The statesmen are coming to town. On Tuesday, the UK’s prime minister, Rishi Sunak, will meet Joe Biden in Belfast. On Wednesday, the US president will speak at the new Belfast campus at the University of Ulster. There may be a plaque, ribbons and some speeches. The Good Friday agreement is 25-years-old.
There could not be a more apt place to examine the aftermath of the peace process. The new campus sits jarringly alongside Belfast city centre. The modern glass roof juts out against empty shop fronts and crumbling brownfield sites. The inner-city community of Carrick Hill sits close to the campus, their houses dwarfed by new student housing blocks. Homeless people and drug users are known to frequent the area, some sleeping rough in corners and on benches. Many buildings around the campus are dilapidated and dangerous. A few years ago, a nearby hostel was closed to make way for “Tribeca Belfast”, a development project that has languished for years.
