The protests at the “Holy Cross” primary school in Belfast continue; the school was a victim to a terrible attack by Protestant terrorists a month ago. The children are still forced to submit , every morning and evening, to the shouts and insults of the Protestant inhabitants of the district in which the school is situated. There are no alternative routes to reach the school’s entrance. Such is the stress – say the parents – that the children’s health is being impaired. “We have discovered that the doctors are now prescribing sedatives to them because in the evening the children are so anxious about what they will have to put up with on the following day that they cannot get to sleep”, explains Father John McManus, spokesman of the “Down and Connor” diocese in which the school is located. “The physical and mental well-being and education of children ought to be one of the key values of any society and take precedence over any wrongs that citizens feel they are subjected to. It is an extremely grave matter that such young children – some are only four years old – have to suffer insults that have the same effect on them as psychological tortures”. The Catholic “Holy Cross” school is situated within a Protestant area of Belfast and is attended by children aged from four to eleven. Relations between the two communities deteriorated at the end of June without new channels of dialogue being found “It’s indispensable – says Father McManus – that the inhabitants of the district and the representatives of the Catholic community sit round at the same table together to dialogue”.
