The thirties were troublesome in Belfast, and then of course there was no work for people, and it was terribly religiously divided.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
If I had stayed in Belfast, my life there wouldn't have as easy as it was in Scotland. I see the strain on the people who stayed. Always worrying about the safety of their children.
My parents were Belfast Catholics.
Northern Ireland still suffers from its past, and it will take generations to escape sectarianism and for violence to end totally. Nonetheless, it is in a different place now than during the Troubles, and it will not go back to the old days.
I've never read anything set in Belfast that doesn't involve the Troubles or something senseless over a flag.
When I was growing up, Belfast City Hall was surrounded by security, and we had no access to it. But now, people come in and out of it all the time. On a nice day, office workers and students sit on the lawn outside and have lunch. It's great to see how Northern Ireland has changed. To be part of that is fantastic.
I think a lot of us who grew up in Northern Ireland weren't politicised enough, frankly.
This is not to say that the Scots are not fine people, but they were all sort of... well, my grandfather was a minister and sort of Protestant, and this was rather depressing to me.
The Irish job was something that had to be sorted out.
I was one of the many kids in Northern Ireland who grew up in the countryside and had an idyllic childhood well away from the Troubles.
When the problems in Northern Ireland started, it was not a question of Protestantism or Catholicism, because the Catholic church was the only church at that time-it was a nationalist conflict.