Belfast Peacewalls & Interfaces: Continuing the conversation

Key questions: What has changed and is changing now around the peacewalls, gates, barriers and interfaces in Belfast? What doesn’t change? What enables constructive change to happen and what prevents it?

An invitation is extended to anyone who is concerned with the peacewalls and interface areas in Belfast: residents, community workers, businesspeople, politicians …

There will be an exhibition of 20 new images by phtographer Frankie Quinn.

Concept note:

Everyone whose lives, works or invests resources around the interfaces has a unique experience and point of view on the “problem” of segregated space in Belfast.

I have been invited to contribute a chapter to a new book on Belfast to be published by Actar, edited by Ciaran Mackel and Alona Martinez. To complete this chapter I am reconnecting with old contacts and making new ones and asking them the key questions above. I am therefore aware of the uniqueness of everyone’s perspectives. The 23 June day will offer a chance for these contacts and others you recommend to come together to share your experience and viewpoint.

The aim is to help me to gain further insight into change around the interfaces – but I believe there can be a benefit for you to come together, network and share your current experience and insight. The “system” around the interfaces is like a complex jigsaw puzzle. Everyone involved has a unique place in the puzzle and a unique viewpoint. The aim of the day is to put as many of the pieces as possible together for an understanding of the whole picture.

I shall be using many years of experience as a facilitator to lead the day using an established technique of “rich pictures” to invite everyone to describe their view on what they see happening around the interfaces.

If this seems unfamiliar, can I just encourage you to come along and give it a try – I aim for the day to be enlightening and fun for everyone. I guarantee it will not be a waste of your time!

Funding – I have raised partial funding for the day but not enough to cover refreshments, so I am asking participants to contribute £15.00 – lunch will be included.

Press Strategy: Part of my hopes for my work is to attract wider interest in my key questions. With your permission I would like to send a Press Release to some journalist contacts in advance of the day, and a note after the day with some key points from the discussion and a list of participants who are willing to be interviewed further. If you are happy to be on that list, please let me know. If you are uncomfortable with this Press Strategy please let me know – I am happy to negotiate!

Background: June 2025 will mark the 10th anniversary of the publication by Northern Ireland publisher Colourpoint of my book “Belfast: Toward a City Without Walls”, an exploration of the 100 “peacewalls” and interfaces which divide Protestant from Catholic communities in Belfast and are a continuing legacy of the Northern Ireland Troubles. The book explored the “conundrum” of the walls, and for the research I interviewed over 100 people. It also contained a set of black & white images of the peacewalls by internationally renowned Belfast photographer Frankie Quinn (who had by then taken two previous sets of photographs of the peacelines).

I have recently accepted a commission (unpaid) to contribute a 5000-word chapter to an ambitious book on Belfast, with the broad themes of urbanism and post-conflict, with a deadline of November 2025. The book has been in preparation for some years by editors Ciaran Mackel, a well-known Belfast architect, and academic Alona Martinez. The 23 June "conversation" is part of my research for this chapter.