Teens arrested over school blaze

Two teenagers were arrested today after a Co Antrim primary school preparing to celebrate its centenary was extensively damaged in a fire being treated as arson.

The 17-year-old girl and 19-year-old man were detained after the blaze at Largymore Primary in Lisburn just before 1am.

Three classrooms were wrecked in the blaze and smoke damage caused to the rest of the building.

School headmaster Harry Stewart said £2,000 (€2,900) worth of new play equipment bought with money raised by the Parent-Teacher Association had also been destroyed in the fire.

He described the blaze as devastating.

“It is sad to see wanton destruction,” he said. “It appears a window was broken and a fire ignited.”

Mr Stewart said the school had escaped vandalism for years: “I can’t recall the last time we even had to replace a window.”

Children’s work had been destroyed as well as materials and resources, which the teachers had taken years to build up.

The headmaster said he hoped it would be possible to get the school cleaned up enough to open for the new term on Monday.

“We are about to begin celebrating 100 years of Largymore. We plan to kick it off at the end of the month.

“We will not let this deter us. We will put this behind us and move ahead.”

The SDLP Lagan Valley MLA Patricia Lewsley condemned those responsible for the damage.

She said it was “hard to fathom the mentality of those who would deliberately set out to damage a school. It is simply violence for the sake of violence.”

She said it was impossible to see what those responsible had gained.

But it was all too easy to see what had been lost: three classrooms damaged and new play equipment for children destroyed in a school that would struggle to get back on its feet after the Easter break.

“Those responsible for this attack have caused serious damage to property this time, but next time it could be serious damage to people’s lives and livelihoods,” said Ms Lewsley.