A quarter-century after loyalist protesters forced Catholic schoolchildren to run a daily gauntlet of riot gear and rage in north Belfast, the priest who stood in that road is still asking the question that history rarely answers cleanly: whether a society has truly changed, or merely changed its methods. The 2001 Holy Cross dispute left approximately 100 children in need of counseling and a school principal unable to eat or sleep, and Fr Aidan Troy — who deflects praise for his role — now warns that the conditions enabling such hatred have not been dissolved by time, only perhaps reshaped by
Holy Cross priest warns sectarian 'hatred' could recur 25 years after school dispute
Approximately 100 schoolchildren required counseling due to daily exposure to violent sectarian protests; the school principal experienced trauma including inability to eat or sleep.
The hurt is always possible, even if the form changes
Mark
What strikes you most about Fr Troy's warning that this could happen again?
Mimi
That he's not being alarmist. He's saying the shock of Holy Cross itself might prevent the exact same form, but the conditions—the hurt, the sectarian division—haven't gone away. He's lived in that community for decades.
Luke
But what does "could happen again" actually mean? Is he saying another school blockade is likely, or is he speaking more broadly about sectarian violence in general?
Mimi
I think he's being careful there. He says "not in the exact same form." He's acknowledging that 25 years of memory and international attention have changed something, but that the underlying capacity for hatred hasn't been resolved.
Mark
The children needed counseling. The principal couldn't sleep for years. That's a real cost that's still being paid.
Luke
The source says about 100 pupils needed counseling, but we don't know how many of those 100 are still dealing with it now, or what happened to them. That's a gap worth naming.
Mimi
Fair point. But the principal's own testimony—that she was traumatized even three years later—suggests the damage was deep and lasting.
Mark
And Fr Troy's role was to shield them physically, but also to say something about their worth.
Mimi
Exactly. He stood in the road and said these children deserve dignity. That's not nothing, but it's also not a solution to sectarian division.
Luke
Which is probably why he's still doing dialogue work 25 years later. The problem didn't get solved; it just got quieter.
Mark
So his warning is really a call to keep doing that work.
Mimi
Yes. And to be honest about the fact that it's not finished.
Le Pouls
- Twenty-five years on, the priest who stood between the children and the crowds is still warning that what happened at Holy Cross was not an aberration — it was a symptom, and the illness has not been cured.
- In 2001, loyalist protesters blockaded a primary school route for weeks, forcing armored police to build a daily corridor through which terrified children — some barely tall enough to see over the barriers — had to walk to class.
- The human toll was immediate and lasting: roughly 100 pupils required counseling, and the school principal described years of sleeplessness, lost appetite, and a grief she had to hide from the very children she was protecting.
- Fr Troy, who stood in the road and insisted the children deserved dignity, has spent the intervening decades in dialogue work — not because the past can be undone, but because he believes the future is still being decided.
- His warning is precise and unsettling: the shock of Holy Cross may have foreclosed that exact form of protest, but the underlying capacity for communities to weaponize children against each other remains very much alive.
A quarter-century after loyalist protesters forced Catholic schoolchildren to run a daily gauntlet of riot gear and rage in north Belfast, the priest who stood in that road is still asking the question that history rarely answers cleanly: whether a society has truly changed, or merely changed its methods. The 2001 Holy Cross dispute left approximately 100 children in need of counseling and a school principal unable to eat or sleep, and Fr Aidan Troy — who deflects praise for his role — now warns that the conditions enabling such hatred have not been dissolved by time, only perhaps reshaped by it. His continued devotion to dialogue is not nostalgia but vigilance, a recognition that the capacity to turn on children as a political instrument remains latent wherever communities carry unresolved wounds.
Twenty-five years after Catholic schoolchildren were forced to walk through armored police corridors to reach their primary school in north Belfast, the priest who stood beside them is still reckoning with what those weeks revealed about human nature. Fr Aidan Troy, parish priest in Ardoyne during the 2001 Holy Cross dispute, has spent a quarter-century asking how a community could target children walking to class — and whether it could happen again.
In the summer of 2001, loyalist protesters blocked the route Holy Cross pupils and their parents took each morning, claiming Catholics were attacking Protestant homes nearby. What followed was weeks of stones, bottles, fireworks, and at one point a blast bomb. Police and the Army erected crash barriers and created a protected corridor, but the only way through was between lines of heavily armored officers — a daily scene photographed and broadcast around the world. Terrified primary school children, some barely tall enough to see over the barriers, became the image of a peace process still deeply unfinished.
Around 100 pupils eventually needed counseling. Principal Anne Tanney, speaking years later, described nights without sleep, days without food, and the constant effort to hold herself together in front of the children she was trying to shield. Her trauma, she said, endured long after the protests ended.
Fr Troy describes the sectarian hatred he witnessed as "the rawest, smelliest, most awful thing" he has ever stood in the middle of. When people thank him for his role, he deflects — insisting he did nothing more than stand in a road and say that children deserved to walk through a front door like anyone else. But that insistence on dignity is precisely what has kept him committed to dialogue ever since.
He does not believe the underlying conditions have been resolved. The shock of Holy Cross may have been enough to prevent the same form of protest from recurring, but the capacity for communities to turn on each other — to use children as instruments of grievance — remains. "It could happen again," he said. For Fr Troy, the work of conversation and prevention is not optional. It is the only honest response to a past that has not yet finished speaking.
Twenty-five years after Catholic schoolchildren were forced to run past lines of armored police officers to reach their primary school in north Belfast, the priest who stood between them and the crowds is still thinking about what it means to live in a place where such things happened. Fr Aidan Troy, the parish priest in Ardoyne during the 2001 Holy Cross dispute, has spent a quarter-century since those weeks of violence trying to understand how a community could turn on children walking to class—and whether it could happen again.
In the summer of 2001, loyalist protesters gathered to block the route taken by Holy Cross school pupils and their parents as they made their way through north Belfast each morning. The stated grievance was that Catholics were attacking Protestant homes in the area, and the protesters saw the school blockade as a way to draw attention to their concerns. What followed was weeks of unrest. Stones and bottles flew. Fireworks lit the air. At one point, a blast bomb was thrown. The police and Army responded by erecting crash barriers and creating a protected corridor, but the only way for the children to get to school was to walk between lines of heavily armored officers—a daily gauntlet that was photographed and broadcast around the world.
The images were stark: terrified primary school children, some barely tall enough to see over the barriers, moving through a landscape of riot gear and metal. About 100 pupils eventually needed counseling to process what they had witnessed and endured. Anne Tanney, the principal at the time, carried her own wounds from those weeks. Speaking to the BBC in 2004, three years after the dispute ended, she described nights when she could not sleep, could not eat, times when she had to bite her lip to keep from crying in front of the children she was trying to protect. Even as an adult, she said, she remained traumatized.
When Fr Troy reflects on that period now, he describes sectarian hatred as "the rawest, smelliest, most awful thing that anyone stood in the middle of." He has spent the intervening years devoted to dialogue and conversation, to what he calls searching for justice and caring about people. When people approach him to thank him for his role during the dispute, he deflects the praise. "I didn't do anything really worthwhile," he said. What he did was stand in the road and say that the children were worth dignity, that they were worth fighting for, that they deserved to walk through a front door like any other child.
But the reason he remains devoted to that work of dialogue is precisely because he does not believe the conditions that produced Holy Cross have been fully resolved. The shock of what happened, he suggests, may have been enough to prevent the exact same form of protest from recurring. Yet the underlying hurt—the capacity for communities to turn on each other, to target children as a way of making a point—remains possible. "It could happen again," he said. The passage of 25 years has not erased the possibility, only perhaps changed its shape. His commitment to conversation and to preventing such hatred from taking root again is, in his view, not a luxury but a necessity, a constant work that cannot be set aside.
Citations marquantes
Hatred is the rawest, smelliest, most awful thing that anyone stood in the middle of.— Fr Aidan Troy
There were times when I couldn't eat, couldn't sleep. I used to bite my lip, trying not to cry in front of the children.— Anne Tanney, principal at the time, speaking in 2004
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Crime & Justice