Aslan frontman Christy Dignam says he was “disappointed” to see a mural tribute to the band was vandalised – and was tempted to scrub off the graffiti himself.
The mural, which has been a feature in Finglas village since 2018, was found defaced yesterday.
The electricity box outside Saint Canice’s Church in the village was painted in 2018 as part of the Dublin Canvas project.
The piece, simply named “Christy”, was created by Emmalene Blake and features a young Christy singing the lyrics to the band’s first single, This Is.
The Crazy World hitmaker said he was really disappointed to see the mural vandalised after it was untouched for years.
“It’s been there a couple of years now and nobody touched it,” he told The Star. “I was really pleasantly surprised nobody had gone near it because people write on everything these days.
“So I was really disappointed. I was going to clean it off myself, but I was worried that if I tried to remove it I would remove the mural as well as I don’t know how it works.”
But Christy said he doesn’t believe it was “personal”.
“I don’t think it was anything personal because there’s a David Bowie one down the road from it and that one was tagged as well,” he added.
In a statement, the band said they were sorry to see the mural destroyed. “We are so saddened to see Aslan mural in Finglas village defaced,” they said.
“The time and effort spent by Emmalene Blake in creating this… now destroyed…Surely someone knows who this “tag” is belonged to?!”
The piece was vandalised overnight on Wednesday much to the widespread fury of the local community, with many people sharing their disgust on social media.
One Facebook commenter said: “That’s a disgrace, no respect for nothing or anything.”
Another wrote: “So disrespectful of the artist who painted Aslan and of course of Aslan, I suggest [the taggers] do the same on your hall door and see how your family like it.”
And a third wrote: “Aslan are Finglas’ Beatles, imagine if the little toe rags defaced the Beatles stuff in Liverpool.”
