In place of strife

摘要

Belfast, like Dublin, has been transformed over the past 15 years. It used to be a bleak, partly bombed-out shell of a Victorian city, festooned with barbed wire and full of nervous soldiers in armoured vehicles. Now its centre is a bustling, lively place full of shops, offices, restaurants and theatres. Beyond the centre, admittedly, lie stark reminders of the province's sectarian tensions, most obviously the ugly graffiti-strewn walls that physically keep apart the divided Protestant and Catholic communities in the west and north. But overall Northern Ireland has changed sharply for the better-just like the republic.