The Holy Cross dispute occurred in 2001 and 2002 in the Ardoyne area of Belfast, Northern Ireland, and involved an escalating dispute between on the one hand the pupils and parents of Holy Cross R.C. Primary School and on the other the residents of a loyalist area that lay on the route to the front entrance of the school. A loyalist picket arose following accusations that nationalists had used the school route as a cover to cause damage and/or harassment in their community. In particular there was a dispute over the origins of a fight involving on one side two men putting up Loyalist flags and on the other the occupants of a car driving through the area.[1] Allegations that the car drove at the ladder and knocked the two men off are disputed by a woman living in the loyalist area - she says that the car drove by and the men putting up flags threw the ladder at the car, starting a fight.[1] Others alleged that the Provisional Irish Republican Army used the journey to school to gather intelligence.[2]
On the other side, the parents claimed that the picket was an infringement of the rights of parents and their children to walk to school on their chosen route.[2] Some parents compared those protesting to American white supremacists in the 1950s.[2]
The area has peace lines because of sectarian tensions.[2]
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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 north and nationalists to the south of the wall backing Alliance Avenue, and over time a permanent wall was built immediately to the north of Alliance Avenue. Holy Cross was on the opposite side of the peace line from its catchment, although only about 200m from it, and remained relatively undisturbed but for minor incidents of vandalism for three decades.
The origins of the dispute are contested. In December 2000, Protestant taxi driver Trevor Kell was shot dead in Ardoyne. The Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) were suspected of involvement 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 Kell's death. 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.[3]
Holy Cross students began complaining to parents of threatening verbal abuse when passing the Protestant area.
Loyalists began to blockade the nearby Holy Cross Primary School on 19 June 2001, when children left for the day accompanied by their parents.
The Loyalists continued the picket on Monday 18 June. By Tuesday 19 June, riot police were deployed to escort children through the picket line. 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 stand-off continued until the end of school term on 29 June, with loyalists blockading the Ardoyne Road, and the RUC refusing to force children through.
Talks between residents from the two parts of Ardoyne took place over the summer, but no agreement was reached.
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), supported by the British Army were by then better prepared and managed to force a path through the protesters. On 4 September the protest escalated when a PSNI officer sustained a foot injury from a blast bomb, with more blast bombs being thrown at police on 5 September.
The world media had descended on Ardoyne from the start of September until the attacks on the World Trade Center in New York on 11 September caused attention to be drawn to New York and then Afghanistan.
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 September 11 attacks.
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 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.
Cups of cold tea and water were thrown at parents on Monday 1 October,[4] and a blast bomb was left close to the route to school on Wednesday 17 October.
Attacks on children of both Protestant and Catholic parents travelling to school through areas of north Belfast increased rapidly. On 12 November, 400 police officers were involved in escorting the children and their parents to and from the school. On 20 November, the Belfast Education and Library Board provided free buses to children attending Holy Cross.[5]
On Thursday 22 November, First Minister David Trimble and Deputy First Minister Mark Durkan met 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.
On 9 January 2002, there were confrontations outside Holy Cross Primary School during the afternoon school run, which turned into widespread sectarian rioting, and this spread across north Belfast during the evening and continued on 10 January, on which day the school was closed.
On Friday 11 January, north Belfast was 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. Police increased security and the threat was never acted upon.
In 2002 James Adair, brother of Johnny Adair, was jailed for six months for riotous behaviour and given a concurrent sentence of four months for obstructing police.[6]
In 2003 Loyalists placed a pipe bomb at the entrance of the school, it was defused and there were no injuries.[7]
Since then, Holy Cross has remained quiet.
In 2003 a BBC televised drama called Holy Cross was made about the dispute, though it was filmed in Liverpool.[8][9] Fr. Aidan Troy, head of the board of governors of the school, expressed concern that the drama could reignite the problem.[8][9]