I visited Belfast in 2008. I remarked to an English friend I met up with that it didn't seem nearly as nice as Dublin. She said something like "yeah, it's a bit war torn still." I remember seeing news of the bombings but had completely forgotten about it.
We had a bomb threat called into our middle school - IN RURAL NEW MEXICO - because a Welsh boy's choir was touring and performing and the PIRA wanted you to know that their struggle was your struggle. Unfortunately there was every reason to believe the IRA would do dumb shit like that because they'd decided to play sniper in the Netherlands three days previously. I think it's fuckin' hilarious that the principle materiel support for the Provisional IRA came from (1) dumbass fucking Americans (2) mutherfucking Moammar Qaddafi.