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Protestants mounted a noisy but non-violent protest on Thursday as scores of Catholic girls walked a gauntlet of hatred for a fourth day to enter a Belfast school.
Hundreds of Protestants, separated from the children by a tight cordon of police in full riot gear, blew whistles and horns and turned their backs to make clear the girls were not welcome in the Protestant street leading to the front gate of their Catholic school.
But there was no repeat of the hurling of the pipe bomb or of the rock and stone throwing which erupted on Wednesday as the girls, some as young as four, walked with their parents to school behind the police lines. "Whistles don't annoy me, it was the blast bomb yesterday that annoyed me," a woman said as she reached the front door of the Holy Cross Girls Primary School with her daughter.
"They're allowed to protest if they want," she added.
Protestants said they were pleased there was no violence on Thursday, after images of weeping and terrified schoolgirls shocked the world.
Billy Hutchinson, a hardline Progressive Unionist Party member, said Protestant parents had held a meeting last night and had made it clear that they "wanted a new beginning from today" and had told police their protest would be peaceful.
"All the aggression that has been here for the last lot of days that was created by whoever... has been taken away and I think the residents have to get some credit," Hutchinson said.
"In many ways the residents have gotten smarter."
The school's front gate lies in a Protestant pocket of North Belfast where Catholic and Protestant communities live cheek by jowl.
Protestant residents complain they have come under frequent attack from Catholics in recent months and say their grievances must be addressed before they will let Catholic families reach the school by the front.
Girls enter through disputed front door
The Catholic girls, accompanied by their parents, walked to the school past protesters and police to enter through the front entrance, which faces Protestant homes.
Protestant residents want the girls to enter the school by a back entrance away from Protestant homes. Catholics refuse, insisting they have walked to Holy Cross by the same route since the school opened 32 years ago.
"I think looking at the faces of the children coming in they were not as terrified as they had been after yesterday morning, and that was quite an improvement this morning," said Father Aidan Troy, the head of the board of governors of Holy Cross.
British Northern Ireland Secretary John Reid was due back in Belfast after cutting short his holiday to deal with what has turned into a major setback for efforts to patch up the crumbling Northern Ireland peace pact.
Some of the Catholics taking their children to school said they thought the toning down of the protests might mark the start of a healing process.
Geraldine, a woman walking her five-year-old niece to school, said: "It was still frightening, but a lot better than yesterday.
"Praise God it will start calming and hopefully somebody will start talking. They will have to talk anyway," she added.
Hutchinson said dialogue was necessary, but said Catholics had not shown any inclination to talk.
"We've been unable to actually get into any dialogue," Hutchinson said, adding that he had suspicions about the bomb which exploded amid police lines on Wednesday, suggesting that police could have planted the bomb themselves.
Gerry Kelly, a Sinn Fein member of the Northern Ireland assembly, said Protestants had walked out of talks on the school dispute earlier this year.
Father Troy said that he hoped the non-violent display might create a climate for reconciliation.
"Yesterday was such a low point and sometimes I think you have to reach a low point before you begin to come up again," Troy said.
Wednesday's bombing, for which the extremist Protestant militia Red Hand Defenders claimed responsibility, was seen as a possible turning point in the confrontation.
People on both sides of the community said the bombing, which seriously injured two policemen, was unprecedented in the Northern Irish conflict, in which children have generally been regarded as immune from the violence.
© Reuters
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