An Phoblacht/Republican News · Thursday 12 September 2001

Explaining Ardoyne

BY ROISIN DE ROSA (roisinderosa@hotmail.com)

"Over the 30 years of conflict, our area has never witnessed scenes of such sectarian hatred.''

Isobel McGrane spoke of how she walked to school that morning with her seven-year-old child through the narrow gauntlet between RUC men in the heavy black space suits `policing' racism, allowing it to exist. She was visiting Dublin last week to speak at a meeting in Liberty Hall last Wednesday. She and two Sinn Féin councillors, Margaret McClenaghan and Eoin Ó Broin, both from North Belfast, came to explain to Dublin people just what had been happening in Ardoyne over the previous few days, when loyalists abused and spat at little children as they made their way to school.

"The RUC, they didn't protect us,'' she said. "This morning, the UDA threw a bomb; it was aimed at our children, and their right to education.''

Isabel McGrane told the story of going to school with her child on Monday, Tuesday and that morning. She talked of the failed efforts over seven weeks to resolve the situation.

Margaret McClenaghan put Ardoyne in the context of the continuing attacks on Catholics. She listed many incidences of pipe bombings, of attacks by hooded UDA men, where the RUC and British troops just sat by and did nothing.

Eoin Ó Broin, Sinn Féin representative for the Oldpark area, discussed with great clarity the political background to what is going on. "Our area, which suffered over one fifth of the casualties of the war, is a patchwork quilt of some 26 interfaces, all with 30-foot walls and segregation. These Protestant working class areas on our borders are experiencing increasing unemployment. Some are leaving. They see themselves as communities under siege. They want segregation, separation, high walls across the interface.

"Political parties like the DUP have built support on fear, fear which is whipped up through the politics of blame. Nigel Dodds, a most sectarian politician, swept in with a large vote, on the basis of fear that what is happening to these communities is the result of the peace process and all change amounts to concessions to republicans.

"This has left little space for progressive community activities to build strength or for any politics that says to their people that the Good Friday Agreement is good for all. The Equality agenda, the Human Rights Commission and so on are all flagged up as just concession to republicans. This has left a political vacuum, which has led to a huge sectarian hatred. It has meant 200 pipe bombs over six months. It is nationalists under attack.

"Unionist political leaders act only within the space allocated by the British government. By suspending the Agreement, the British sent out a clear signal to unionists that they can slow the rate of change, the rate of implementation of the Good Friday Agreement. In this way, the British are directly responsible for the current pogroms.''

"Loyalists have said that these events have nothing to do with the schoolchildren going to school, that republicans were actively engaged in putting them out of their houses. At the talks, they didn't want to discuss the school. Then they did want to talk about the school. In the end, they promised to call off the protests if we agreed to go in through the back of the school.''

But as the posters at Wednesday's meeting proclaimed, "we'll not be riding in the back of the bus, we'll not be going to the back of the school no more.

"We need your help. We need you to use what small influence you have, to write letters of support to the parents. We want solidarity action, we want you to write to the mothers and kids so they know they are not alone. People in the meeting followed up with many suggestions of what could be done to help.''

Eoin Ó Broin finished his address, reminding people of Harryville: "If you don't use what little strength each of you have then, like Harryville, this will go on for months. Each of us has very little strength, but together, all doing little things, it adds up to a strong force.''

Sinn Féin Councillor Sean Crowe chaired the meeting and expressed the disgust of Dubliners at the scenes witnessed. "We cannot stand idly by and watch the faces of terrified children run the gauntlet of sectarian hatred and do nothing,'' he said. "We urge people to write to the papers, to their TDs, to the Dublin government and to trade unions. We would also urge them to make phone calls to the media, to stand with us tomorrow at the GPO and pile the pressure on unionist leaders and the British government to force an end these protests.

"This is not about politics, it is not about `turf wars' or `tribal conflict'. It is about human rights. It is about the rights of five-year-old children to go to school without being called Fenian scum and having blast bombs thrown at them. It really is that simple.''