lol @ "free-thinking hippy type"
Northern Ireland, like everywhere else, is what people make of it. Sadly, 'religious divides' does seem to be a topic those living on the mainland seem to hear most about and one the media seems to have focused on.
From a day to day point of view, I have worked and socialised and lived beside people from both of the religions mentioned (and no doubt other religions as well) and that is exactly the same as how I lived back home in Scotland. Like you, I try to encourage acceptance of people for what they are, not what they are 'percieved to be', if that makes sense. My 6yr old attends a 'Protestant' primary whilst my 4 yr old attends playgroup within a 'Roman Catholic' primary.
There will always be issues within local society and it would be foolish of me to say that there are no 'grey areas'.
Schools over here have a third type, as it were, known as Integrated. These try to encourage families from all backgrounds to grow together in a common bond of education for the child's needs, and seem favoured as a means of mixing the main denominations together from and early age. These exist at 'grammar' level and may be of interest to you for your son.
Hope some of this helps, do feel free to ask more.
butterfly
ps Not sure about the train service. I relied heavily on trains, buses etc when I lived/worked in Scotland and the services there were great. My limited experience here is just that....they are more limited! I did use buses when we lived in a village near Londonderry, now though, we have no bus route where we live in the countryside and I drive everywhere. Indeed, I feel I would be well suited to becoming a taxi driver as that is what it seems I spend a lot of time doing (ferrying the kids from A to B , C, D etc).