires.
Groups will be shown works by well-known graffiti artists including Maser, Fink and Karma on walls in Camden Street and Temple Bar.
Bryan will provide a guide to the graffiti scene in Dublin and explain the inspiration behind some of it. Guests will also be given a crash course in how to use a spray can in designated areas such as the concrete yard of the Bernard Shaw pub on South Richmond Street.
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Bryan, whose Konk “tags” can be seen all over Dublin, believes it will be good for the city — a sentiment not shared by the Dublin City Business Association, which represents property owners and retailers in Dublin 1 and 2.
“Technically, what I’m showing is illegal,” Bryan said. “We organised the first tour through Facebook and most of the people who came along were Irish couples who wanted to do something different on a Sunday, see the city in a different light, instead of going to the pub.”
Bryan, an out-of-work hairdresser from Bray, has vowed never again to dabble in illegal graffiti after he was arrested in 2008 for causing €14,000 of criminal damage.
He pleaded guilty to eight counts in the Circuit Criminal Court after tagging 28 walls, shop shutters, power boxes and other “urban canvases” between 2003 and 2006, when he was a teenager.
He received a two-year suspended prison sentence, 240 hours of community service and an €8,000 fine.
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Bryan now volunteers with the Dublin city youth service, teaching disadvantaged children about the difference between art and vandalism.
He has also been hired by the makers of the Sky One series The Take, based on a Martina Cole book, to authenticate a Dublin set with 1980s-style graffiti and has designed a logo for Spar’s chain of smoothie bars.
Graffiti by Maser features prominently on the tour. The artist’s work has appeared in cities from New York to London and he has been commissioned to create designs for RTE, BT2, Diet Coke and Coors Light, among others.
He is best known for his “Maser Loves You” slogans, which are seen around the capital.
Despite street art’s transition to the corporate mainstream, Tom Coffey, the chief executive of the Dublin City Business Association, would prefer to see graffiti artists arrested.
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“People visit Dublin city centre to see Viking, medieval, Georgian and Victorian architecture,” he said. “Brussels and Madrid are filthy with graffiti and we have a much higher standard than European and American cities.
“These people may see themselves as artists rather than vandals, but if you are a genuine artist you buy your own canvas and hold an exhibition, not damage other people’s property. I like to paint, but I don’t do it on other people’s buildings. Our businesses pay rates to the council to remove graffiti.”
Dublin city council has set aside €150,000 for this year to remove graffiti from public areas.
A spokeswoman said if the graffiti was on private property, such as on a shop front, it was the responsibility of the owner to erase it.
Bryan believes the council should establish designated areas of the city for street art, so teenagers will not be tempted to destroy property. “If teenagers use paint on a legal wall, they won’t do it illegally on neighbourhood walls or on the Dart route. Nobody wants to open their door and see ‘Johnno woz ere’ or ‘I love Amy’ on their wall.”
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Bryan said some of Dublin’s most prolific street artists were men in their 30s and 40s who had lost their jobs and were expressing their discontent with the economy or livening up neglected areas.
Most graffiti is done under cover of darkness, though “sometimes, if you do it in the middle of the day, you can get away with it because people think you’re allowed to do it”.
Coffey said his association would insist that anyone found defacing a member’s property be prosecuted.