Violence flares again at Catholic school - World - Brief Article

IRELAND: Violence at Holy Cross School, a Northern Irish Catholic primary girl's school that was the scene of picketing by Protestants last fall, flared Jan. 9 again when parents of students were pushed and spat at by Protestant residents. Hundreds of Protestant and Catholic rioters remained on the streets of North Belfast into the evening.

Administrators closed the school, evacuating students from a rear exit.

"We are back to square one. In fact, it's worse than that," said Fr. Aidan Troy, chairman of the governors of Holy Cross School. "It will be very, very hard to come back from this, but we will have to try."

This latest round of violence followed the publication of the results of a new survey that revealed Northern Ireland's young adults were more polarized and segregated than ever before.

The research, presented at a Belfast conference, showed that 68 percent of Protestants and Catholics ages 18 to 25 said they never had a meaningful conversation with a person of the other religion.

Peter Shirlow, a geographer at the University of Ulster in Coleraine, said the survey also revealed that before 2001, 63 percent of the population lived in areas that were either more than 90 percent Protestant or more than 90 percent Catholic. By 2001, this rose to 66 percent, suggesting that segregation was rising.

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