Belfast City Tour

In Belfast: Toward a City Without Walls Vicky Cosstick tells the story of Belfast s 100 sectarian walls and interfaces, now the last in Europe, which remain fifteen years after the Good Friday Agreement of 1998, and she asks for how much longer these physical signs and symbols of sectarianism and the Troubles will disfigure the cityscape.The walls are important as both memorials to the conflict and a reminder of the unfinished nature of the peace process; however, in May 2013, the First Minister and deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland made a commitment to bring them down by 2023. This book tells the compelling stories of the complex network of people and the different communities and agencies that are involved in maintaining peace at the interfaces and working towards a city without walls, and draws an intricate picture of how peace is being worked out in the current life of the city.This uniquely researched portrait of a post-conflict peace process provides a real time picture of the complex process by which constructive change is happening.Fascinating in their variety, the walls and fences at the center of this story are illustrated by the evocative and insightful photography of Frankie Quinn.REVIEWS "Her book examines how progress could be made through dialogue, regeneration, through art and architecture, with the help of the communities, the former paramilitaries, the politicians, the churches, and through business and tourism...Wearing her academic hat she refers to complexity theory which, she says, points to 'small, gradual changes resulting in big effects'." - Gerry Moriarty, The Irish Times"

Belfast 1972. It’s the bloodiest year of the Northern Irish ‘Troubles’ and sixteen-year-old Eimear O’Callaghan, a Catholic schoolgirl in Andersonstown, West Belfast, bears witness in her new diary. What follows is a unique and touching perspective into the daily life of an ordinary teenager coming of age in extraordinary times. The immediacy of the diary entries are complemented with the author’s mature reflections written forty years later. The result is poignant, shocking, wryly funny and above all, explicitly honest.

This unique publication comes at a time when Northern Ireland is desperately struggling to come to terms with the legacy of its turbulent past. It provides a powerful juxtaposition of the ordinary, everyday concerns of a sixteen-year-old girl – who could be any girl in any British or Irish city at this time, worrying about her hair, exams, clothes, discos – with the unimaginable horror of a society slowly disintegrating before her eyes, a seemingly inevitable descent into a bloody civil war, fuelled by sectarianism, hatred and fear.

Written by an experienced broadcaster and journalist, Belfast Days demonstrates how one person’s examination of her own ‘story’, upon rediscovering her 1972 diary on the eve of the publication of the Saville Report, provided her with a new perspective on one of the darkest periods in twentieth century British and Irish history.

An evocative memoir that explores the Troubles in Northern Ireland and their legacy, published to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the start of the armed violence that marked the beginning of this period. August 2019 marks the 50th anniversary of an eruption of armed violence that traumatised Northern Ireland and transformed a period of street protest over civil rights into decades of paramilitary warfare by republicans and loyalists, the Troubles. One night of street gun battles led to the British army being ordered in to keep the peace. Belfast would look like a battlefield for a whole generation growing up there.

In this evocative memoir, Malachi O'Doherty recounts his experiences of living through the three decades of the Troubles and the subsequent peace process. Incorporating interviews with political, professional and paramilitary figures, he draws a profile of an era that produced violent trauma, comparing and contrasting it with today and asks how frail is the current peace as Brexit approaches, politics are deadlocked and violence is simmering in both republican and loyalist camps.

By getting this travel guide to Belfast, you will get:

- Exact information on what is the best hotel to stay in Belfast, so that you will be in the best area of Belfast for all activities, without breaking the bank.
- Exact information on what to do every hour of the day.
- Where to Eat: What are the best restaurants that locals go to.
- What dishes to try. A simple culinary guide with the top 10 dishes and drinks.
- Where to go out in the evening. Only the top suggestion for each day for one bar or a club.
- How to move from the airport to the hotel with the most budget-friendly way.
- What museums and sights to see. What tourist traps to avoid.
- How to transport with bus, tram or metro. Detailed names of the bus numbers and the station names you will use.
- Best things to do in each one of the 3 days.