The Holly Cross Debacle

The whole holly cross debacle was nothing to do with the children going to or returning from school. However, it was with the groups of known Sinn Fein/IRA personnel accessing the Upper Ardoyne road, on the ruse of picking up their children from the holly cross school. when they were travelling to and from the school, the Sinn Fein/IRA personnel were terrorising the local Unionist/Protestant children and adult population?

However, the nationalist/republican friendly media ignored the real issue and focused in on the holly cross children. There was never a mention of the Unionist/Protestant children, terrorised by the republican thugs on their way to and from their school!

The stones from nationalist/republican Ardoyne have broken the bones of the Unionist/Protestant children! So the protest was with the Sinn Fein/IRA personnel terrorising Unionists/Protestants and NOT WITH THE CHILDREN. But again the pious nationalist/republican community have rewritten history!

I would like the answer to this question?
What right minded parent, would have put their children in the front line, and put them through the terrible situation that developed on the road up to the holly cross school?

Who, the same parents who would not take their children on the non contentious way to their school via the Crumlin road, and try and defuse, not inflame the situation? This situation was added and supported by the local presthood and Sinn Fein/IRA

The Unionist/Protestant area of the Upper Ardoyne road were the holly cross school is situated are starting to galvanise their community in the face of unprecedented nationalist/republican hatred and violence.

Now you will ask what caused this violence to be vented on this peaceful Unionist/Protestant population. Well, it all comes down to housing! Sinn Fein/IRA has for years tried to ethnically cleanse this area of anything Unionist or Protestant! But now the Unionist/Protestant community have started to get the new housing they have been demanding before this whole holly cross debacle.

There are now new young families moving into the Upper Ardoyne road from the Unionist/Protestant tradition, into the new housing being built in the Upper Ardoyne road! So if you visit the Ardoyne remember that Unionists/Protestants live there too!

Just a quick Question? What of the Unionist/Protestant people ethnically cleansed from Torrens? Or do we not speak or deal with Unionist/Protestants being ethnically cleansed?

There we go again nationalist/republicans trying to rewrite history and deleting the suffering of the Unionist/Protestant people and playing the same old worn out rhetoric, that they were the only victims!

I ask again the wisdom of the parent's of the children of holly cross children in putting their children in the front line of this debacle.

Sinn Fein/IRA can not deny the facts of the acts visited on the Unionist/Protestant population of this area?

I do not deny the facts, that the holly cross children did suffer form an unacceptable level of aggression. However questions must be asked of the roll the parent's local priesthood and Sinn Fein/IRA played in this debacle I was however, putting into the arena of public knowledge some of the facts that the nationalist/republican media did not cover.

Why would the nationalist/republican media, let the truth or facts get in the way of a good story!By the way you forgot to mention the ethnic cleansing in Torrens form Sinn Fein/IRA and that is a fact!

If anyone is interested in the holy Cross debacle look it up, or how the parades dispute arose. There are plenty of places where you can find information. However, I should warn you, that you will get a very biased view of what has happened. The media and republicans have determined that the Holy Cross and the parades issues are a very one sided dispute, and the views of Loyalists and Unionists were not that important. However I suspect it’s the only view many are interested in. I know you won’t be disappointed with the republican view, however try and find a Unionist Loyalist view, be that unbiased or not.

Posters here have shown that they are obviously not interested in the facts as they happened.

They continually refuse to accept the concept that parents who make decisions that affect their children safety, must take responsibility for those decisions, and any consequence that resulted from those decisions. Decisions like, putting their children in harms way, on the front line and at the centre of an unpleasant inter communal dispute. Notwithstanding, when there were not unreasonable alternatives. Alternatives designed to relieve tensions and find a permanent solution to the issues.

We for our part are one side of a community that was involved in the unpleasant inter communal dispute. We are the community that had its elderly and school children continually harassed, terrorised and beaten up by our larger aggressive republican neighbours from the nationalist part of Ardoyne. However, when this community contacted the police and media for help and detailed our plight they weren't interested. Our story was obviously not a sexy story. Our pensioners and children’s plight was not that important. They were not a police priority and they were a non media event. They were not worthy of reporting about. The media and police continually refused to highlight our plight.

Unfortunately this community, a community that was constantly ignored and marginalised reacted. When they reacted to the provocation of parents and thugs, this is when the story starts to get media sexy and of interest to an indifferent police force.

We however, unlike the republican community and the republican media machine, we are not media savvy or sexy. We were not newsworthy until then. However we were at an immediate disadvantage as the media had already branded us as bigots, oppressors and irrelevant, but we are learning.

As for us now, we know we were portrayed as the aggressor and we regret that, and for how the events turned out. However, the Unionist people of Ardoyne know the truth, and we hope the wider Unionist community knows the events that lead to the dispute and what happened during the dispute, that is what is important.

I don’t think we will ever change the perception our republican neighbours have of us, or republicans further afield. Republicans in Ardoyne and in the rest of North Belfast have an agenda of splitting communities and forcibly removing the Unionists from their areas, as witnessed by Unionists in Ardoyne, and just as they did in Torrens and are attempting to do in the upper Ardoyne.

So that’s where we are today an uneasy existence, fractured by sectarian attacks and disputes. But that’s life in North Belfast.

If there are any media hacks reading this? When you are rewriting the history of the troubles, at lest have the professionalism to visit the Unionist people of Ardoyne and get our facts and our accounts. Don’t just go to the republican part of Ardoyne and take their account of events. We have a voice and a right for that voice to be heard and respected.

All I can say is I hope nothing like this ever happens again.

However in the polarized community that is Northern Ireland, no doubt there are rumblings somewhere. All I ask is that the police and the media play with a straight bat and give the views of both sides the equality they deserve, and forgo the savvy and sexy so everyone can get fair crack of the whip.

We will start with the run up to the Holy Cross dispute. For years the population in the republican part of Ardoyne has been squeezed for size and housing. Realizing that they had no where to expand into, a long and sustained campaign of threats, physical violence and psychological violence started on the Unionists and Loyalist community of upper Ardoyne.

Housing and blatant sectarianism lay at the heart of this dispute. For years the republicans have been trying to remove the Unionist and Loyalist people of the upper Ardoyne Road. They have conducted this campaign with threats, physical violence and psychological violence.

Republicans have long established the concept of the long campaign. This long campaign they started on the Unionist and Loyalist community of Upper Ardoyne.
A sustained campaign of attacks on the buses of the local school children returning home started, as they past the shops on the Crumlin Road. In many instances injuring the many of the children on board the bus, not only were they attacking the buses as they past the shops on the Crumlin Road. They were attacking lone Unionist, Loyalist children walking around the area, putting several school children into hospital after these attacks. On many occasions the buses had to be given a police escort as they passed the shop fronts. At this time attempts were made to contact the media to report on these attacks, but they showed no interest.

They then opened another front, on the pensioners and infirm this time. The old and infirm were being abused and attacked as they used the local Post Office. The post office sited at the shops on the Crumlin Road. Now our elderly, infirm and children were constant targets for republicans. Again attempts were made to contact the media to report on these attacks, but again they showed no interest.

Now a third front was opened. As the children were being dropped off and picked up by their parents at Holy Cross School. It started with a number of the parents dropping off and picking up would verbally attack the local Unionist and Loyalist population. Then the attacks started on the homes and cars of the locals. Then the final straw was when a car load of known IRA members, who were let out as a result of the Good Friday Agreement. Jumped form there car and attacked several local men outside the Church, on the upper Ardoyne road.


After asking for police protection and media interest in their plight, nothing was forthcoming. The decision was taken to start the picket, and the dispute began.
A dispute not against children, a dispute with their parents and the agitators in republican Ardoyne.


The truth is the Unionist; Loyalists were thrown off balance by the republican parents. No one on the Unionist, Loyalists side could comprehend that the parents were going to put their children in the front line of this dispute.

The parents had been offered a non contentious way to get to the school. They were given the option of walking or they could have taken the buses provided. The journey was along the Crumlin Road to St Gabriel’s school and into Holy Cross.
This was passed on to Aidan Troy and the parents via the local Presbyterian Minister. The alternative route was rejected out of hand by the parents.
The Ardoyne Unionists, Loyalists along with the RUC and Belfast Education and Library Board also guaranteed the safety of the children if they wanted to walk or take the buses provided along the Crumlin road, until an agreement to the dispute could be found.

But no the parents of the children did not what this; they wanted to force their children along the Upper Ardoyne road past the protesters.
The parents decided they wanted their children to run the gauntlet of the front line not the protesters twice a day!!!

It was an ugly dispute and there was blame on both sides. However, if you put your children in harms way, you have no one to blame but yourself.

That is the facts if you don't like them that's up to you, but they are the facts. The children that were in the front line of the dispute were put there by their parents. Put the blame where it belongs with the belligerent obstinate parents.

And just for everyone’s information, as evidenced by the continual rioting at the republican part of Ardoyne, the small Unionist, Loyalist population of Ardoyne are still getting harassment form the larger republican Ardoyne.

So there you have it.