Big Wheels Keep On Turning….

Steven Are reports on a recent visit back to the North.




Travelling around this planet to various far-flung places I have developed a barometer of sorts to gauge the economic health of the city/state I am visiting. I can usually tell if the place is prospering or not by the amount of construction going on, specifically, the amount of cranes erecting new buildings on the skyline. Forget the austerity crap that the MSM try to sell you: if there is profit to be made Capital will sniff it out and, like a shark with blood in the water, be ruthless in its pursuit.

So it was with some pleasant surprise to see Belfast had changed quite dramatically in the almost twenty years I’d been away. I can still remember the waste land that used to sit behind the Oxford Street bus station, which has now long gone, and which has now been replaced with multi-national Tech companies. The Law Courts are unrecognisable from what I remember them to be, which was basically heavily fortified army sangers on either side.

But it was the little things that really stuck out. I took a dander with my wife and weans around the City to find restaurants with table and chairs sitting outside for patrons. This seems innocuous and is commonplace most everywhere else but it sure as hell wasn’t an option in the 80’s!

My wife who is not a native was a bit bemused at my wandering around like a lost tourist gawking at everything. Can’t blame her: this was not the Belfast I was expecting. The demography appears to have changed somewhat too. When I left the population was 99% Anglo with 1% Chinese and I still have Chinese schoolmates I keep in touch with. Now Belfast is becoming in keeping with most other European cities and the diversity of ethnicities is on show.

Never more apparent than when we stopped for lunch on the Dublin Road. As we walked past a ‘European Café’ we were greeted by the sight of three elderly possible Greek guys smoking roll ups and drinking coffee. They gave me the evil eye as if I was the interloper and I couldn’t help but let out a snort of laughter. They definitely weren’t about back in the day!

But it is the Fear Factor or rather the lack of it which surprised me the most. I spoke to several taxi drivers who were known as “Dial a victim” in my youth. They all reported that no longer are they afraid for their lives, and that the young of Belfast are much more interested in just getting on with enjoying life than was the case over a decade ago.

This was clear to me by a soppy feel-good moment, when I took my kids to a park and noticed GAA tops mingling happily with NI tops. I’m not naive enough to think that all the ills of the past have just evaporated, but I did have a moment of reflection when I noticed young teenagers of the opposite sex and political persuasion flirting with each other. Undoubtedly a great thing in my eyes.

This chain of events led me wonder about the future. With an expanding middle class becoming obvious is a “United Ireland” closer?

I can honestly say I did not notice any border whatsoever between Down and Louth. I can say the road was bloody busy though.

The Loyalists I spoke to seemed to speak fondly of visiting the South and how they had even made friends down there while on holiday in Spain, going so far as to arrange catch ups when back home.

Perhaps time mellows even the fiercest of beasts. It is very uncertain times we live in but I can foresee no situation where the UK wants a ‘Hard Border’ with the Republic. And with the gradual mingling of the youth perhaps a ‘United Ireland’ will exist in everything but name.

After all, what good would come if the people are divided?