Last week, work began to transform a peace line interface in north Belfast, part of a £440,000 redevelopment project installing art installations, road and kerbing improvements, and a new peace line gate.

Being the second significant interface barrier in the area to be transformed in the past year, it raises the question: when will we rid Northern Ireland of all interface areas altogether? When will all our peace walls finally come down?

On a visit to Northern Ireland this month, Guy Verhofstadt, the European Parliament’s Brexit coordinator and former Belgian Prime Minister from 1999 to 2008, expressed his shock at seeing 12 foot dividing walls in 21st century Europe. Describing Northern Ireland as having a “frozen conflict”, he said the Good Friday Agreement must not be damaged by Brexit.

What does the continued existence of dividing walls say about us as a society? What does it say of political leadership here? Why, in 2017, are we still afraid of neighbours on the other side?

At every level, from Stormont to our streets, we recognise a degree of unwillingness or inability to share.

Just over a week ago, in The Belfast Telegraph former SDLP MLA Alban Maginness wrote Peace walls are a daily reminder of our failure to consign division to history books where it belongs.

In an era in which the raising of walls is becoming more popular elsewhere to isolate and refuse others, Northern Ireland has unusually been ahead of the pack. In January of this year, this author asked When did walls become “beautiful”? It’s fair to say, from Belfast to Berlin, they never have been.

What will it take for Northern Irish society to move on? Once, if ever, removed, what will a post-interface, post-peace wall Northern Ireland look like?

Also published on Medium.