The Truth Will Prevail

The truth will prevail, so it is said, and in the case of Glenbryn the truth at last appears to have prevailed but at what cost? The truth that we speak of is the fact that despite the impression given by the media, both national and international, that deliberately systematically and maliciously portrayed the Unionist/Protestant community as the aggressors and the Catholic community as the victims, it has been established by subsequent recent events that the very opposite was the case. The ‘victim’ was far from the ‘victim’ but was the perpetrator of what can only be called the process of ethnic and cultural cleansing that is taking place in various locations right across Northern Ireland.

All of us with reasonable memories can still vividly recall the media outcry at the time of the Holy Cross dispute and how it was alleged that this was yet again another example of the ‘bigoted’ intolerance of the Protestant community in North Belfast towards the Catholic community. The Protestant community in Glenbryn, particularly those who had the courage to speak out and protest against the ethnic cleansing were branded as bigots and were alleged to be physically and verbally abusing young children on their way to school. The fact was that these courageous people were highlighting the fact that gangs of republican thugs (some of whom paraded past their doors daily supposedly on their way to school) were attacking the dwellings that these people lived in, those buildings they had come to regard as their homes, on a nightly basis. This was of course downplayed by most sections of the media; it just did not fit the agenda, the agenda being to keep the recent discovery of the Columbia Three off the agenda!

The international media system had a field day with its most vitriolic republican organs of propaganda printing pictures of the Holy Cross children standing behind their school gates as if they had been imprisoned with various ludicrous lurid headlines emblazoned. In the midst of the media induced public mood of hysteria Protestant school children on their way to the local school in the area were viciously attacked by a republican mob hurling bricks and projectiles smashing in the windows of their school bus. The media, however, did not afford the same coverage nor appeared to express the same moral outrage that had been forthcoming simply because the people of Glenbryn had staged a protest that involved people holding flags and whistling.

The framing of the dispute and its coverage in line with the ‘republican perspective’ did not stop at simply downplaying violent attacks against Protestant children but also extended to what most people believe was the brutal murder of a young Protestant child killed whilst he cycled his bike along the footpath close to the flashpoint area in North Belfast. Initial media reports of the incident on one television news station for example initially reported that the car that had knocked over and killed the young boy had been travelling from the direction of the Catholic/Republican Ardoyne. A later bulletin, obviously conscious that it had implied in its earlier report an action that was damaging to the interests of the Holy Cross parents and republicanism, amended its subsequent broadcast and the issue was treated as akin to a mere road traffic accident or hit and run accident instead of a crime motivated by sectarian hatred. To ensure that no association was made with the sectarianism that the parents of the Holy Cross school had inflamed we were shown pictures of them standing praying. The cynical might suggest that they should have been praying for God to forgive them for the chain of events that their actions had inexorably unleashed.

The Holy Cross dispute is now ‘old news’, the republican movement has had its propaganda coup, and it helped at the time to deflect attention away from the Columbia Three and they have ultimately gone a long way to achieving what they wanted: that is no Protestants in what they believe to be ‘their territory’. The Holy Cross school is still there as are all the dwellings lived in by the Catholic/Republican community but the houses of many of the Protestant people of Glenbryn are to be demolished. It has been announced that approximately 160 homes in the Glenbryn Park and Glenbryn drive area are to be razed to the ground. Those houses that were privately owned have been bought over by the Housing Executive. Many of the people who live in the area have moved to other areas, older people have gone into old peoples homes.

The Housing Executive claim that houses are to be rebuilt in phases, phase one will involve the building of just 30 dwellings. There are apparently, however, to be a further two phases but this will depend upon demand for housing. There is no doubt that there will be a demand for housing as for the past two years the republican community have eyed this area with a view to incorporating it into their own area. Also, is it likely that many Protestant families who once lived in the area will wish to return to the area given the intimidation that they have been subjected to? Is it likely that Protestant families from outside of the area will wish to move into the area in full knowledge of what to expect? The sad fact will probably be that the area will simply become a wasteland and the knock on effect will be one that will damage the shops and amenities that serve the community of Glenbryn.

The truth has prevailed and the real victims are not the people whose children had to listen to whistles and look at flags being waved but the people who will probably never return to the area that they once regarded as home. The real victims are the community, the Protestant community of Glenbryn, who have watched as not only their homes have been destroyed but also too in one very poignant example the life of a young child has been destroyed and for what? So that the sectarian headcount can be enlarged yet further in favour of Catholicism and republicanism? So that the electoral register might have less potential pro-union votes?

The truth came but it came too late and predictably the people who shouted with such ardent outrage about the scenes of the Holy Cross protest have been strangely silent, but well we never really expected anything else but moral duplicity hiding behind sectarian political interests.