The Protestant and Catholic residents of this small town, located in the geographical center of Northern Ireland, are united in an unusual claim: that it has the longest and widest main street on the entire island of Ireland.

And people from both sides of the sectarian divide frequent the same establishments.

Indeed, Nigel Lindsay, who owns a local bicycle repair shop, says Cookstown is “one of the best towns in Northern Ireland for mixing.” Known locally as “the bike man,” Mr. Lindsay was raised as a Protestant in a unionist community traditionally attached to its British identity, but he lives right next to the Ratheen housing project, inhabited by Catholics mostly tending toward Irish nationalism.

Why We Wrote This

The winds of reunification have been blowing more strongly recently

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