Gendering the Holy Cross School Dispute: Women and Nationalism in Northern Ireland
| Author | Fidelma Ashe |
| Published date | 01 March 2006 |
| Date | 01 March 2006 |
| DOI | 10.1111/j.1467-9248.2006.00570.x |
| Subject Matter | Article |
Gendering the Holy Cross School Dispute:
Women and Nationalism in Northern
Ireland
Fidelma Ashe
University of Ulster
This article explores the Holy Cross school dispute in Northern Ireland from a feminist perspective.
This ethnic quarrel produced a situation whereby women and young schoolgirls became the focal point
of a sectarian protest from September 2001 to early 2002.Throughout the conflict, issues of gender were
sidelined from the analysis of the dispute.The article attempts to remedy this omission by moving the
category of gender to the forefront of the analysis. It examines the relationship between nationalist dis-
courses of gender identity and representations of the nationalist women’s agency during the dispute.
While exposing these dimensions of the conflict, the article also considers the impact of women’s
ethno-nationalist agency on their role and positioning within nationalist cultures. It concludes that the
Holy Cross conflict exposes the potentially disruptive aspects of women’s ethno-nationalist agency
and highlights the political significance of that agency for nationalist cultures pursuing ideals of gender
equality.
The Holy Cross school conflict caught and held media attention because it sub-
merged young schoolgirls in a theatre of sectarian hatred. Commentators noted
that this particularly ‘ugly’ ethnic quarrel was indicative of a hardening of sec-
tarian identities against the background of a falter ing peace process (Breen,2002).
However, this focus on the antagonistic ethnic identities of those involved in the
dispute and the moral indignation surrounding the involvement of children side-
lined the gendered aspects of the event from analysis.
The following article genders the analysis of this sectarian disagreement, focus-
ing primarily on the role of the Irish nationalist women in the dispute.1Adopt-
ing a radical constructionist framework (see Ashe, 1999), it examines how
nationalist discourses of normative femininity acted as symbolic material in the
antagonistic attempts of both ethnic groups to define the event.Against this back-
ground, the article explores nationalist women’s ethno-nationalist agency during
the conflict and considers its impact on women’s power, position and identities
within nationalist cultures. It concludes by highlighting the importance of femi-
nist explorations of women’s ethno-nationalist agency and its relationship to
issues of gender equality.The discussion beg ins with an outline of the emergence
of the dispute, explaining why women became involved, before moving on to
the central analysis.
POLITICAL STUDIES: 2006 VOL 54, 147–164
© 2006 The Author
Journal compilation © 2006 Political Studies Association
148 FIDELMA ASHE
The Background to the Dispute
The Holy Cross primary school is located at what has become known as an
interface area in North Belfast. In these areas, Northern Ireland’s two ethno-
nationalist groups live in ethnically segregated communities in close proximity
to each other.The demography of Ardoyne in North Belfast, the area wherein
the school dispute took place, has a history of ethnic movement, settlement
and segregation. Originally, Ardoyne was a Loyalist area. Loyalism reflects the
political aspirations of sections of the working-class Protestant community in
Northern Ireland. Its central political ideal is the maintenance of the political
union with the UK. Loyalist paramilitaries often control and are highly active in
housing areas where there is a dense working-class Protestant population. In the
1970s, working-class Catholics, under sectarian attack in other parts of Belfast,
moved to Ardoyne, thereby swelling the Catholic population. A proportion of
this population identified strongly with the political ideals of the Irish national-
ist movement. Irish nationalists want to end British sovereignty in Northern
Ireland and seek the political unification of Northern Ireland with Southern
Ireland.
As Protestants moved out of the area, Loyalists became segregated in an enclave
of Ardoyne called Glenbryn. Prior to the conflict, Loyalists had voiced their long-
standing claim that Irish nationalists in the area were attacking Glenbryn resi-
dents and their homes in a bid to intimidate them out of Ardoyne. Loyalists
believed that the ground that they were losing to Irish nationalists at the local
level in Ardoyne was reflective of the ground that they were losing more broadly
through the faltering peace process, which had been inaugurated by the Good
Friday Agreement (1998). Ir ish nationalists countered Loyalist claims of perse-
cution by contending that their community was also under constant attack from
Loyalist paramilitaries.
In June 2001, street violence erupted between members of the two communi-
ties over the mounting of a Union flag along the Ardoyne Road.This incident
was followed by increasing ethnic violence. Loyalists claimed that Irish Repub-
lican Army (IRA) men were enter ing Glenbryn under the cover of taking chil-
dren to the local Catholic school and were attacking Protestants.To gain access
to the Catholic primary school, Catholic children have to walk through the
Loyalist Glenbryn estate. Male and female Glenbryn residents blocked the
Ardoyne children’s access to the school by mounting an abusive street protest.
Amid escalating intercommunal violence mostly in the form of attacks on homes
and street rioting by youths, Loyalists renewed their protest at the Holy Cross
school on 3 September 2001. A number of Catholic parents kept their children
at home from school or used an alternative, less suitable entrance to the school.
Others, the majority of them women, walked their children past the angry
Loyalist protest, which lasted for three months.
© 2006 The Author
Journal compilation © 2006 Political Studies Association
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