That was the weekend that was

Ah, the mini-break.  Mrs O and I spent this weekend in Belfast, watching The Tour of Italy bike race kick-off.  We flew out of Heathrow on Friday evening and returned Sunday afternoon.  A fleeting visit, then, but even so, you always return to the homestead with the batteries fully-charged after a weekend away like this.

Belfast has changed so much over the last few years.  I first visited the North in 1997, on honeymoon.  That's how you keep the nuptial magic alive, incidentally: take your newly-minted bride to a war zone for two weeks.  In fairness, Mrs O does hail from Ulster originally, so it wasn't the wanton act of cruelty it might otherwise appear.

On that first visit we drove up from the Republic, and I remember the real fear crossing the border engendered in me.  In those days, you had to be searched and then cross 500 yards of no-man's-land to enter the North.  And this no-man's-land was straight out of Le Carré: armed observation towers, razor wire and armoured personnel carriers.  I covered the terrain at walking pace as I genuinely feared being bazooka-ed for driving too fast and being mistaken for a dangerous insurgent.

And when we reached NI, things didn't improve much.  Each village and small town we drove through was staunchly Loyalist or Nationalist, the flags and coloured paving stones left you in no doubt about that.  As we drove into each new conubation (again at 8 miles an hour), my mind would be doing cartwheels trying to work out how we might go down with the locals.

The reason for the mental contortions was that we are a heady and contradictory mix, Mrs O and I, at least in Ulster we are.  She's a protestant from the North, and I am a London Irish catholic.  I have a very Irish (for which read very catholic) surname.  I have an Irish passport, and she a British one.  And we were driving a British registered car.  We'd left no sectarian offence stone unturned.

Everything, but everything in the North in those days was hugely symbolic and significant: where you went to school, where you went on holiday, your name etc.  Unfortunately, we were screwing with the religion gardar, which made us suspect to both sides of the divide.  Eventually we settled on staying only in the large town and cities, which are mixed and therefore tolerable.

We've been back to Belfast several times over the years since then, and every time you visit, it seems more relaxed and normal than it did before.  The scars are still there of course, but they have an historical feel about them now.  It doesn't feel like the place could tip back into madness (I pray to God - the Catholic one - that I won't have occasion to eat those words).  There's a generation of young adults in Northern Ireland now that has only known peace.  You'd hope they look upon the actions of their forebears and think Just what the fuck was all that about then?

I suspect they will.  Northern Ireland - it's the future.