In January, I came back to Belfast to launch my book Power, Politics and Territory in the ‘New Northern Ireland’. In many ways it was the culmination of over a decade’s work wandering the city, committing its neighborhoods to memory; of building relationships with residents, activists, and community workers; of sifting through newspapers, policy documents and meeting minutes to write the story of the Girdwood Barracks.

Of course, I went back to the Girdwood site. One afternoon, a friend in North Belfast suggested we meet there for a coffee. I was skeptical – there was, indeed, space for a café at the back of the building but it had been empty and shuttered since the time the Hub opened. During the pandemic, the space had been used as an informal food bank by a residents’ group but the Council stopped the arrangement in 2023 in order to rent out the space for retail or food service.

I arrived at the Hub on the day and sat on a bench in the cavernous foyer to wait. I observed staff members telling two confused women that they had to be swiped in to use the toilets. The community room was hosting a crèche and the faint babble of small children was welcome in the quiet hall. There was a lone Nescafé vending machine but it seemed no one had rented out the café after all. The atmosphere was bleak and when my friend arrived we decamped to Áras Mhic Reachtain, across from the Waterworks, instead.

This past month, people asked me – is it really so bad, there, at the Hub? Sure - they don’t have a café. But they have a youth space. There’s the crèche, and community rooms and conference rooms and playing fields. You can get a subscription to the gym. Recently, the Council committed £6 million for an indoor sports facility.

The vacant land left next to the playing field and all along Cliftonpark Avenue point to the failure to provide housing for people that desperately need it. The presence of absence is stark.

But as Seán Mac Brádaigh of PPR said – failure is a matter of how you measure success. People are using the Hub to some extent now that it’s built, and that can only be a good thing. But in terms of measuring success by the legislative obligations of the peace process, by the level of objective housing need in Belfast, and by the opportunity to provide resources to a severely distressed area - the Hub is an empty promise on all counts. We shouldn’t be satisfied with it. The way it reinscribed old divisions into the landscape is a constant reminder of the failure of political imagination to transform. The vacant land left next to the playing field and all along Cliftonpark Avenue point to the failure to provide housing for people that desperately need it. The presence of absence is stark.

During my time in Belfast, the book and its message gained momentum, aided by the support of PPR. The first book launch was at Cultúrlann as part of Glór na Móna’s Scoil Gheimhridh Uí Chadhain, a day of panels around imagining alternative pathways for the island of Ireland. It was a day that illustrated profoundly the ‘ná habair é, dean é’ ethos I have always loved and respected about Belfast: ‘don’t say it - do it’. There were people there from all over the city and further afield. There was incredible food from the Kind Economy. There was discussion and debate and solidarity, Irish language and music. It was a reminder of the energy and vision that exists in Belfast despite the tired political sphere.

After Scoil Gheimhridh, we shared Girdwood’s story under the bright lights of Northern Visions’ TV studio and the high stone archways of Queen’s University. We wrote blogs and shared social media posts. I gave copies of the book to those who’d been a part of the research.There were several newspaper articles written about the book, too, leveling proof of identity politics in print.

Girdwood’s development is over, the book has been published and the launches are finished. But the work continues, as the Take Back the City campaign powerfully demonstrates. And the Mackie’s site in West Belfast, inheritor to the sectarian baggage of the Girdwood Hub, might yet escape its fate. My book painstakingly traced Girdwood’s development process and in doing so illustrated the status quo in the post-Agreement period. The Girdwood Hub plan was driven by the DUP and Sinn Féin, partners in power-sharing and sectarian trade-off. But that’s all run out, now. For the past several years, the status quo was a political vacuum, which was filled by street politics, human rights work and collective action. These dynamics are what’s fuelling organising around the Mackie’s site, and the outcome may yet be different. The plans for Mackie’s are creative, thoughtful and emblematic of a shared vision at a community level.

When I left Belfast, the Assembly was lurching back into life after several years of collapse and stasis. I’m glad, if only so day-to-day decision-making can move forward, and public sector workers can get paid the wages they deserve. And I’m hopeful - not because of the Assembly, but because of everyone I spoke with during my time in Belfast. Because of the Take Back the City campaign and the sense of purpose that drives change in Belfast despite, not because of, the politicians. Lastly I’m grateful, for a trip that I will always carry with me. The complete experience of love and solidarity. The people with whom I shared tables, laughter, cups of tea, rollies, pints, takeaways. Hugs and handshakes and grinning back and forth, books, music, ideas. Míle buíochas le muintir Béal Feirste. Thanks for having me.