Sir, - Having thoroughly enjoyed the party I attended on New Year's Eve, I read with interest about the celebrations all over the world: fireworks on the Liffey, concerts in Mountjoy square, a Dome and a Static Eye in London, Sydney Harbour Bridge ablaze with light. Paris had the most dramatic and stylish show, New York the most expensive and loudest. But where was the best street party in the world?
Answer: in my own town of Belfast. Much maligned and mocked Belfast, the "Athens of the North" in the late 18th century, the wealthy industrial city of the late 19th century was given up for lost in the late 20th century, swamped by sectarian fighting and bitterness.
However, we now have a peace process - brittle but there all the same - and what did the people of Belfast do to mark the new millennium? They put on the party to end all parties. Concerts, jazz, fireworks (green white and orange, and red white and blue, and everyone cheered them like mad), a big bar serving pints outside the City Hall. One hundred thousand people down the town - and no riots!
As the song says, "What a wonderful town is the town of Belfast". Let's hear it for Belfast! - Yours, etc.,
Maureen Davidson, Cultra Avenue, Holywood, Co Down.