Attempts to rebrand Belfast have been frustrated by the return of sectarian wall murals. To some, they're a record of the past. To others, they're a threat to the future.
If the walls could speak, they would tell conflicting stories. While most are now emblazoned with peacetime images, armed and masked men have been repainted on some east Belfast gables.
Mark Ervine paints murals for the loyalist community. Danny Devine paints them for the republican community. Both reject any suggestion that paintings depicting the conflict could influence the current generation.
Danny Devenny: "It is political correctness gone mad. I have never once met anyone who was inspired to take up armed revolution because a mural is painted on a wall".
Mark Ervine: "I think some of them should be kept, not for reasons of romance or glorification, but to show future generations how far we have come so mistakes are not repeated".
More than 2,000 murals have been documented here but there are fewer now than at any time in the last 50 years. Some would prefer that there were none depicting violence.
Chris Lyttle MLA represents the neutral Alliance Party: "Recent events have shown the world that Belfast is open for business and that is the history we want to give our children."
Are they a freedom of expression or a threat of violence? Even the art critics are divided on the issue.
Either way, they have become something of a tourist attraction.
Taxi driver Joe McCullough does not need a script for conducting his tour: "This is the most famous and most photographed mural in Ireland. It is the IRA hunger striker, Bobby Sands".
You can tell 'Belfast Mural Tours' is more than his business. It is his personal journey from past to future.
"I do not just see the walls," he said, "I hear them".
