By Anne Cadwallader
BELFAST – Alabama in the 1960s came to Ardoyne in North Belfast last Wednesday as loyalists prevented Catholic schoolgirls from attending classes and rioters threw blast bombs and fired weapons across the peaceline into nationalist homes.
About 100 loyalists blockaded the 200 yards of roadway leading from Ardoyne to the Holy Cross Primary School as police advised parents to take another route.
The early morning ritual of parents clutching their children’s hands and being turned back at police lines developed into stone throwing during the rest of the day and serious violence the next two nights — interspersed with blast and petrol bomb attacks across the peaceline.
In one area, a row of houses had every window broken. Elsewhere loyalists hijacked and burned cars, set fire to Our Lady of Mercy School and left hoax bombs on school railings.
As the violence escalated, the British government announced 1,600 more soldiers are being drafted into Northern Ireland. Two Belgian-made water cannon are also being brought in for riot control.
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Britain’s Northern Ireland secretary, John Reid, has sent a leading loyalist back to jail by suspending his early release, after reports from the RUC linked him to pipe-bombings and days of rioting in Ardoyne, north Belfast.
Gary Smith, 37, is a close associate of UDA commander Johnny "Mad Dog" Adair, who is already back in jail having had his early release revoked. It’s feared his renewed imprisonment will inflame loyalist tensions and lead to more attacks on Catholics.
Elsewhere, the girlfriend of a Catholic man murdered at their home in County Derry, said he had been scheduled to give evidence about a loyalist gun attack in which an 11-year-old girl was shot dead.
John McCormick, who was 25, was shot on Saturday night as he lay on the sofa at his home in Coleraine. He died shortly afterward. The police have said loyalists carried out the murder.
Two men forced their way in through the back door and fired several shots at McCormick in front of his two young sons, two other children and his partner, Lynn McConnell, who is six months pregnant.
In Ardoyne in Belfast, republicans struggled to keep their supporters in check. On Wednesday night, they were unable to prevent rioting and nationalist youths threw petrol bombs at the RUC and used burning cars to blockade streets leading into the area.
Dozens of police officers were injured, with violence also spreading elsewhere in Belfast. Frances McAuley of the Springfield Residents’ Group, who had just returned from a speaking tour in the U.S., being hit on the head by a brick.
The violence began when verbal altercations between a Catholic family and loyalists tying paramilitary flags onto lampposts outside Holy Cross school quickly became violent.