Candy floss or vitriol - we can choose

“Da – we’ve had a great day, haven’t we” said in an unmistakeable six year old Ulster brogue. If his old man didn’t get a lump in his throat then this Belfast runner surely did as I lollloped through the park en route to the sea. Never mind that the same innocent will be swilling litres of cider, smoking embassy regal singles and experiencing his first awkward adolescent fumble a few years hence in the very same park. For now the ducks, the pond and his daddy mean the end to a great day at the “musies” on the seafront with the Wurlitzer and Dodgems, endured through a belly of candy floss and ice cream.

Such a paradox this troubled land of ours – this 'great day' just 24 hours before a festival of orange trimmed in red, white and blue with an undercurrent of bigotry and distrust of the last forty years or three hundred depending on who you speak to. Fifteen police injured, petrol bombs fired aimlessly at the boys in blue, or black as it is here, who by definition now are an equal mix of left and right, of “proddy bastards” and “fenian gits”. The Belfast child can no longer understand these divides – earlier generations keep the candle of hatred alive when it needs to be extinguished so that the beauty of our great days by the sea can be shared without fear and without embarrassment that friends and family of yours may be the ones saluting a Dutch King of a bygone era or hurling missiles intent only at harming our fellow man.

People of Ireland – rise up – stand up for this strong Island, call it northern or southern, unified or divided but the landscape I see knows no religion and harbours no grudge but embraces us all in the warm cradle of our land. A land to be proud of and a land to be shared by generations who see no animosity in colour, only a beautiful emerald isle swathed in hope.