‘When the Belfast child sings again’ a ballad by the group Simple Minds, evokes feelings of a gritty, strife torn and harsh city troubled by years of political and sectarian violence.
Riots, bomb blasts, and snipers were the headlines I grew up with while watching the evening news from the comfort of my teenage southern vantage.
The summer of my 16th birthday I attended a dance in Tralee where Fran O Toole and the Miami Show band were playing
Four days after my birthday I was in Newry as the bodies of those killed in the Miami Show band massacre: O Toole, McCoy and Geraghty were lying on the roadside
I had not been back since until last week, when after only an hour in Belfast, I took a black taxi tour and found my self in the Shankhill area of loyalist Belfast.
I wanted to know were the troubles truly over and could the Belfast child sing again?

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