The British Prime Minister, Mr Blair, the Northern Ireland First Minister, Mr David Trimble, and the Catholic Primate, Dr Sean Brady, have all visited Catholic churches in the North which were attacked by arsonists early yesterday. Ten churches were attac ked. Two, at Magheragall near Lisburn and at Aldergrove in Co Antrim, were largely destroyed. A third at Leitrim, Castlewellan, Co Down, was badly damaged.
The seven others damaged less seriously were on Belfast's Upper Newtownards Road; at Mullavilly, near Portadown, Co Armagh; Blackscull, near Dromore, Co Down; two in the Banbridge area of County Down; and two in Dungannon, Co Tyrone.
Mr Blair went to St James's Church near Aldergrove airport, on his arrival in the North yesterday afternoon. He said the extre mists who had carried out such attacks did not represent the people of Northern Ireland, they represented only the past. The future of Northern Ireland should be determined democratically by the people through the Belfast Agreement and the Northern Ireland Assembly.
Earlier the Ulster Unionist leader, Mr Trimble, visited the same church. He said it was "an appallingly, dastardly act to attack churches in the dead of night and, through those attacks, to be attacking a local community by hitting at what is sacred to it". It was "an obscenity that this attack has happened to a church where in the graveyard lies Ciaran Heffron, who was murdered only a few months ago". Dr Brady spoke after visiting the Catholic church at Mullavilly, near Portadown. He was "saddened that people need to express their anger, fear and contempt in this way." He urged Catholics to "remain calm, knowing that they had the support of the great majority of the people of Northern Ireland at this time".
Statements of condemnation also came from the Church of Ireland Primate, Dr Robin Eames; the Presbyterian moderator, Dr John Dixon; the Methodist president, Dr David Kerr; the Deputy First Minister, Mr Seamus Mallon; the Sinn Fein chairman, Mr Mitchel McLaughlin; the Northern Security Minister, Mr Adam Ingram; the Grand Orange Lodge of Ireland; the Lord Mayor of Belfast, Mr David Alderdice; the Archbishop of Dublin, Dr Walton Empey; the Bishop of Connor, Dr James Moore; the Bishop of Down and Dromore, Dr Harold Miller; and former Ulster Unionist leader, Lord Molyneaux.