Well, for once some news is good news. Also, it seems to confirm what I always suspected: people and cultures do change, they do ‘move on’, even if sometimes it seems they do so impossibly slowly.

Change in Northern Ireland may be so slow it appears imperceptible, but the writing is on the wall for one of the most negative of its cultural traditions — murals glorifying paramilitary violence. Often covering entire side walls of buildings, they are a common sight in working class areas of large towns, acting as a territorial marker, badge of victory or mark of sorrow in a country still deeply divided along religious and national lines.

However, with the Irish Republican Army pledging to end its armed campaign against British rule and some paramilitary groups loyal to Britain also committing to end violence, the menacing paintings that for decades symbolized the province’s conflict are slowly being replaced.

Where once masked gunmen and shadowy assassins loomed from building walls, pictures of sports stars, authors and landscapes are beginning to spring up — most recently in pro-British “unionist” or “loyalist” areas where armed groups are starting to stand down…..

A portrait of Belfast-born writer C.S. Lewis, author of the Narnia stories, now graces a wall in east Belfast, a pro-British area, as does a painting of George Best, Northern Ireland’s favorite soccer-playing son.