The two young women are not caught up in a communal dispute and even less in a new episode of violence that has opposed for 30 years in the Northern Irish capital communities loyal to the British crown, mostly Protestant, to republican communities, especially Catholic.

Abbie and Niamh train at the city's Boxing Academy. Launched in 2011, the club aims to overcome community divisions while developing boxing in Northern Ireland.

"I'm much older than Abbie so I'm coaching her. I have to make her bleed from her nose from time to time to remind her to keep her guard," Niamh smiles.

Catholic Niamh Campbell trains at the Boxing Academy on March 20, 2023 in Belfast, Northern © Ireland PAUL FAITH / AFP

"We don't think: +Oh, I'm going to hit Protestant+ (...) We don't think about that at all," she adds.

"Walls of Peace"

Old divisions remain visible as Northern Ireland commemorates 10 years of the Good Friday peace agreement on 25 April.

In Belfast, the Boxing Academy lies directly on the border between the pro-Irish republican enclave of Short Strand and the pro-British unionist communities that surround it.

Training at the Boxing Academy on March 20, 2023 in Belfast, Northern © Ireland PAUL FAITH / AFP

A metal fence of more than seven meters, paradoxically called "wall of peace" and surmounted by a surveillance camera, runs along the back of the club.

Belfast has some 13 kilometres of these "peace walls", separations erected throughout the conflict in Northern Ireland from the late 1960s.

At the beginning of the "Troubles", the outskirts of Short Strand were the scene of violence and pitched battles between loyalist and republican paramilitaries.

In the years following the peace agreement, including in 2002 and 2011, riots involving petrol bombs and shootings between paramilitaries also broke out.

The boxing academy, located in a former Protestant primary school, is accessible from the Unionist side only through a heavy gate topped with spikes. Its windows are screened and barbed wire is fixed above the main door.

Abbie, who comes from the Protestant neighborhood next to the club, brushes off these divisions out of hand: "It's obvious that I love Catholics and Protestants."

The "wall of peace", March 16, 2023 in Belfast, Northern © Ireland PAUL FAITH / AFP/Archives

Stephen Clarke, nicknamed "Chips" in the club, comes from the other side of the wall and can see his mother's house from the room.

The 45-year-old says the club allows young people to meet, even though they are mostly in separate schools and locals rarely rub shoulders.

"There are currently about ten kids in the club and I couldn't tell you where they come from because we don't ask that question," he said.

"Community in its own right"

"It's not about where you come from, your religion or your tribe, whatever you call it," he said. "Instead of throwing gas bombs at each other, we could do boxing with each other."

Lee Costello, a trainer at the club, says the academy allows boxers 10 and older to "be part of a full-fledged community rather than something you're told to be a part of."

A woman writes a message about the "wall of peace" in Belfast, on March 16, 2023 in Northern © Ireland PAUL FAITH / AFP/Archives

For the 28-year-old from rural County Tyrone, Northern Irish society is changing and sport is contributing to that change.

"The young people who come here don't have the same beliefs ... the same traditionalist beliefs," he said. "You know, whether it's a Catholic left hand or a Protestant left hand, they all hurt. For me, it's all the same."

© 2023 AFP