Ardoyne: Running the gauntlet
BY LAURA FRIEL
``What would you like me to teach my child?'' asks a Catholic
mother, responding to the media. ``Should I tell her that our
Protestant neighbours have decided she's a second class citizen
and from now on we'll be going to school by the back door?''
At the corner of Ardoyne Road, the scene is as hostile as the
questioning. British army vehicles straddle the roadway leaving
only a small gap through which parents and their children will be
expected to walk. Beyond the first barrier rows of RUC Land
Rovers and the armoured jeeps of the British army line both sides
of the road.
Hundreds of heavily armed, mostly masked, RUC officers in full
riot gear and British soldiers carrying semi automatic rifles and
prepared for combat, line the route. Just visible at the end of
this corridor of military hardware are the bright blue gates of
Holy Cross Catholic School, a primary school for girls in North
Belfast and the focus of a sectarian campaign of intimidation by
loyalists.
It's over 40 minutes before Holy Cross children are due to walk
to school but halfway down, adjacent to the main Ardoyne Road,
loyalist mobs are already beginning to gather at Hesketh and
Glenbryn Park. The streets are littered with stones, broken
bricks and smashed glass, the debris of confrontation the night
before. Red, white and blue painted bollards mark the entrance to
the Glenbryn estate.
With predictable zeal, loyalist flags, including the Union Jack,
UVF, UDA and Orange Order flags have been erected along the
route. Less predictably, a huge French Tricolour is flying from a
rooftop. It's obviously a case of `Yaba daba doo, any red, white
and blue will do'. The roar of an overhead helicopter adds to the
oppression of the early morning scene.
At 8.30am, parents from the nearby nationalist estate begin to
arrive with their children. In their red school uniforms, the
young pupils of Holy Cross, from the top of their beribboned
heads to the toe of their polished shoes, have been dressed with
obvious care and attention. These are cherished children from
loving homes. And for parents and pupils this should have been a
day of pleasure and pride.
Yesterday, Monday, the first day of the new school year, parents
and pupils had been forced to run a gauntlet of sectarian abuse
and attack by loyalists lining the route to Holy Cross School.
The RUC operation to afford the children protection had been
woefully inadequate, if not down right half hearted. Children,
many as young as four and five, had wept and screamed in
bewilderment and fear as loyalists hurled their particular brand
of hate.
``Scum, scum, scum,'' the mob had chanted. Catholic parents had
been told to ``get that Fenian Bastard out of here.'' Catholic
mothers were subjected to particularly nasty sexual verbal abuse.
Distressed, and by then also desperate, parents had pulled their
crying children close, many covering their ears and eyes as if
this could somehow shield them from the worst excesses of hatred
in which they had been unwittingly plunged. ``I didn't expect it
to be as bad as this,'' one parent said.
Pelted with stones, bottles and fireworks, the children had
arrived at Holy Cross hysterical and too afraid to stay. A
teacher described a child cowering in a corner and others hiding
under desks as the mob outside continued to lay siege to the
school gates. Newly appointed parish priest, Fr. Aidan Troy, who
had accompanied parents and children on the route to the school,
described the journey as ``beyond my worst nightmare''.
``I have been in many troubled areas in the world,'' said Fr. Troy.
``In 30 years of being a priest, I have never seen anything like
this.''
d the scenes had been heartbreaking. As news broadcasters
flashed the images across the world, they were watched by
thousands, perhaps millions, of people, but most particularly by
northern nationalists. Sectarianism in whatever form is always
ugly, but stripped of all pretence, it is hideous.
British journalists, upon whom the mantle of apologist for
unionism has rested so comfortably for years, repeatedly focused
their hostility towards nationalist parents. ``Just why were they
subjecting their children to such an ordeal?''
Traumatised mothers and their children were hauled up before the
cameras by a media still running along the parallel tracks of the
`two tribes' model. Increasingly desperate commentators tried to
build a picture of events in which both sides were equally
blameworthy.
But how could the images of the baying mob, hurling insults and
missiles, be equated with the tearstained faces of terrified
children, some barely more than babies? The story had already
careered off the rails. The power relationship of oppressed and
oppressor had been exposed by the display of naked sectarianism
captured on screen, just as it had been in Alabama decades ago.
d sadly, while loyalists, caught up in rivalry between various
of their paramilitary groups, may well have orchestrated this,
there appears to have been no shortage of Protestant residents
willing to attach themselves to the cause. Screaming sectarian
abuse in front of cameras caused no visible sign of shame amongst
many Glenbryn residents, who appeared totally immune or unaware
of their own despicable behaviour.
Brazen-faced in her bigotry, a resident old enough to be a
grandmother demanded to know ``why should there be four Fenian
schools in a Protestant area?'' No pretence here that this was
something other than what we can see before our own eyes.
This is not David Ervine's `cry for help and understanding'.
There are no `great complexities' as suggested by Church of
Ireland Primate Robin Eames, too difficult for outsiders to
comprehend, as some unionist politicians and commentators have
suggested. This is the white supremacist calling the black a
`nigger'.
So what if the object of their racist venom just happens to be a
four-year-old whose only `crime' is walking to school past their
front door? What's the big deal? A Fenian is a Fenian from the
day it is born.
d should we really be surprised by this shocking display of
hatred and intolerance? For decades, anti-Catholic sectarianism
has been fostered and utilised in the interests of British
occupation in the North. If the residents of Glenbryn have no
shame, it is because they have been shamefully used.
d many loyalist leaders, like Billy Hutchinson, are intelligent
enough to know this. They lack, not insight, but the political
will to lead their constituency out of this cul de sac of
reaction.
Day two, Tuesday, and as parents wait, children who arrived
stoically, with even an occasional smile, begin to wilt under the
pressure. Offering comfort and support, local priests, teachers
and members of the school's board of governors join parents and
pupils as they wait to walk to school.
As the decision is taken to set off, some of the children
collapse into tears and panic and are taken home. Others, pale
with fear, cling to mothers and fathers who remain calm despite
their own visible anxiety.
The RUC and British Army have decided that only parents and
pupils will be allowed to walk the 400-yard stretch along the
Ardoyne Road to Holy Cross School. Even a clear view of the road
has been obscured. Relatives, friends and neighbours stand aside.
Everyone is very aware that this ordeal will not only be faced by
some of the most vulnerable and defenceless members of this
community but that they will be facing it alone. Cut off from
their own neighbourhood, parents and pupils are now totally
dependant for their protection upon the discredited RUC and a
hostile army of occupation. Some of those left behind are already
tearful, and everyone is afraid.
A threat against Catholic parents, issued the night before in the
name of the Red Hand Defenders, adds to the tension. Just minutes
earlier, the sound of an explosion ripped through the air as a
blast bomb was thrown further along the Ardoyne Road. From behind
the cordon, another blast is heard and within minutes a number of
ambulances begin to arrive.
Unable to see or communicate with their relatives, people in the
waiting crowd begin to panic. Fathers, who had been persuaded it
would be less provocative if they stayed behind, scramble onto
the top of armoured cars and Land Rovers in a desperate attempt
to find out what is happening.
News filters down that the children have arrived at school unhurt
and the crowd settles. Now all we have to do is to get them home
safely when the school day ends and then tomorrow the process
starts over again.
Day three, Wednesday, and the British Army and RUC are out in
force again. As parents and children make their way along the
Ardoyne Road loyalists gathered at a junction within the Glenbryn
estate throw a pipe bomb, packed with shrapnel. Falling just a
few feet short of its intended target, the bomb explodes,
injuring four RUC officers. A mother screams, ``Oh God, Oh God,''
and runs, dragging her terrified child away from the junction.
Other mothers and their children cry out and begin to run.
Fr. Troy stands at the junction, arms raised as he tries to calm
traumatised parents, now terrified for the safety of their
children. The scene is one of hysteria and panic. ``This is
carnage,'' says Fr. Troy. ``It is beyond belief.''
Inside the school grounds, teachers try to comfort pupils and
parents. ``This is attempted murder,'' one tearful mother says. ``
They tried to murder babies and the mothers of babies today.''
``It was absolute chaos,'' says Philomena Flood, who was walking
with her seven-year-old daughter Erin when the attack took place.
``There were children everywhere and we were trying to grab our
own and get to school.''
Outside and amidst the ranks of loyalist protestors, John White
of the Ulster Democratic Party and Billy Hutchinson of the
Progressive Unionist Party both condemned the attack. ``I am
totally ashamed to be a loyalist today,'' says Billy Hutchinson,
calling for the loyalist protest to end.
``It was disgraceful that any situation should come to this,'' says
John White choosing his words carefully, before accusing the RUC
of ``attacking innocent people''.
For decades, northern nationalists have been forced to run the
gauntlet of sectarian hatred, but in the words of Minister for
Education Martin McGuinness, the time when nationalists will sit
at the back of the bus or go by the back door are gone and gone
for good. If the Good Friday Agreement is to mean anything it has
to mean an end to sectarian harassment and discrimination, and
for the little girls of Holy Cross, the right to walk to school
unmolested.
![[An Phoblacht]](http://republican-news.org/graphics/title_gifs/aprn.gif)