Volume 1 (1999/2000)
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Volume 2 (2000/2001)
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Issue 5 (April 2001)
Issue 6 (May 2001)

Volume 3 (2001)
Issue 1 (Sept. 2001)
Issue 2 (Nov. 2001)

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First Day of School, First Day Of Terror

Lucy Friel
Loreto CS, Milford

Can you remember your first day at school? For many it was a terrifying day, leaving the security of home and going to this big, bad place where you know no-one and all of a sudden are surrounded by lots of kids, the majority of whom are a lot bigger than you. Many of us shed tears as our mothers left us all alone in this alien place.

On September 3rd 2001, children all over Ireland went through this same ordeal that we once did. But for the pupils of Holy Cross, All Girls Primary School in Ardoyne in Belfast, the first day of the new school year was truly terrifying and unforgettable for all the wrong reasons. Getting to school for them meant walking through a protective corridor of RUC officers in riot gear while Loyalists shouted torrents of abuse and hurled bottles and stones down at them.

The disputes between Catholics and Protestants in this area have been going on all summer cumulating with this protest. Loyalists claim that Nationalists have been stopping Protestant pensioners from going to the Post Office to collect their pensions and blocking their way to the shops. They say that there is no reason why known Republicans should walk through a Protestant area to take their kids to school when there is an alternative route. Catholics say they have been taking that route for 30 years and there is no reason why they should now have to take an alternative route which involves crossing through another school, across a football pitch and over an embankment to enter the school via a back door.

Whatever the reasons behind this protest, one thing is sure, it's wrong. Whatever their parents may have done, there is no excuse for making these young girls endure this kind of abuse. They are the future hope of Northern Ireland, supposedly growing up in a time of cease-fires and peace. However, what chance have they been given of growing up unaffected and without hatred towards their neighbours if on their first week of school they are called "scum" by grown men and women, have bottles and rocks thrown at them and even a bomb placed in their way as they try to get their basic right to an education.

The images being broadcast all over the world is of these pretty young girls with looks of terror on their faces and tears streaming down their cheeks. This shows that the peace process in Northern Ireland is in a very fragile state. Although the IRA, UDA and other terrorist organisations may claim to be on cease-fires, unless Protestants and Catholics learn to live along side each other in harmony, peace will never be achieved.

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