Northern Ireland's peace walls

It's been 25 years since Northern Ireland signed the Good Friday Agreement. But Belfast is still divided by walls.

The 'peace walls' are 75 walls across 13 kilometres. They separated pro-Ireland republican supporters and pro-UK supporters. The fighting between these two groups is called 'The Troubles'. This continued until the peace agreement was signed in 1998.

Michael Culbert used to fight for the Irish Republican Army (IRA) but he's now a tour guide at the peace walls. He would like to remove the walls.

Michael Culbert: "The walls here are a, are a remnant of our, our past conflict, when you think of wall. The walls were built, one, by the British government. And to a degree they were built to stop bullets. That's what the wall - the bullets can't go through the wall. There are no bullets flying now, so the walls have to come down."

The Berlin Wall was destroyed after the Soviet Union broke up. But the peace walls in Belfast have become an essential part of communities. Professor Jonny Byrne says they'll remain.

Jonny Byrne: "That's never happened and never will happen because we don't have a Berlin wall structure here. The peace walls, they actually have become part of the built environment and communities. You, you can drive through areas and not even know they're there because they've become part of the, the, the, the buildings and the, and the, and the architecture of these communities."

Today, the peace walls are a tourist attraction. But people still use the walls for protests.

People live and work peacefully together in other parts of Belfast. So, will the peace walls be taken down? Culbert thinks it'll take a while before this happens.

Michael Culbert: "The problem is the walls have been here that long. They're, they're covering at least two, possibly three generations. It'll take time but people will come, come to it."

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