It is strange to come from NI, where political identity - as British or Irish - can seem so central, to then move to RoI or across to Britain you realize how differently you are viewed: othered - suspicious even - and marginal to what you thought was your national identity.

I first experienced the othering moving to Dublin at 18 - to go to university in 1995 - as we were crawling, insecurely to the end of the conflict. I found most of my fellow students only thought of the North as trouble, an inconvenience and even something to joke about.

When I moved to England in 2001 I wondered at how unionists who found themselves in such places felt at being treated as just another Paddy; with whispers by drunk men in bars that ‘we’ should just give ‘you’ back to Ireland. Demands to ‘explain the Troubles’ over dinners.

It was at that point I started to study where I came from - I suppose in some cathartic way to figure out our place in these isles - I found the distance of being away helpful in remembering the things I loved about home alongside the critical eye of being in a ‘normal’ place.

And in many ways I’ve never stopped studying NI as the peace process has become a cyclical ride of manufactured crises and a lack of change on the ground. I’ve become more cynical and despairing of moving beyond two communities as we are manipulated by increasing poor leaders.

My interest as a contemporary archaeologist has been on the material world of NI that reveals the promises of peace as well as the remnants of conflict. I started with an icon of the Troubles - Long Kesh / Maze prison - and it’s tortured journey through the peace process.

I then moved onto exploring those ubiquitous remnants of conflict in Belfast - the so-called peace walls - and their many roles in a post-conflict society. Their ability to recede into the backdrop, role in maintaining a sense of security but also to facilitate flash points.

Over time I’ve watched security infrastructure turn into ‘regeneration’ zones - some becoming something else, others lying vacant as a manifestation of negative peace - the materials of sectional commemoration rise and fall, the ongoing claiming of space with flags and murals.

I’ve walked the landscapes around peace walls and saw how closely some people lived - with metals bars protecting them from projectiles - while others were afforded huge spaces apart. The erection of memorial gardens, spaces apart dedicated to specific memories of the Troubles.

How over time the memories of the recent past have been skewed to allow communities to see themselves alone as victims; with little to no interaction or sense of the community who also suffered ‘over the wall’. How that has heightened grievance and lessened out group empathy.

And then I see yet again the cyclical violence - manipulated into being by politicians and enduring paramilitaries- as it deliberately moves to peace wall interfaces to add an inter-community dynamic so their scenes are played out, at least partially, for media attention.

As with every time before, eventually the riots dissipate and some form of calm is restored but these cyclical events will continue to happen when there is no political will to stop them. When communities continue to live, socialize and educate apart in materialized enclaves.

It is hard to research where you come from - where your roots and family are and you long for when you are away - and see how dysfunctional it is. To see the manipulation of people onto the street to fight for identities that care little for them and understand them even less.

I can say my national identity - Irish - has always lingered but it had increasingly stopped aligning with the nation state through the peace process. The slight of hand of the GFA, within an implicitly borderless Europe framework, was that we could co-exist in the one place.

I’m not a soothsayer but I knew what Brexit would bring - the UK removing itself from the EU would cause friction; indeed the DUP’s pursuit of a hard Brexit has ensured this is the case. What is happening on the ground in NI is not a Brexit riot but it is one of many factors.