Quality of life in Northern Ireland is attracting people from the South, who have abandoned their preconceptions, writes Carissa Casey. Now if they can just get their friends to visit . . .

Locally they're known as Mexicans - people from the south of Ireland who've strayed north across the Border. The houses prices are reasonable although rising fast, traffic gridlock is a foreign concept and a trip to the doctor costs nothing. But after 30 years of bitter sectarian conflict, Northern Ireland is also a deeply divided society. And Southerners are easily identifiable by their accents.

Rory Fitzpatrick is one of more than 100 officers in the Police Service of Northern Ireland to have been born in the Republic. He joined the service two years ago, is stationed in the predominantly Protestant town of Carrickfergus and lives in the predominantly Protestant east Belfast.

He says he moved north because he just got sick of living in Dublin when he returned from doing a Master's degree in security at Leicester University in England three years ago, at the age of 24. The traffic and the house prices were the biggest issues.

"My mother used to work in town and give me a lift in to college and it would take an hour and a half every morning," he says.

But the biggest thing was the house prices and whether he could ever afford to buy a house in his native north Dublin. "If I'd wanted to join the guards the pay is nowhere near as good as it is up here," he points out.

In the first 10 recruitment competitions run by the PSNI nearly 4,000 people applied from the South. The salary starts at £22,000 (€33,000) and the shift system operates on a four-day-on, four-day-off basis, although this is set to change. Both the pay and benefits are seen as substantially better than anything the Garda can offer. Across the UK, the PSNI is the envy of other police forces because of the high number of applicants they get for each recruitment round.

Rory's mother is from Belfast and he spent summers as a child in the city. But, like many from the South, he was wary of moving here, particularly when he joined the police, which 10 years after the ceasefire is still a political bone of contention.

"I expected it to be a lot worse, for there to be a 'them and us' attitude because I was from the South. But the only incident I ever had was when I was dropped off in a black taxi one night in east Belfast and the driver shouted 'Orange bastard' as he was driving away. I wouldn't necessarily broadcast that I'm from Dublin in certain areas but I don't feel threatened."

That said, the PSNI is not popular in certain parts of Northern Ireland. "I'm not afraid of being shot or beaten up, it's more that people are very bitter with the police, on both sides. I go to calls and they're spitting at you in loyalist areas. They don't care who's in the uniform, it's just a uniform. It's an irrational hatred, in my opinion. Maybe things did go on years ago but I've never seen any of it."

NORTHERN IRELAND'S divisions are still visible to him. A friend at work told him how his grandmother used to say that nuns kidnap little Protestant boys and turn them into Catholics. "That was back about 30 years ago. He believed it and the first time he met a nun answering an emergency call - he's wearing his flak jacket and gun - his knees were shaking," he laughs.

Another friend comes from Poleglass, a Republican stronghold in west Belfast. "I get on really well with him. He knows I'm in the police. But when he came over to visit me in east Belfast he was really scared. I think he was expecting road blocks and the UDA or whatever."

While the divisions in Northern Ireland are hard to avoid, for outsiders they can simultaneously seem weirdly distant at times. Janet Uhleman from Mount Merrion in Dublin also lives in east Belfast. During the riots in September 2005 much of the inner East exploded, with rioters at one point trying to gouge out an ATM with a bulldozer.

"I remember getting texts from family and friends in Dublin. Obviously the news was breaking about the riots and they knew I lived nearby. I was sitting with my neighbours next door under a parasol drinking cocktails oblivious to it all."

Seven years ago Janet's contract job in Dublin came to an end and she applied for four positions, one of them in Belfast. She got the Belfast job.

"It was great when I got the job but then it sank in and it was 'oh my God'. It wasn't just that it was Belfast, it was outside of Dublin."

Despite her reservations she moved North and admits that for the first year she struggled. "I felt that Belfast was so near but I misunderstood the distance. I had visions of nipping up and down to Dublin. I also thought friends would visit more. I've found it very hard to get friends up here. Everyone says 'dying to see you, when are you coming down?' I say 'when are you coming up?' "

The difficulty of getting friends and family to visit is a common one for Dubliners in the North. While some come readily, many are reluctant or refuse point blank. Rory's grandfather, for example, refused to attend his graduation on the basis that there was "a war on up there".

When Janet arrived in Belfast she expected to be reasonably settled in after a year. "But after a year I was still struggling in terms of meeting people and finding social networks. I've heard people say that Belfast and Northern Irish society is hard to break into and I can't say no to that, but I think there were probably other factors like the fact that a lot of the people I worked with lived outside of Belfast. After sitting on your own for a while you realise you have to do something, so I've done courses, volunteering and other activities. Through that I got to know some people who were also new to town."

Although it's changing, there aren't many outsiders in Belfast. Even being from Dublin, according to Rory, can seem exotic when he's out for a night on the town.

Janet's accent has also been commented upon. "I'm not saying people haven't had a certain view of me because I'm from the South but I can honestly say I've never experienced anyone saying anything or getting any sense from them that they didn't like me. If anything I've found people are fascinated."

DURING HER SEVEN years in Belfast she has also noticed the dramatic changes in a city adjusting to "normalisation". "There's the cliched side in that the house prices are going up, the wine bars and coffee shops are opening. There's also a real sense that people want to move forward. I never get the sense that anyone wants to go back.

"I love the fact that on Saturday morning I can walk in and out of town. I live in a lovely house that I could never afford on my salary in Dublin. I suppose there's a perception that someone from my background would have problems in east Belfast but I've never had any. I have to say I've great neighbours - really fantastic." She also enjoys her job. "There are very big pluses to living here. Why would you want to go back to traffic queues and those crazy house prices?"

But there are also strange cultural differences. "There's a real shortage of bookshops. I've really noticed that. I'm not saying there are no bookshops but it's struck me there aren't many. There's no bookshop I'm aware of in east Belfast. That's something I'd really miss," she says.

For David Robinson from Bray, the cultural differences were obvious from the start. A former student priest at Clonliffe College, he came to live in a cross-community retreat on the north Antrim coast. A few years later he met his wife Julie and they now have a two-year-old son, Thomas. Julie is from a Protestant background and David admits the marriage was challenging for everyone. The couple now live in Julie's native Newtownards, a predominantly Protestant area.

Thomas was dedicated in the Salvation Army but his father is already aware that schooling will be an issue.

"We're going to have to cross that bridge when we come to it," he says. "As far as I'm concerned all the cultural and religious heritage Thomas has inherited as a child has been present at all the key events in his life. It's up to him to decide what to do with that. It's not up to me or anyone else to decide that for him."

David enjoys living in Newtownards and, despite a strong Bray accent, has never experienced any hassle. He works as a good relations officer for Belfast City Council and often finds himself at the interface between hard-line communities, a role that doesn't faze him in the slightest.

"I love what I do. I'm in a job that engages me with Irish history, politics, culture, the religious thing, the Northern Ireland stuff. To be honest I feel like I'm playing my part as an Irishman in the well-being of the country. Part of the journey for me is about meeting and acknowledging those on the island who see themselves as British. I've never felt any real threat. When I drove into very loyalist areas for the first time I would feel uneasy but I've grown comfortable with that. You sort of feel from Republicans that we've let them down in the South and maybe we did, I don't know. I certainly feel that both sides want to tell you their story."

He says he is often inspired by the people he meets in the course of his work. "There's so much potential here. The spirit of the people is very powerful, their hopefulness, their humour and the welcome they give you. I've felt that welcome in places I never thought I'd visit."