Drawn-out process The slow decline of Belfast's peace walls

Progress has been made since the Good Friday agreement 25 years ago, but Northern Ireland is still deeply divided

- Rory Carroll

Rosaleen Petticrew once had compelling reason to appreciate the high walls that separated her Catholic part of Belfast from the adjoining Protestant neighbourhood.

For five dreadful months in 2000, she and other mothers from Ardoyne had to walk their daughters to Holy Cross school past a mob of loyalists who hurled insults, rocks and bottles. Even by Northern Ireland standards it was a vile protest and made headlines around the world. Walls did not cover the whole school route, but Rosaleen still valued them as a bulwark. "I'd never felt that hatred before."

Retaining Troubles-era "peace walls" between Catholic and Protestant areas seemed advisable even though the 1998 Good Friday agreement had supposedly ushered in an era of peace and reconciliation.

The sentiment might have calcified, like so much else in Northern Ireland, but in 2015 one of Rosaleen's teenage daughters, Katie, fell in love with a Protestant. It was a shock. Questions abounded. Was he a bigot? Was Katie safe visiting his area? Was Stuart safe visiting their area? Eight years later the couple are still together and have their own children.

The Petticrew family love Stuart "to bits", enjoy visiting his family, and supported the recent removal of a barrier on Flax Street that had separated Ardoyne from the Shankill Road area. "You just realise, we're all the same," said Rosaleen.

It almost sounds like a fable, darkness giving way to light, suspicion blossoming into friendship. It evokes a government advertising campaign from around the time of the Good Friday agreement that used a line from Van Morrison's feelgood song Coney Island: "Wouldn't it be great if it was like this all the time?"