I was in Belfast in the immediate aftermath of the June 2026 riots. Houses and cars had been set alight just the day before but the violence seemed to have luckily died out. In the streets it was the calm after the storm. But in a city used to storms. Walking about in that surreal, muted atmosphere was as if a crack in the canvass of normality had briefly opened. A crack that would soon close again, through which you could almost see bits of the inner soul of the city. A city with its stories, not devoid of war and conflict, but visceral in belonging. Belfast the Hard. Belfast the Beautiful.
