Some Northern Irish ex-gunmen offer hope and others fear

By Andras Gergely

BELFAST (Reuters) - Rocket-propelled grenades no longer explode on Belfast's "RPG Avenue" but Michael Culbert, a gunman-turned-community worker, has his work cut out in a city still criss-crossed by walls separating Catholics from Protestants.

Culbert, who served 16 years in the Maze prison outside Belfast for killing members of the British forces, has swapped the Irish Republican Army (IRA) for a job running Coiste, a European Union-funded organisation looking mainly after fellow republican ex-prisoners.

Signposted both "RPG Avenue" and "Beechmount Avenue", this street just off the Catholic stronghold of Falls Road is home to Coiste but remains a no-go area for many Protestants 10 years after the 1998 Good Friday peace agreement.

That deal largely ended 30 years of sectarian violence -- the so-called Troubles -- during which more than 3,600 people were killed, including around 2,000 civilians and 1,000 members of the security forces.

Most analysts and residents agree that Northern Ireland will not return to all-out sectarian violence between mainly Protestant loyalists, who want the province to remain British, and predominantly Catholic republicans or nationalists, like Culbert, who want reunification with the rest of Ireland.

But tensions still simmer, gunmen still lurk in the grey areas outside the law in a community inured to violence, and not everyone has forgiven or forgotten the atrocities that shattered families and divided friends.

"The future is hopefully that the peace process will work," Culbert said. "Nobody is getting killed, the economy will lift, there will be more employment prospects hopefully," he added.

"I am not saying everybody is hugging and kissing, but things are improving."