Northern Ireland is far more popular with graduates than it used to be. But many still feel that the North is not where they want to remain. Fionola Meredith reports

Standing on University Square in Belfast on a warm June afternoon, it can be hard to imagine a more benign, orderly and idyllic place to study. The horse chestnuts that line the Georgian terrace are laden with blossom, the mullioned windows of the library glitter in the sunshine and the students who pass by in small groups are full of post-exam relief.

It's a world away from the bleak, bitter days of the Troubles, when the law lecturer Edgar Graham was shot dead in the square and several young people were killed in a bomb attack on a popular student bar on University Road.

The impact of the Troubles on university enrolment has been clear: in 1965 nearly 80 per cent of university entrants decided to remain in Northern Ireland; by 1980 the figure had dropped to 65 per cent. As recently as 1999 only 66 per cent of Northern Ireland-born undergraduates decided to stay after completing their degrees. By 2002 there had been a significant improvement - 87 per cent were staying - suggesting that Northern Ireland's gradual economic, social and political regeneration since the ceasefires have stemmed the flow of talented young graduates from the North.

So how attractive is the North to graduates? Many still see no future for themselves in Northern Ireland. Mark Harris and Nicola Fleming, two recent Queen's University arts graduates, are determined to leave Belfast. The couple are both hoping to enrol on postgraduate teacher-training programmes in England or Scotland. Although Fleming can visualise returning to Northern Ireland at some point, Harris is adamant that he has had enough of life in the North. "It's partly because there are more job opportunities over the water, but really I just want to live somewhere bigger, somewhere you don't just see the same old faces."

They are both concerned about spiralling homophobia and racism in Northern Ireland, believing that "a lot of people want to keep this place closed and parochial". In particular, Harris feels that inward-looking negativity still prevails. "If you get anywhere in life people queue up to knock you down, and there's suspicion about anything new or different. Here's a trivial but telling example: if I buy a feta-cheese sandwich for lunch my work colleagues act all fascinated and disgusted at this weird food I'm eating. There's a lot of meat-and-potatoes men living here."

Colin Hutchinson graduated from the University of Ulster last year. A talented painter who plans to move abroad in the summer, he says: "Although there's the opportunity to be a big fish in a small pond here, many artists who have stayed end up in stasis. There's nowhere to progress to, nowhere to go. When you reach the top in Belfast that's as good as it gets. And there's always the sense in Northern Ireland that we're still catching up with everywhere else, still lagging behind - and that doesn't encourage you to stay."

There were high hopes in 1998 that the Belfast Agreement would halt the drain of gifted young people. Speaking to sixth-form students at the time, Paul Murphy, who was then political development minister, remarked: "Year after year hundreds of Northern Ireland's brightest and best have felt they must leave home to have a chance of a decent life. Families are split and talents often lost to Northern Ireland for ever. You are the fortunate generation. Northern Ireland needs your talents to secure the peace and stability so many societies around the world take for granted."

Hugh Odling-Smee left Northern Ireland to study in Glasgow in 1995, returning in 2000, in the wake of the agreement. "It was a promising time to come back. Belfast had changed a lot. I noticed that young people in particular seemed more relaxed, more optimistic. The social life of the city had improved dramatically - when I left you were limited to a choice of two decent bars. And there's much more opportunity workwise now: the old stagnation that used to drive people away is gradually going and the job market is much more fluid, more flexible now. Belfast is a good place to live and work."

For some the comfort and familiarity of home counter any desires to start a new life outside Northern Ireland. Kevin McGourty and Maria McCloskey, who are active in student politics at Queen's University, have decided to stay in the North for the foreseeable future. McCloskey says: "Although most of my friends have left Northern Ireland for at least a year, nearly all plan to come back. We're comfortable at home - the sense of place, of family ties, pulls you back."

Almost inevitably, the still-gurgling brain drain has a sectarian dimension. A study published last month claims that the continuing exodus of young Protestants means that most senior managerial and professional posts could in future be held by Catholics. Prof Bob Osborne of the University of Ulster, one of the authors of of Fair Employment In Northern Ireland: A Generation On, predicts a Protestant withdrawal from the North's public sector over the next decade.

"This will continue so long as Protestants leave to get higher education," he says. "There is evidence they don't come back."

The exodus of Nipples - Northern Ireland Protestants Living in England and Scotland - is partly why Catholic enrolment at Northern Ireland's two universities is at a high of about 60 per cent. (The Grand Orange Lodge of Ireland is emphatic that the brain drain has been "a prime factor in the decline of the majority population . . . so the unionist population must study means of persuading more Protestant students to stay in Northern Ireland".)

But what have Northern Ireland government agencies been doing to staunch the haemorrhage of gifted graduates, whatever their political or religious affiliation? A recent study found that more than half of Northern Ireland graduates feel their talents and skills are underused in local business and industry.

Invest Northern Ireland, formed in 2002 as the region's main economic- development organisation, funds a variety of graduate placement programmes aimed at developing Northern Ireland's export market, as well as encouraging entrepreneurship through its Go For It! campaign.

Invest NI also co-sponsors the All Ireland Student Enterprise Awards, designed to reward creativity and innovation. And various campaigns aimed at reversing the trend of Northern Ireland's professionals leaving the region have been launched periodically in the past few years.

The most recent high-profile example was Back to Your Future, in 2000, which attempted to target graduates returning home for Christmas with judiciously placed job stalls and exhibitions at Northern Ireland airports.

But no amount of well-meaning schemes and initiatives can change the fact that many young people view Belfast, as they view Northern Ireland in general, as fatally flawed by insularity, prejudice and fear of change - the meat-and-potatoes mentality.

Cattily known as Belfarce by the city's knowing youth population, Belfast needs to reinvent itself as a place where you can eat feta cheese without being ridiculed. Only then will its exiled graduates know it's time to come home.