As you enter the city of Galway, which is semi-circled by a choking beltway of sloth-like velocity, you will be met by a roundabout bearing the name of one of the fourteen tribes who ran the city in days gone by. French, Skerrett, Bodkin and Lynch may sound like a firm of Ivy League investment advisers to you but they were four of the self-perpetuating “elite” who ran the only show in town – and always in their own interests. (Residents of the District of Columbia should look away now.)

Now I hear you say, in your modest and dignified tones: “What has this to do with former war zones?” A fair question, my friend, so I shall explain.

I have chosen Galway, partly because I have just returned from thence but more importantly, it is the only major Irish city which has not – to the best of my knowledge – seen a fair amount of high-velocity and low-tolerance exchanges of opinion amongst the citizenry (and sundry bewildered “peacekeepers”) in the past century.

The truth, as you are well aware, is that everywhere has been a battlefield at some stage or another. Many a kitchen, bedroom and office have been the scene of far more vicious sniping than the streets of Sarajevo but, as our brief this month is “Former War Zones”, we had better return to the streets in general and Ireland in particular.

Think of other major Irish cities. Maybe not on a par with Paris or as chic as Chicago, but Dublin, Cork, Limerick, Belfast and Derry/Londonderry have all seen some considerable action over the years. Cork was the scene of an extremely nasty civil war in the 1920s between those who accepted the treaty partitioning Ireland and those to who did not. Limerick has recently “starred” as the setting for yet another urban violence video game, which upset the citizenry, who had only just sloughed off the epithet of “Stab City”, a name bestowed as a result of the allegedly high incidence of expressing your opinions with a switchblade. The good folk of Limerick were not best pleased to be honoured as the location for this “game” (especially as it was designed by a Texan, for God’s sake) but this was down to the fact that three or four “families” in estates (“subdivisions” to you, madam) took upon themselves the role of O’Corleone, as well as O’Connell. The Devil Wears Paddy, indeed. Probably drinks it, too.

All of which leaves us with Dublin, Belfast and Derry. Sorry, but this pc dual nomenclature nonsense is getting out of hand. There are those who insist on calling Dublin “Baile Atha Cliath”; Belfast “Beal Feirste” and Londonderry “Doire”, which are the original Irish names of these burgs. So you can look forward to the Democratic convention in Nieuw Amsterdam in 2008. Happy?

Derry first. For a former war zone, it is certainly making a decent stab (sorry) at reinventing itself as a cultural emporium with plenty of I.T. to boot (wake up, you at the back.) Bearing in mind that it has been the scene of native-settler conflict for four centuries, the present lull in hostilities is highly commendable, even if its root cause lies in the weariness of both tribes to carry on. Mind you, this has led to some odd consequences, not the least being the self-confessed former leader of the Provisional IRA in the city being appointed Minister of Education in the first power-sharing government. So when the Honourable O B Laden emerges as your Secretary of State in the second Clinton administration in 2012, don’t say you weren’t warned.

Back to Derry. The actual appearance of the city has not changed much: the walls are still intact, ethnic cleansing amongst the less well-off has reduced the Protestant enclave on the west or “cityside” (as opposed to the ”waterside”) to about 400 hardy souls in the Fountain estate – easily spotted by the red, white and blue flags – and the solid sandstone of the Victorian Guildhall is quietly mocking the rotting concrete of the new city council offices.

What has changed, however, is the atmosphere. Thanks to a spirit of enlightened self-interest which dawned when the leading lights in the city’s business community finally persuaded local rioters that rising to the provocation of imported troublemakers at each of the major parades was a surefire (sorry) way of shooting yourself in the civic foot, this has been a blessedly peaceful annus mirabilis.

And there are signs that both sides have learned to live and let live; much as the rest of Europe must have felt after the Thirty Years’ War (1648, for the record). The Peace of Derry may not be as historically important as the Treaty of Westphalia but it is significant that the Bogsiders (mostly Catholic nationalists) can let the Orangemen (mostly Protestant unionists) march in peace while the unionists take no offence at every tourist stopping to read and photograph the memorials to the victims of Bloody Sunday and various IRA “volunteers”.

One of the key moves behind this improvement in Northern Ireland was a series of remarkable meetings between the Orange Order and the Roman Catholic Primate of All Ireland, Archbishop Sean Brady. Tired of endless bickering – and rioting – at each and every parade which passed along streets once Protestant, but now mostly Roman Catholic, the cool heads on both sides cut a deal which permitted the parades to proceed without songs, jeers or insults, but with dignity, and so we have had a quiet summer. It is a tribute to Archbishop Brady that he is regarded by all sides as a man of his word who would prefer to listen, rather than dictate.

As I write, we are on the eve of a historic meeting between the Archbishop and Rev Ian Paisley, long-time opponent of all nationalist aspirations but, more importantly, a resolute naysayer to the involvement of paramilitaries of all hues in any local administration. Often perceived as the bete rouge, blanche et bleue of peacemaking, it would be ironic if Paisley’s decades-long insistence on the ballot box were to be vindicated at the last.

So much for background. What of the cities, and the country in general?

We are left with Belfast and Dublin, which I include because when I was growing up in the fifties, my father would always show me the bullet holes in the pillars outside the GPO (General Post Office) in O’Connell Street. The pockmarks of history, as he described them, are no longer the visible scars of the 1916 Easter Rising, but mere clawmarks on the surface of the best Irish rising of all – the Celtic Tiger.

If your images of Dublin predate 1985, then boy, are you in for a surprise. The Dublin which is child to the union (European Union, that is) of structural funds and limitless ambition; a child which is swaddled by cranes, weaned by a generation willing to bow to no man and nursed by the cutest of hoors (see below) is no mean city. In a generation, Dublin has – in the best Incredible Hulk fashion – thrown off the skin of the pimply provincial adolescent and has acquired the muscle – and “da attitood” – of the street fighting man. No longer willing to play second fiddle – nor even first violin – to London, Irish corporate man and woman have strode personfully into financial battle with the world, and have bought up sizable chunks of the old master’s patch from under the stony gaze of the lions in Trafalgar Square. Mind you, given that the empty pedestal in the square has now been filled by the likeness of a pregnant lady with no legs, it would have been no surprise had the lions glanced round, yawned, stretched and ambled quietly off down the Mall.

Dublin is a city in transition. The best which is emerging from the chrysalis is a wonder – part modern financial centre, part a derivative of centuries of imperial tradition and part an unholy mess of bad transport and appalling urban blight. That the Viking/Elizabethan/Georgian city centre is in one piece is a miracle, but it is no accident that a European planning institute last week brought its young disciples to Dublin to show them how not to do it. Two tram lines which do not connect; ditto two railway lines; an orbital motorway which was 30 years late and whose toll bridge is a financial and motoring disaster; workday gridlock which leads to “10 hour parents” and house prices which have risen 224% in 10 years, thereby reinforcing the aforesaid gridlock. And why? It’s not just the growing pains of any city playing twenty-first century catch-up; it is the outdated “cute hoor” attitude which applauds any wily politico who rewards his chums e.g. the tax break which allowed anyone to build speculatively, without thought of the laws of supply and demand.

Result: a city whose voracious intake of talent and resources has rendered it largely indistinguishable from many other EU capitals (with the exception of the mindbending void that is Helsinki) and which has depopulated much of the rest of the country. You don’t need to visit Saudi Arabia to see the Empty Quarter; come to Ireland and see the Empty Three Quarters.

And what of dear old Belfast? Dirty, dingy, smelly oul’ Belfast, wooed only by flighty camera crews and faithless journos; the Ugly Sister to the Cinderella Dublin. Past its heyday one hundred declining years ago, now weary and warty, desperately trying to apply the lipstick of modernity over the moustache of sectarian violence in order to appeal to its frantic hen and stag party suitors – well, any suitor, actually. No reasonable offer refused and a good time guaranteed, dearie.

Unkind and untrue. A scurrilous calumny and a distortion of the facts. Wanna know why? ‘Cos it’s twice as bad as that, my friends. Twice as bad.

Exhibit A: one of the major sights in Belfast – and it is a superb tour, all ends up – is the splendid City Hall. Modelled on St Paul’s in London, it is a terrific piece of morgue/wedding cake for the dead hand of bureaucracy, a sort of architectural Miss Haversham. Given that Belfast’s visitor numbers have absolutely rocketed in the ten years since the first ceasefire (doesn’t time fly when you are enjoying yourself?) – though that’s not difficult when you start from minus zero – you would think that the City Council would do everything in its power to keep the visitors coming. So what happens? We have the centenary of the city hall in 2006 and then what – we close it for two whole years for “renovations”. So while someone is replumbing the west wing, no tours on “health and safety” grounds. Whose health and safety – the pigeons and the starlings?

Exhibit B: the Titanic. Now I grant you that this is perhaps not the most immediately successful products of our fair city but, well, accidents do happen. (You should know: you’ve elected enough of ‘em.) The Titanic: launched in 1911, maiden voyage April 1912, working career: 4 days, appeal – everlasting. So what have we done for the centenary in 2012?

Sweet damn all. Nada. Niente. Mileage and dollars made from our greatest ever flop: pennies compared to the movie’s millions.

Exhibit C: Attitude. Hard to bring tangible evidence before the court, m’lud, but mind-boggling, head-banging, gut-wrenching, goodwill-spilling insistence on putting “procedures” before paying patrons may suffice. To wit: charging 10 pence per photocopy for a tour group visiting the cathedral; refusal to even countenance hospitality for 140 French VIPs in town for a major rugby game and the foolish belief that curiosity and low-cost access will carry on for ever.

From the above, you will gather that this working commentator is not enamoured of the city’s marketing efforts. All of which is a crying shame, because Belfast is a fascinating blend of urban and rural; the past and the future - and war and peace. The title of this piece gives it away: whole limbs of the corporate body that is Belfast are being liposuctioned and gentrified. The streets behind Days Hotel are losing their paramilitary murals; the whole town is being cleaned up and remodelled. Even the mean streets where bricks and bullets once flew nightly are in the throes of rebuilding.

But the one great thing about Belfast – warts and all – is that it is not, and never will be, a historical theme park. What you see is most definitely what you get, whether you like it or not. For its sheer in your face rawness, Belfast is worth a visit.

A final word: Belfast wouldn’t know anything about cute hoordom. “Subtle” is not in the Belfast vocabulary. But we do irony – as well as a fine line in recycled ironmongery, normally .38 or .45. The city motto of “Pro tanto quid retribuamus” dates from the city’s heyday and was presumably intended as a suck up to Queen Victoria, who granted city status in 1888 but who only visited for an afternoon. Translation: “How shall we give thanks for so much that we have received?” I ask you.

And better: the local protestant paramilitaries have just asked the government for GBP 8 million to “assist” them to disband i.e. to stop the criminal activities which they should never started and which have made life a misery for so many of their fellow citizens.

Is it any wonder that the long-suffering citizenry look at the godfathers’ “big houses” (triple glazed for “security”, you’ll note) and wonder what on earth is going on.

Laugh? I nearly cried. But as an example of the contradiction that is modern Ireland, it is just about