School standoff still continuing

The standoff between Catholic parents and Protestants at the Holy Cross Catholic girls' primary school continued into its ninth…

The standoff between Catholic parents and Protestants at the Holy Cross Catholic girls' primary school continued into its ninth day yesterday with no sign of resolution.

A crowd gathered on the Protestant side of the Ardoyne Road yesterday morning, preventing parents from taking their daughters to the school. The children were later taken by their parents to and from the school along the Crumlin Road. The standoff has provoked a number of violent incidents. In the latest, a house at Lincoln Avenue in north Belfast was attacked by arsonists yesterday.

Meanwhile, the RUC has said pipe-bombs found in Co Antrim are of a type never seen before in Northern Ireland. The two devices discovered in Ballymena were designed to explode at head height and had keys attached. The RUC blamed loyalist paramilitaries.