Catholic school damaged in arson attack

A Catholic school in east Belfast was damaged in an early morning arson attack today.

As tensions continued to run high in the area which has seen continuing clashes between rival Catholic and Protestant factions for more than a week, fire damaged St Patrick’s College in Kingsway Gardens.

Police said flammable liquid was used to start fires which damaged the dining room, art room and a corridor.

Elsewhere a house in Lisburn, Co Antrim was damaged in a petrol bomb attack.

The latest trouble came after Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams accused loyalist paramilitaries of trying to goad the IRA back into action.

In a hard-hitting statement Mr Adams said the failure of unionist leaders to enthusiastically sell the Good Friday Agreement to their community was being exploited.

As police and troops maintained a presence in east Belfast to try to keep rival groups apart Mr Adams claimed: ‘‘In my view the totally unacceptable plight of people in the interface areas is a contrived one.

‘‘It arises from the crisis within unionism, the inadequate leadership being given to unionist people and the fear that the Good Friday Agreement is not in the interests of unionism.

‘‘It is this fear which is being exploited. The victims are the nationalist people in Short Strand and their unionist neighbours.

‘‘For the last 18 months there was intense effort by anti-Agreement paramilitaries in north Belfast to goad the IRA back into conflict.

‘‘This effort has now been switched to other interface areas.

‘‘This must fail also. It is my view that there is a degree of manipulation of some of the loyalists involved.’’

Meanwhile as disorder continued in various areas a member of an ambulance crew and a train driver were injured when missiles were thrown at them.

The ambulance man had to be taken to hospital with facial injuries and glass in his eyes after a bottle was thrown through his ambulance window in west Belfast as it was taking an elderly man to hospital.

In Lurgan, Co Armagh, a train driver suffered head injuries when a missile smashed through the cab window of the cross-border Belfast to Dublin Enterprise train last night.

Kieran Rogan of rail company Translink condemned the attack, saying the potential consequences were ‘‘too horrific to contemplate’’.

He warned: ‘‘If a driver was to lose control through injury there could be a derailment and serious loss of life a huge catastrophe.’’

The attacks were the latest in a series on the essential services in recent days. On Thursday a bus driver was shot in the head with an air gun in an attack on his vehicle in Belfast and fire officers on an emergency callout were also attacked.

In another development, what police described as an illegal ammunition factory was uncovered by police in Newtownards, Co Down.

Some 600 rounds of home-made ammunition and machinery for its production were discovered with 200 commercial rounds in a raid on a house in the Abbots area of the town.

A home-made Zip gun was also seized. There were no arrests said police.