The Causes of the Demonstrations Outside the Holy Cross Primary School in August 2001

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The Causes of the Demonstrations Outside the Holy Cross Primary School in August 2001

It would be short-sighted to say that the causes of the Holy-Cross

Incident date back only to 1968. I believe that 1968 was just a link

in a chain of events which led up to the Holy-Cross Incident. The two

side's views have been caused by events that have happened during the

past, going back as far as the reign of Henry VIII, during the

reformation.

The Holy-Cross Incident is an example of the violence and hatred

between the Catholics and Protestants. The incident happened because

the Nationalist School is located in a staunchly loyalist enclave in

the mainly nationalist area of Ardoyne, in North Belfast. Around 100

children & their parents walked down the loyalist Ardoyne Road to get

to the main entrance of their school. Riot police armed with Perspex

shields and batons had to escort them through venom, spittle and

missiles of broken planks embedded with nails coming from the loyalist

residents of the road. The loyalists were unhappy that 'their' road

was being used by Nationalists and the Nationalists weren't using the

back entrance of the school to avoid going down 'their' road. The

reason for this protest could be just an excuse for the loyalists to

cause another conflict between the two sides or it could be a

nationalist tactic to wind up the loyalists by not using the back

entrance. Either way, the fact that children were used as a tool to

cause violence & conflict is an example of the vicious hatred between

the two sides.

The causes of the conflict can be separated into four main areas:

· Political

· Economic

· Social...

... middle of paper ...

...d Ireland has had money pumped into it as part of the EU.

Currently, the spotlight has been taken away from the conflict but has

been put on the rising numbers of racially related attacks. It is

possible that other races are becoming the new target as the people of

Ireland have been brought up amongst hatred.

To conclude, I believe that it is not accurate to say that the cause

of the Holy-Cross incident just dates back to 1968, although the

events of 1968 were the strongest link in a chain of events that led

up to the incident. This is because the events of 1968 were caused by

events that happened previous to them. The cause of the Holy-Cross

incident could be dated back as far as the reformation.

Bibliography

http://www.garvaghyroad.org/

www.bbc.com/gcse/history

'Conflict in Ireland' by Tony McAleavy

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