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Tuesday, 07 September 2010

Bomb school gets loyalist assurances

The headmaster of the Catholic primary school in Antrim, where a viable pipe bomb was discovered by a pupil, says a leading loyalist assured him an attack like this will never happen again.

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Eight-year-old Brendan Shannon, from St Comgall's Primary on the Ballymena Road, lifted the pipe bomb and handed it over to one of his teachers on Monday morning.

The P5 boy and his twin sister, Ciara, had arrived early on their bicycles to help deliver milk to classrooms when he noticed the device lying on top of a painted line close to the playground wall.

Brendan was born in Australia, where his parents lived for many years before returning to their native Northern Ireland.

"We came back here thinking it was safe. I spend my time trying to convince people of that and now this happens", Brendan's mother Siobhan Shannon told UTV.

Headmaster Hilary Cush says around 250 pupils and their parents pass the spot where the device was found every day.

"Four-year-olds coming to school for the first day... How could you possibly contemplate - whether they are Catholic or not - how could you possibly contemplate blowing that life to bits? It is not acceptable", Mr Cush told UTV as St Comgall's returned to normal on Tuesday.

The headmaster insists he has received assurances from a leading loyalist that such attack will never happen again.

"I felt that he was the voice of sane loyalism and that he was prepared to come and share time with me in my Catholic school to discuss this matter and reassure me that he felt it was an atrocious act.

"I interpreted that as a possibility that this was a one-off. It was despicable and it won't happen again."

Loyalist splinter group the Real UFF has been blamed for leaving the device in the playground.

After lifting the pipe bomb, Brendan walked into the school and handed it over to one of the teachers, who admits she didn't immediately realise what it was.

"I took the pipe from Brendan and was standing with it in my hand. And then I dismissed the children and said I would sort it out for them", Marie Hannigan told UTV.

"My colleague then said to me, Mrs Hannigan I would put that down if I were you. And I looked at him and I said, why? And he said, put it down now please, can you not see the wire that is coming from the bottom of it? And I then realised and I set it down on the windowsill."

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13 Comments

At 11:47 on 13 September 2010, Cynical wrote:

I choose to post about THIS article of news.... loyalist violence directed against a catholic scool in Antrim.... and despite your best efforts to dilute that, and try to disassociate loyalism from that....that is exactly what happened....... The PR job you want to do on the UVF is quite frankly, digusting in this context, and to attempt to generalise this specific item of loyalist violence amongst other sources of violence including republican violence is a peurile attempt to lessen how vile and disgusting an act of loyalist violence that it was.

At 19:27 on 12 September 2010, big ernest wrote:

cynical ; yet still no condemnation of republicans by you nor do you reply when i said they deal in the same thing murder , yet your not a pr man lol . is that cynical of loyalist violence you post as ?

At 14:20 on 10 September 2010, Cynical wrote:

...And the UVF who you are so keen to paint out as heroes dishing out assurances, also dealt in murder, not that long ago either on the Shankill Road. Unlike you I don't chose to defend or be a PR man for any grouping whilst all the while slagging off everybody else. You can't defend the indefensible for any of them. Like it or not these particular animals are loyalists...... what else would drive them to attack 3 nationalist homes and a catholic school????...

At 10:12 on 10 September 2010, BIG ERNEST wrote:

cynical ; are those republicans that murdered many many children during the troubles any different to the dissident loyalists that carried out this attack ? yet here you are accusing these scumbags of being loyalists when no obne else is , branding them all as one , yet every loyalist is disgusted by this attack , a leading loyalist has given an assurance that it wont happen again yet your not satisfied , yet here we have 3 childen actually hurt by mainstream republican bombs yet no republican figures are giving assurances that it wont happen again !! anyway are the republican and loyalist groupings any different ? they all deal in murder !!

At 18:53 on 09 September 2010, Cynical wrote:

I see from one of you posts you claim to quote ' know many many people with uvf and pup connections'.... that explains a lot.... These 'real' loyalists seem to be a real embarassment to you.... Other than their specific attack on this school are they really so different to your UVF friends????

At 13:04 on 09 September 2010, BIG ERNEST wrote:

cynical ; your more than likely disgusted by the other bomb but facts remain you have shown your disgust here and attacked loyalists as a whole with your swipe at the end of your post yet funnily enough you dont go that far when condemning those hell bent on murdering police officers whatever the human cost is on top of that !! children get on and off a bus 10 yards from where the bomb is , it is not a pipe bomb either !! yet if sf say they will speak to those doing this then i would commend them for this , not slate them which you have tried to do with this loyalist figure .

At 13:11 on 08 September 2010, Cynical wrote:

Unlike you I am not a self appointed PR man for loyalism or republicanism. If the 'senior' loyalist can give assurances then he must know and have some form of control over these 'real' loyalists. If that is the case then, if for no other reason than to remove these embarassments to loyalism from the scene, he should turn them in. P.S. If I was, like you, given to scoring cheap points, I would point out that the other article is entitled 'Device found at Crumlin PSNI station', i.e. in this case the school was not directly attacked. I am however as disgusted with the antics of all concerned in the latter case as I was by the original.