THE new mural in Newcastle on the gable wall of The Hutt Hostel on the Downs Road is a thank you to Rory McIlroy. So says Terry Hutley, whose family commissioned the mural, which depicts the Holywood golfer alongside the five other Irish golf Major winners.
“The inspiration came from Royal County Down, and obviously Rory McIlroy primarily,” Terry said. “We see Rory praise Royal County Down a lot on social media and in interviews. We felt that we could give a little bit back, thank him almost for the recognition that he gives our little corner of Northern Ireland. And we wanted to try to create that atmosphere of the golf reaching into the town.”
The mural took five days to paint, from April 20 to 24. It was designed and painted by graffiti artist and mural painter Visual Waste, who is from Belfast. The mural shows the six Irish Major winners: Rory McIlroy, Shane Lowry, Padraig Harrington, Graeme McDowell, Darren Clarke, and Fred Daly. The six golfers are on the right-hand side of the mural, and Royal County Down golf club is painted on the left.
Terry said that the family had also noticed the success of murals in Portrush and felt that Newcastle could benefit from something similar. “We took a lot of inspiration from the Shane Lowry mural on the North Coast. That went up after he won The Open in Portrush.”
The family had started planning the mural after Rory won his first Masters tournament in April 2025. “We were anxiously hoping that he would win the Grand Slam (The Masters, The Open, The US Open, and the PGA Championship) and that would be the trigger to get a mural done,” Terry said.
It took over a year for the mural to be started. The summer of 2025 was too busy to take on such a project, then the weather in the autumn and winter of 2025 was not suitable for painting murals. “When the good weather hit, we felt that now was our opportunity,” he said. “And off the back of him winning back-to-back Masters we felt there was no better time.”
