Holy Cross dispute

The Holy Cross dispute occurred in 2001 and 2002 in the Ardoyne area of Belfast, Northern Ireland, and involved an escalating dispute between a Nationalist community and the residents of loyalist area that was on route to the front entrance of a local Catholic primary school. A Loyalist picket arose following accusations that some nationalists had used the school route as a cover to cause damage and/or harassment in their community. On the other side, the nationalists claimed that the picket was an infringement on the rights of parents and their children to walk to school on their chosen route. The dispute is remembered for its scenes of civil disorder and verbal taunting shown on television news articles across the world, particularly exchanges of abuse that occurred in the presence of visibly frightened young schoolgirls. There was widespread disorder throughout north Belfast for the duration of the dispute.

Beginnings

Holy Cross is an all-girl Catholic primary school in what had been a mixed area until the beginning of The Troubles. The Ardoyne area is segregated with loyalists to the west and Nationalists to the east of Alliance Avenue, and over time a permanent wall was built immediately to the west of Alliance Avenue. Holy Cross was stranded on the opposite side of the peace line from its catchment, although only about 200 metres from it, and remained relatively undisturbed but for minor incidents of vandalism for three decades.

The origins of the dispute are inevitably contested. In December 2000, Protestant taxi driver Trevor Kell was shot dead in Ardoyne and the finger of suspicion immediately fell on the IRA as forensic evidence linked the bullet with an IRA shooting in 1997. Later, the IRA was blamed for the "punishment shooting" of two men, one of whom is believed to have been questioned over the death of Mr Kell. Tension built after the murder that led in the days before the protests to youths from both communities raising more and more flags along Ardoyne Road.[1].

The most commonly repeated story is that on Friday 15 June 2001, a dispute arose between local loyalist and republican activists on the Crumlin Road peace line in North Belfast over the flying of loyalist paramilitary flags. The loyalists were putting up flags linked to the Ulster Defence Association in an area which they claimed was solely Protestant, but republicans insisted was neutral territory. An altercation ensued during which Loyalist males putting up these flags were allegedly rammed by a car.

Loyalists began to blockade the nearby Holy Cross Primary School when children left for the day accompanied by their parents, some of whom were known former members or sympathisers of the Irish Republican Army. Many of the picketers were equally well-known members or supporters of the Ulster Volunteer Force and Ulster Defence Association.

Summer 2001

The Loyalists continued the picket on Monday 18 June. There had, however, been a weekend of tension on the Ardoyne peace line and the atmosphere on the morning school run was poisonous, with known loyalist paramilitaries taking part in the picket. By Tuesday 19 June, riot police had to be called out to escort children through the picket as the children and their parents were attacked with bricks by loyalists. On Wednesday 20 June the loyalist protesters blocked the front gates of the school and forced it to close, while officers of the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) advised parents not to attempt to enter the school. The standoff continued until the end of school term on 29 June, with loyalists blockading the Ardoyne Road, the police refusing to force children through, and some parents bringing their children to school by smuggling them through the grounds of another school.

There was continuing violence in north Belfast involving youths at evenings and weekends during this period, concentrated in, but not confined to, Ardoyne.

Northern Ireland school holidays comprise the whole calendar months of July and August, covering the Orange Order "marching season" in July. The 2001 marching season was, across Northern Ireland, more peaceful than for some years, although serious violence erupted at the main Twelfth parade in and around the Ardoyne area. There was a good deal of low level Loyalist violence in Northern Ireland, Real IRA bombs in Britain and several sectarian murders carried out by loyalists in Northern Ireland. Talks between residents (in practice, political activists) from the two parts of Ardoyne took place over the summer, but no agreement was reached.

Autumn 2001

The protest resumed on Monday 3 September, the first day of the Autumn school term. The Police Service of Northern Ireland (over the summer the RUC had undergone a name change) and the British army were, however, better prepared and managed to force a path through the protesters for about 50 of the 240 children in the school and their parents who were prepared to run the gauntlet. 4 September the protest escalated when a PSNI officer sustained a foot injury from a loyalist blast bomb, with more blast bombs being thrown at police on 5 September.

Not only the police were better prepared than in June, the world's media had descended on Ardoyne, as images of visibly distraught girls as young as four being stoned and jeered at were beamed around the world from the start of September until the attacks on the World Trade Centre in New York on 11 September caused attention to be drawn to New York and then Afghanistan. The Holy Cross standoff was a propaganda disaster for loyalists in north Belfast, and for unionism in general. While the Protestants of Upper Ardoyne undoubtedly had grievances, they ended up defending what was, to any impartial observer, indefensible, viz. obstructing girls aged four to eleven on their way to Primary School. Although not previously mentioned there was another route to the school. This route was in fact a shorter one that led to a back door to the school. This is why there was usually around 30 girls out of the 150 out of the school that walked up through Upper Ardoyne. Most decided to take the other route. Although the parents that took their children through the gauntlet defended the trauma that this was anticipated to cause to their children by pointing out that they had a right to enter by the front door.

On Thursday 6 September, the loyalist picket remained peaceful but noisy with picketers banging bin lids, whistling and sounding klaxons when the children passed. On Friday 7 September the protest was silent in a tribute to Thomas McDonald, a 16 year-old Protestant boy killed in a hit and run incident after he had attacked a car with bricks and stones in a different part of north Belfast, 7 km away, on Tuesday. Parents also held a minute's silence for the boy before departing from school.

From Monday 10 September, the picketers adopted new tactics: remaining silent when the children were walking to school, but making noise and making sectarian comments when their parents returned. This pattern continued until 14 September, when protesters called off their protest for a day in memory for the victims of the 11 September attacks in the United States.

Throughout this period, there was widespread civil disturbance in Ardoyne and other parts of north Belfast outside school times.

Later in September the protest began to escalate again. Picketers began to make noise during the children's walk to school once more from Thursday 20 September, with fireworks being thrown at parents on Wednesday 26 September. Violence escalated across the north of the city during this period, with loyalist protests on the nearby Crumlin Road turning violent throughout the week commencing 24 September and widespread rioting on the interfaces between the New Lodge, Newington and Tiger's Bay areas about 3 km away. On Friday 28 September, seven children were injured in a loyalist part of the Skegoneill area, 3 km away from Ardoyne, when a concrete block was thrown at the school bus taking them to Hazelwood Integrated College. Hazelwood is a mixed school, attended by both Protestant and Catholic children.

The protest continued in this vein throughout October and November, with urine-filled condoms and balloons being thrown at parents and children on Monday 1 October, and a blast bomb being left close to the route to school on Wednesday 17 October. Attacks on both Protestant and Catholic school children travelling to school through "hostile" areas of North Belfast increased rapidly. On the 12th of November 400 police officers were involved in escorting the children and their parents to and from the school, in an operation that cost the taxpayer £100,000. On 20 November, with the protest showing no signs of ending, the Belfast Education and Library Board provided free buses to children attending Holy Cross, although most chose to continue walking.

On Thursday 22 November, First Minister David Trimble and Deputy First Minister Mark Durkan met with residents of Upper Ardoyne, and the following evening, Friday 23 November, they agreed to call off their protest after 14 weeks. The situation remained peaceful from then until term ended for Christmas.

2002

On 9 January, 2002, there were confrontations outside Holy Cross Primary School during the afternoon school run, which exploded into widespread sectarian rioting, which spread across north Belfast during the evening and continued on 10 January, on which day the school was closed. On the same day, loyalist gunmen attacked another Catholic girls' Primary and a Catholic girls' Secondary School within 1 km of Holy Cross, while pupils from nearby Protestant schools were ferried through Catholic areas in armed landrovers.

On Friday 11 January, north Belfast was largely quiet, but the Red Hand Defenders, a loyalist splinter group issued a death threat to teachers and other staff working in Catholic schools in north Belfast, although police massively increased security and the threat was never acted upon.

Since then, Holy Cross has remained quiet.

Analysis and Consequences

The Holy Cross dispute could only have come about surrounded by the highly charged sectarian tensions of North Belfast. The behaviour of the Loyalist residents of Upper Ardoyne may have been self-destructive; however, north Belfast Protestants feel under siege in a part of the city where the Catholic population has grown over the last forty years. For them there was no point in behaving constructively; from their own point of view, they had been backed into a corner and had nowhere else to go.

On the other hand some have asked why Catholic parents insisted in walking to school only to have their children subjected to abuse. Again, one needs to understand the psychology of ethnic conflict. While loyalists fear losing territory to nationalists, working-class nationalists see their own areas overcrowded and themselves barred from moving to more prosperous areas due to high house prices or to nearby, relatively empty loyalist areas due to intimidation.

The long term consequences of Holy Cross are difficult to discern. In a few pockets of north Belfast it has undoubtedly left a reservoir of bitterness and the impact on the children directly involved is incalculable. As of 2006, north Belfast remains a tense, divided, place. Arguably, it increased the distance between the loyalist paramilitaries and ordinary loyalists, most of whom were disgusted by the scenes at Holy Cross and horrified at the damage it did to their image outside Northern Ireland.

Resources

• Nigel Dodds
• BBC Q & A on the Holy Cross dispute
• – CAIN Chronicle of the Conflict for 2001
• – Guardian map of the disputed route