Through Irish Eyes
Anger at Ardoyne school back-door "compromise"
Children from a particular ethnic group are allowed access to school only by the back door. Where are we? Some fascist redoubt in the Balkans? An enclave of the old South Africa? No. We are in the British colony in the North of Ireland, the area supposedly democratised by the Good Friday agreement.
In the run-up to the Twelfth – the sectarian Orange festival -– Loyalists in Belfast’s Ardoyne area demonstrated against Catholic primary school children attending school.
Children were forced to enter and leave the school by travelling across fields to the back door of the school. The protests only ended when the school closed for the summer holidays.
Ethnic cleansing
Loyalist groups have been involved in a growing campaign of violence for some time. Low-level ethnic cleansing of Catholics is interspersed with drug and turf wars amongst themselves.
The British stepped in before the elections to force them to issue a statement saying that they were still on cease-fire. This didn’t change their behaviour but did justify the British turning a blind eye and continuing to fund their activities.
The confrontation in the Ardoyne arose when UDA members were erecting sectarian emblems at the entrance to the school and began intimidating parents collecting their children.
Reinforcements
When the parents retaliated loyalist reinforcements quickly arrived. A leading role in the siege was played by Billy Hutchinson, PUP assembly member, hailed as a socialist by many on the Irish and British left.
Enter the new RUC. They had distinguished themselves earlier by dispersing without arrest 30 UDA members who had trashed a street in North Belfast, burning three cars and smashing up homes.
Their contribution to keeping the peace was to prevent the children and their parents from going to school. As is normal in these situations, only a token loyalist presence was necessary. The RUC took over the job of suppressing the Catholics.
In the riots that followed yet another local tradition was followed when the RUC used the new, more lethal, plastic bullets that they were recently issued with against nationalist youth while attempting to conciliate the loyalists.
What was new in the situation was the attitude of Sinn Fein. After what one of their leading members described privately as "playacting", the republicans acted quickly to contain protests, earning praise from the RUC for their efficiency in demobilising nationalist protest.
Negotiations followed with the "compromise" that the children could use the back door to school. This was formally rejected by the nationalists but became the de facto settlement on the last week of school term.
At the height of the riots local Sinn Fein assembly member Gerry Kelly was heard to remark; "If the Good Friday agreement is no use on the streets. What good is it?"
Yes Gerry. What good is it?
Ardoyne Mark 2
The battle in Ardoyne on the night of July 12 was immediately presented by the state forces as an attempt by the Provos to return to conflict with the RUC.
Nothing could be further from the truth. The humiliation of having to defuse local resistance to loyalist and RUC blockades of a local school in the previous fortnight was proof enough of that.
The Provo account is accurate enough. They attempted to lead a peaceful protest and were attacked by the RUC, this attack then escalated into a full-scale offensive.
Paralysed
This is typical of the normal sectarian behaviour by the RUC, who allowed an Orange protest in Derry on the 12th to paralyse the city for most of the day. They looked on helplessly when opposing UDA and UVF orange gangs fought pitched battles in the centre of Belfast.
One of the central elements of the Patton report which the republicans still cling to is the promise that the RUC will become 50% Catholic (in the sweet by and by).
A recent recruitment drive, when things were going well and the RUC were free to define adventurers from around the world as "Catholic" gave a figure of over 30% applications.
Any sustained conflict would quickly erode even this shortfall and remove the pretence that these uniformed gangsters would be reformed by the back door.
Resistance
On this occasion the RUC ran into very stiff resistance, led by leading local republicans. The reasons for this are twofold.
The area had already been under sustained sectarian attack and defence preparations had of course been made.
The other may prove more problematic for the republican leadership – the burning resentment felt by the local people over the humiliating trek they were forced to make with their children over fields to the back door of the school.
What happens when supporters of the Good Friday agreement, supporters of the republican leadership, find that the bottom line is that they are still second class citizens in an occupied country?