This thesis examines political murals produced during the conflict known as "The Troubles" in Northern Ireland. Drawing upon the work of Eric Hobsbawm and Roland Barthes, I argue that murals played a key role in the invention of traditions, a process of crafting a communal self-identification and legitimizing central narrative, which was of crucial concern to groups on both sides. In this regard, murals functioned as a form of mythic speech, attempting to depoliticize and make natural the rhetoric used by the competing groups. Murals served as a highly visible form of both internal and external propaganda, articulating one side's rhetoric while challenging the other's. The grassroots nature of the mural traditions is particularly telling, exposing the deep-seated insecurity of both sides. This insecurity was further reflected by, and a served as a catalyst for, the paramilitary violence that has been a defining characteristic of Northern Ireland for so long.