You won't believe this about Belfast.

You won’t believe this about Belfast. It’s a shithouse, you know. The whole of Belfast is a shithouse. I swear to God I’d rather live in a sewer right now than anywhere in Belfast.'

The two of them laugh, and then a police car pulls up and a uniformed officer gets out and comes towards them. The officer looks over to his colleague who looks away and then finally comes to a stop.

‘The two of you,’ he says, and the two men turn andYou won’t believe this about Belfast.

To the casual observer, this is a very different city from the one you grew up in. Its streets are crammed with the same families and working-class people who live there now, its architecture is as uniform as a piece of blue sky, but its politics is as volatile as the sky itself.

But Belfast is not the same as it was. It is changing, and changing for the better.

The last 10 years have been a sea change for the city. ItsYou won’t believe this about Belfast. There are a lot of stories. A lot of the people here are very loyal to the city in a way that a lot of these places don’t get. They’re loyal to their families that are in other parts of Ireland. They’re loyal to each other and they’re loyal to the city itself. It was one of the few places in Ireland where everyone could be a Catholic or a Protestant. It’s a very big place. It’s a cultural