A look at Northern Ireland 25 years after the peace deal

BELFAST, Northern Ireland – Twenty-five years ago, Britain and Ireland signed the Good Friday Agreement, ending decades of bloodshed known as Troubles. With the stroke of a pen, Northern Ireland became one of the most ambitious experiments the world on how to reconcile a deeply divided society.

Today again traces of separation persist between Protestant and Catholic Northern Ireland: barriers between neighborhoods known as peace walls; murals with images of Queen Elizabeth II or Irish republican heroes; the Union Jacks and the Irish tricolors flying from the lampposts.

But more and more these things are relics. Marking a quarter century of peace, Northern Ireland is finding its place as both part of the United Kingdom and the island of Ireland, seeking to transform old divisions into a formula for future prosperity.

At the heart of the Good Friday Agreement is a commitment to preserve a political balance between the mostly Protestant unionists who want Northern Ireland to remain part of the UK and the mostly Catholic nationalists who support unification with the Republic of Ireland.

It is a challenge because, for the first time, Catholics outnumber Protestants in Northern Ireland.

The prospect that this could lead to a unification of Ireland trade unionists alarm who take advantage of festivities and historical celebrations to affirm their religious identity. The nationalists, more sure of their future, celebrate their Irish identity at sporting events.

In the decades since the end of the Troubles, Northern Ireland has become a secular society, like many western countries, where the new generations have little time to do it the sectarian concerns of their parents and grandparents.

Both in pubs and concert halls, young Protestants and Catholics They tend to mix easily. united by the pursuit of camaraderie and fun. In your case, the rainbow Pride flag is likely hanging from the ceiling like those of Ireland or Great Britain.

the scars still remain

The barbed wire and border posts that once divided Northern Ireland from Ireland had largely disappeared even before the 1998 agreement.

But there are still scars, such as the euphemistically so-called peace walls snaking through Belfast. Some, like the one that separates Catholic Springfield Road from Protestant Springmartin Road, can be seen from miles away.

Another has become a magnet for tourists, who pass by in a taxi, imagining the violence of the past while residents of the Falls Road, Belfast’s Catholic stronghold, and the Shankill Road, its Protestant counterpart, go about their daily lives.

For Northern Ireland’s more radical trade unionists, known as Loyalists, Brexit was painful, and many became desperate as it drove a wedge between them and the rest of the UK. There are no ties to the union, the murals celebrate the British monarch or participate in parades honoring Protestant icons like William of Orange.

But residents of economically depressed and politically isolated loyalist enclaves like Sandy Row in Belfast are feeling increasingly abandoned. Many residents mourn the injustices of post-Brexit life and see little hope for a better future.

For Catholics, who have long felt the boot of British rule in a Protestant-dominated Northern Ireland, the future looks brighter. Sinn Fein, the main party in the Irish nationalist camp, became the largest assembly party in the North in last year’s election.

He appealed to voters by emphasizing everyday concerns like education and health. For now, these issues matter more to growing Catholic families than to a united Ireland.

But memories of a bloodstained past can be shocking. In East Belfast, close to the shipyards where was the titanic built the image of a masked paramilitary looms over the side of a building.

Victims of violence and their families are grappling with the legacy of years of conflict in Northern Ireland. Some continue to campaign for an investigation into car bombings or murders committed long ago, desperate for justice in a society eager to move on.

The conflicts have scared off foreign investors, leaving Northern Ireland with a weak economy at a time when Ireland has benefited from its membership of the European Union.

But there’s a new optimism in the trendy cafés of Belfast and other cities. The unique nature of Northern Ireland’s post-Brexit trading status grants it unlimited access to the UK and the vast European single market.

From the wave-lashed basalt columns of the Giant’s Causeway to the protruding prow of the Titanic museum in Belfast, Northern Ireland it is renovating as a tourist destinationfamous for attractions other than the Troubles.

Artists transform derelict Belfast buildings into studios amid a booming contemporary art scene. In popular culture, Northern Ireland’s second largest city, Derry, has become synonymous with the popular television series ‘Derry Girls’.

Yet the past never quite shakes its fist in Northern Ireland, be it in the politically charged murals or the rival flags telling visitors when they’ve entered a loyalist or nationalist neighbourhood.

The Knockagh monument attests to this enduring ambiguity. It was built to honor the fallen of World War I and later the dead of both world wars. But the First World War has been identified with Loyalists and Unionists, albeit Protestants and Catholics fell together on the battlefields.

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