It was a pile of rubble on a vacant site in a loyalist east Belfast heartland up until two months ago.
Today sunlight streams through the windows of a bright pink-and-green tiled building at the site – a former textile factory that had lain derelict for a decade. “Fáilte” is spelt out on bunting above its entrance. Inside there are nursery schoolchildren from Naíscoil na Seolta setting out plastic plates for their banana, kiwi and blueberry morning snack. “Maidin mhaith,” they scream at the top of their voices when we enter the room.
This is the Irish language school that sparked protests by a group representing loyalist paramilitaries last year.
Members of the Loyalist Communities Council (LCC) – with links to paramilitary groups the UVF, UDA and Red Hand Commando – were granted a private meeting with Stormont’s education minister, the DUP’s Paul Givan, and urged him to halt construction work on the nursery school, arguing its presence would cause “polarity and volatility” in the community.
Threats and intimidation followed, with a large banner opposing the school erected on fencing at the Montgomery road commercial site, an incident treated as a “sectarian hate crime” by police.
The Irish Times has been invited to Scoil na Seolta – school of the sails, owing to the area’s maritime history – a fortnight after staff and 18 children from the Naíscoil moved into their new premises from their previous base in a church hall.
Construction workers are measuring up for a fence ahead of grass being laid, a wild flower garden is planned for the back yard and a soft play area is to be installed; when workers came on site last August the foundations of the former Ulster Weavers building were all that remained.
Plant pots with each child’s name are sprouting muscary, a tiny bluebell-like flower, and crocus outside their new classroom. The seeds were planted before Christmas, and pupils are watching them grow under the sunlight.
In September Scoil na Seolta will make history when it becomes east Belfast’s first integrated Irish-medium primary school. Numbers will be small but more than 150 expressions of interest have already been received from families for the next five years.
The building is also a temporary one, with the long-term plan to move to a permanent site – Van Morrison’s former school Orangefield High is earmarked for development.
“Not one penny” for the £750,000 project has come from Stormont’s Department of Education, says Methodist minister and chair of the school’s board Andrew Irvine. Funding for the capital build was provided by the Irish government’s Shared Island Fund.
“Therefore there is nothing being diverted away from other children. This is fresh additional money,” Irvine adds.
In an area once a bastion of unionism, where an almost exclusively Protestant workforce staffed the Harland & Wolff shipyard, the school has become a symbol of east Belfast’s significantly altered political landscape and demography.
It is a “language project and it’s also a reconciliation project; that’s what keeps me here”, says Claire Mitchell, a writer from a Protestant background who also sits on the school board.
Despite an outpouring of public support – 1,500 emails were received by the board in one weekend – there was anxiety ahead of their first open day. Anonymous leaflets were posted to homes in the area, asking “do you want an Irish language school in your area?” Instead dozens of families arrived – including those from loyalist and unionist backgrounds.
The school’s founder, Linda Ervine, smiles broadly when she says “there was no trouble”.
“We only opened for two hours on the Saturday morning for our open day because it was still chaos from the move; we had two families waiting to get in and then it went all quiet. We thought ‘oh no’, and then the next thing it was like a tsunami. Over 40 families turned up and then there were more afterwards - people who couldn’t make it came privately during the week. We were run off our feet.”
An English secondary schoolteacher from a Protestant background who grew up in a loyalist working class area of east Belfast, Ervine was introduced to Irish in 2011 and says it changed her life. She set up the Turas Irish language project over a decade ago that led to creation of the Naíscoil in 2021.
The sister-in-law of the late Progressive unionist Party (PUP) leader, David Ervine, and wife of Brian Ervine, who also led the party, she describes the moment she entered the new school building last month as “very emotional”.
“We had this pie in the sky idea about having a school in 2017. Within four years it had become a reality. Then it was in a church hall, now we have a building.”
Mitchell pays tribute to Ervine’s determination in seeing through the project while being subjected to online abuse. “She’d be making the sausage rolls at the school parties, there’s no notions about her. She is so modest. Such grit,” says Mitchell.
Ervine acknowledges that the abuse can be “tough” but her biggest concern is the parents.
“For me it is hard when people attack you on social media but quite often they’re faceless nameless people. It’s when it’s people you know, people who I once regarded as friends, even some family members as well unfortunately. I wasn’t frightened by the intimidation, I was more concerned about how it would impact on families.”
Overwhelming support within the PUL (Protestant unionist Loyalist) community has far outweighed the negativity, she adds. “People come up to me in the street and they say, ‘I think what you’re doing is wonderful’.”
In an area where educational attainment is low – particularly among Protestant working class boys – Ervine wants to promote the “benefits of bilingualism”.
“It’s not a one size fits all. I know this will not be the choice for every parent but it’s another opportunity to improve,” she says.
Parent Natalie McDowell agrees. Both she and her husband are from a Protestant background and live in east Belfast. They decided to send their daughter Méabh to the Naíscoil two years ago because of the “integrated aspect, first and foremost”.
“Then there was one day she was talking to a room full of adults completely in Irish, she wasn’t using any English. The confidence falls out of her,” says McDowell. “Sending her here was the best decision we could ever have made with all the lovely experiences she had. She got to walk in the St Patrick’s Day parade, celebrated the queen’s last Jubilee and king’s coronation – she celebrated so much that Northern Ireland has to offer.
“I’m amazed at my little five-year-old who now can talk fluently in Irish. People have said to me, ‘what about her English?’ Her P1 teacher has told me her English is now very advanced. It hasn’t held her back. Méabh has no understanding that anyone could think speaking Irish is a negative thing.”
Back in the classroom the school’s manager and teacher Ciara Moore is doing a countdown in Irish with the nursery pupils clearing the table after their snack.
The Limerick-born Trinity graduate says her family were “super worried” when she took the job last August “I was worried too. When the LCC stuff came out, Linda rang me on my way to work and my stomach just dropped ... but the outpouring of support has been incredible.”
Moore, who has a degree in French and Irish and is currently studying for a Master’s degree in special educational needs, becomes animated when she speaks about the first child in the class to put a sentence together in Irish.
“The child is French and used the word ‘im’, the Irish for butter, in a full sentence ... none of us had taught that. It was last September and I have it in an observation. I was like, ‘this is what we’re about, language and linguistics and kids understanding’.
“If we learn about and understand other people – that makes for such good communication. Everyone in this area does not have to learn Irish but being bilingual is the biggest gift.”
Outside parents and grandparents are arriving to take their children home.
Linda Ervine looks out the window at them, smiling. “We knew that once it was up and running parents would come on board. Even if we had only two children here we would pursue it. We’re invested in this, we’re pushing ahead – we have to. It’s going to happen.”
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