Twenty Five Years On – the more things change, the more they stay the same…

This year sees a quarter of a century pass since one of the basest, most depraved ‘protests’ in our conflictive history – the Holy Cross ‘protest’ in North Belfast.

While there had been a number of shameful protests before Holy Cross, such as the blockading of Ballymena’s Catholic Harryville Church.

And after when ‘protestors’ attempted to reignite the sectarian hatred of Holy Cross at the disgraceful Carnmoney Cemetery ‘protests’ a year to the month after Holy Cross had ended.

None captured the international media attention like Holy Cross.

The genesis of the dispute began in June 2001 in Ardoyne, north Belfast, when loyalist residents from the nearby Glenbryn estate began protesting against Catholic children and their parents walking along the Ardoyne Road to Holy Cross Girls’ Primary School. The school stood on the edge of a deeply divided Nationalist and loyalist interface, where tensions had been building over time . Loyalists claimed that Catholics were intimidating Protestant residents and attacking their homes, while nationalists argued that the protests were part of wider sectarian hostility. These long-standing tensions, combined with fears over security, territorial control and frustration following the peace process, turned the children’s journey to school into a major flashpoint. However, the ‘protest’ began in earnest in September when primary school children and their parents ran a gauntlet of sectarian abuse, intimidation and violence for months as ‘protesters’ shouted insults, spat at them and threw stones, bottles, bricks, fireworks and balloons filled with urine. I also remember reading at the time that pornographic images were waved at them and on one occasion, a blast bomb was thrown nearby.

The children, some as young as four, had to walk through a corridor of riot police and soldiers for protection. The experience caused significant psychological distress: some children cried, developed bed-wetting problems, received counselling or calming medication, and some families eventually moved their children to other schools.

The ‘protesters’ claimed, echoing the infamous Rosa Parks bus incident, that there was an alternative back entrance to the school that the pupils and parents could have used and, incredibly I remember reading some blaming the parents for exposing their children to the trauma that ‘protestors’ were causing. Some Holy Cross parents criticised local unionist politicians, including then MP Nigel Dodds, for not condemning the ‘protest’ strongly enough and for not doing enough to bring it to an end.

There are a number of theories attributed as the cause for Holy Cross, including displacement of hard core UDA members from the mid Shankill to the Glenbryn area in the wake of the 2000 UDA/UVF feud and that it was connected to the prohibition of the Drumcree orange march. I personally have never heard a definitive reason for the disgraceful scenes.

Fast forward twenty five years to the present day and while things aren’t perfect they are immeasurably better and while things like the above are a horrible memory of a distant past we do have elements in society attempting to reopen old wounds with the Drumcree Orange Order march.

I was a thirty four year old working in the community sector at the time of Holy Cross and clearly remember the shock and revulsion of decent, reasonable unionist colleagues and friends at the ‘protest’. Twenty five years later I don’t know what a revived Drumcree dispute means to the wider unionist community outside the Orange Order but I would hope that we don’t need to wake sleeping dogs.