Holy Cross pipe bomb find prompts fresh worry

The chairman of the board of governors at the Catholic Holy Cross primary school in north Belfast said he hopes the discovery of a pipe bomb at the school earlier today does not signal the start of a new sectarian campaign.

The bomb was found outside the school's entrance gate in Ardoyne at around 8am today and the area was immediately sealed off.

The girls attending the school used an alternative route and nobody was hurt during the incident, but Fr Aidan Troy, the chairman of the board of governors, said it bodes ill for the future.

"It throws us back into a situation of terrible uncertainty," he said. "We just hope it's a one-off incident and not a pattern that's going to establish itself."

Last year, Holy Cross girls' school was at the centre of a loyalist protest which saw missiles and even a blast bomb thrown at schoolchildren and their parents as they made their way to the building in the mornings.

The Catholic school is situated in the mainly Protestant Glenbryn area and local residents wanted the parents to bring their children to the school via a lengthy and more inaccessible alternative route on the Crumlin Road.

The Catholic parents refused, saying they were entitled to enter the school by the closest entrance and would not be forced to use the back door like second-class citizens.

The Glenbryn residents said their main objection was that known republican paramilitaries were walking through the Protestant area to bring their children to school.