Editorial: The happy annual dash back to Northern Ireland that happens every Christmas

Towards the end of this year Belfast has become markedly more busy.

​The city centre car parks are the busiest they have been since lockdown almost five years ago.

The roads of Northern Ireland’s capital have been crammed: partly due to the Boyne bridge closure, partly due to traffic measures introduced shortly after the pandemic, but partly too – it seems – due to a wider return to the city.

It might just be that it has taken us years to emerge fully from the effects of lockdown. It might also be that people are remembering the advantages that shops have over online shopping – actually being able to see and touch the items you are buying, not just look at pictures of them, trying on outfits, rather than ordering sizes that you think should fit, and so on.

Whatever the exact reasons, it is a relief to learn that large urban centres, which have been at the heart of societies around the world for thousands of years, are not a thing of the past.

Meanwhile, the annual dash back to NI is under way, as people who originally come from here return to celebrate the festive season in the province.

This happened through the Troubles, and is even more obvious now, when a peaceful and prosperous Northern Ireland is such a pleasant place to live in and to visit. Extra sailings, leaving at 1130pm tonight, have been put on between Larne and Cairnryan – a highly unusual situation, meaning that many people will actually be arriving on Christmas Day – due to the storms and the closure of Holyhead port. The disruption at Belfast City Airport on Sunday night hardly helped matters.

There seems to be even more happiness and emotional warmth in the air this year than there always is in late December.

We wish our readers a Merry Christmas and are back in shops on Boxing Day.