Threads of Unity at the Peace Wall
We stood at the Peace Wall in Belfast, where Protestant and Catholic neighborhoods still meet in uneasy silence. Towering metal grates cover the nearest homes, shielding families from the rocks and homemade bombs that have been hurled across this divide. Even now, barbed wire crowns the wall like a grim ribbon of steel. The gates between the two sides open in the morning, close again at night. What struck me most was how much these communities share. They eat from the same land, look up at the same rain-washed skies, wear wool spun from the same sheep, and carry the memory of the same Great Hunger that once decimated their people. And yet, neighbors who could so easily recognize themselves in one another remain divided by flags, by faith, by borders. As we traveled through castles and green hillsides, our guides spoke of bombings, barricades, and bloodshed. Civilians lost their lives in battles waged under the banner of religion and politics, but the graffiti-covered walls whispe...