Father Aidan Troy and Father Gary Donegan became national figures for their work with the Holy Cross children and parents. But they are only the latest of a long line of Passionist priests and brothers going back over 130 years to have shared the suffering of this beleaguered community. Throughout its history in Ardoyne, the order has struggled to support a community that has the twin afflictions of social deprivation and of being under siege from hostile loyalist forces around it.
Before Fathers Troy and Donegan, there were other figures who became household names in the city as a result of their service to their congregation during the Troubles: Father Myles, rector when the Troubles erupted in the streets around Holy Cross Retreat, who nightly risked his life to help parishioners caught up in the violence; and Father Marcellus, who was another famous face in the city during the early days of the violence.
There was a certain bleak irony for the Passionists in the date the Troubles erupted in Northern Ireland - most viciously in their own neighbourhood. In August 1969, the Holy Cross priests were hoping to mark the centenary of their order's arrival in Belfast with a series of celebrations. Invitations were sent out to the hierarchy and to local dignitaries and preparations were underway.
The Retreat's archives contain a graphic account of this time in its Chronicles of Holy Cross Retreat Ardoyne Belfast, Volume Two 1938-1979. The chronicler, Father Myles, records for May 1969: "Tentative plans are being discussed for the celebration of the Centenary of the Passionist Community in Ardoyne. It is unfortunate that the very tense atmosphere in the area does not provide a favourable setting for these celebrations. Various members of the Hierarchy have been invited to attend and to preach at the various functions, and these plus civil dignitaries have gladly accepted their invitations."
The next insertion reads: "The latest information regarding our Centenary Celebrations is very discouraging. Father Columb [rector] has been in consultation with the senior members of the police in the area and they have informed him that the police could not guarantee the safety of people coming to the various services in the Church. In view of the attitude and advice of the police, and taking into consideration the very tense atmosphere, it has been reluctantly agreed to postpone any celebrations until more peaceful times. When these 'peaceful times' will come we do not know, but right now they seem to be very distant." The celebrations never took place.
The chronicle records the nightly terror around the parish at this time. "On many evenings there is continued stone-throwing across the Crumlin Road, between groups on either side of the road. Occasionally, petrol bombs are thrown. These riots always follow a pattern - first sessions of jeering and stonethrowing between groups of civilians, then the arrival of the RUC and 'B' Specials in armoured cars with mounted guns. Inevitably, the loyalist groups cease the stone throwing and the battle continues between the police and the republicans."
It goes on: "The police vehicles then chase the crowds in to the Catholic streets, and sometimes the police make baton charges. Civilians who have been taking no part in the stoning are frequently injured when caught by these charges. Why are they on the street at all? Usually they are trying to bring sons or fathers off the street and are innocent victims." The Holy Cross Chronicle records the deaths of the first two parishioners on the night of August 14th-15th, 1969. Both men were killed by RUC gunfire.
"Mr Sammy McLarnon, Herbert Street, was shot dead as he stood in the front room of his house. The shots came through the window. There were police in the street at the time. Mr Michael Lynch, Strathroy Park, was shot at the top of Butler Street and died later in the Royal Victoria Hospital." This was the worst night of violence in and around Ardoyne. The chronicle reports: "On the night of 14th and 15th August, approximately 30 private houses, shops and public houses were completely gutted by fire. These were at Brookfield Street, Hooker Street and Herbert Street and on the Crumlin Road between these streets.
"There was violence all over Belfast these nights, and the smell of burning filled the air in the mornings. On August 15th, the bus depot [at the top of Ardoyne] was broken into and approximately 30 buses taken. These were driven across streets and provide some degree of protection for the people and houses. The fear, the terror of families trying to get to safety yet heart-broken at having to leave everything behind cannot be described. The priests have been trying to help in whatever way they can - usually helping people out of houses and occasionally bringing people to hospital."
Despite the nightly violence surrounding Holy Cross, Christmas 1969 is marked as well as possible by the usual festive workings of a large working class parish. There is a lunch for 400 "old folks and children", a dinner dance and children's party. The parish raises money and gives £80 to each of the families forced from their homes. "Even in Belfast, a little of the Christmas spirit is visible," the chronicle observes.
Now, 32 years, on the Passionists are again attempting to mark another important anniversary in the midst of the latest round of sectarian violence to engulf their parish. Next May is the centenary of the opening of the magnificent "new" church.
Its twin-towered Romanesque faτade is the most striking building in this riot-torn and dilapidated landscape of former spinning mills and back-street housing. The towers with their copper domes are most striking in morning light as you drive up the ugly, battle-scarred Crumlin Road. The architecture of Holy Cross closely resembles the other main Passionate order church, Mount Argus in Dublin. The grim surroundings in north Belfast make the ornate interior of Holy Cross seem somehow very precious.
The church and convent are a testament to the missionary fervour and dedication of the 19th-century Passionists.
The order in Dublin dispatched priests and brothers to the burgeoning and poorly tended new parish in 1868. The following year. Father Ignatius Paoli, one of the order's leading lights and later Archbishop of Bucharest, arrived. The foundation stone of the new church was laid in January the next year, and the church completed in August. By December, the order had built schools for the boys and girls of the parish.
The Passionists arrived as Ardoyne was transforming from a quiet country village into the world's centre of linen manufacture, drawing thousands of labourers into the area. These people settled in slum streets on either side of the Crumlin Road - the Protestants on the south in the upper Shankill and Woodvale, and the Catholics to the north in Ardoyne.
Holy Cross became one of the city's biggest Catholic - and poorest - parishes, and the monastery's community tended to and shared the ailments of their congregation: one of the order fell ill and died of smallpox in 1871. Another of the pioneer fathers, Joseph Carroll, died three years later from scarlet fever contracted from children he was supervising for confirmation. Forty-thousand people attended his funeral.
The church and adjoining monastery have survived the years of the Troubles fairly well, but they were almost destroyed during the sectarian rioting that rages between Ardoyne and the upper Shankill in early July. Four nights after Fathers Troy and Donegan arrived in Holy Cross in July - from far different and more peaceful postings with their order (Father Donegan from mission work, and Father Troy from seven years with the order's council in Rome, although he had served in Soweto earlier in his career) - a loyalist mob tried to storm the monastery and burn it down. The crowd had gathered on the Woodvale Road after an Orange procession which, as usual, was followed by the traditional "jeering and stoning" across the sectarian divide.
Pointing to the fire-damaged annexe to the monastery kitchen, Father Troy said: "There was rioting for nights and nights then they [the loyalists] broke down the gate in the Woodvale Road wall. They pulled off all these grilles [for years all the windows to the rear have been protected by metal grilles] and put a huge concrete block through the outer door. They set a fire going on old coffee bags, and things began to melt." Fortunately, the army intervened, driving the crowd back, allowing firemen to stop the blaze. We were feeling very nervous. This was my welcome to Ardoyne, four days after arriving."
The former gates to the monastery gardens, which had stood throughout the Troubles, have been bricked up. The once-beautiful gardens, including the processional grounds, were unfortunately placed to the exposed rear of the monastery and open to sniping from the loyalist Woodvale. It is not safe to walk there during times of tension.
But, as part of the proposed refurbishment during the centenary, Father Troy wants to open up the wrought iron gate and steps up to the front of the church from the Crumlin Road. The interior of the church has suffered from some neglect and bad maintenance. He wants to restore the hanging lights in the nave and has retained the services of restorers in D·n Laoghaire to repair and replace the ornate pulpit originally manufactured by Arthur Jones and Co. of St Stephen's Green. Workmen are repairing the dilapidated community hall, turning it into a drop-in centre for the parents from Holy Cross, and returning it to a focus for a parish whose only other social outlets are the local drinking clubs and pubs.
Their idea is to provide, once again, a focus and place of sanctuary for a community that, despite the North's seven-year-old "peace process", has continued to suffer very badly. As elsewhere across Belfast, the Ardoyne mass-going congregation has dwindled, and the priests have set themselves the mission of renewing the Retreat in a way that is relevant to their community. Most particularly, it will have to appeal to and provide support for those most affected by the loyalist protest at the school. Children and parents have suffered long-term psychological damage. Although Ardoyne is a close-knit community, it also has deep social problems.
The area needs a small army of professional psychologists and counsellors to help. A survey carried out in 1999 stated that Ardoyne has serious health and social problems that impact heavily on the lives of women. And this was before the trauma suffered by Holy Cross families as a result of the loyalist protests and the summer's rioting between Ardoyne and the adjoining loyalist areas.
The survey by the Royal College of Nursing (RCN), along with staff at the local Flax Health Centre, discovered last year that 42 per cent of women in Ardoyne were on anti-depressants; 25 per cent on valium and 21 per cent on sleeping tablets. The study found that 73 per cent of women suffered from stress; 53 per cent suffered depression and 24 per cent from anxiety and worry. Some 67 per cent were on repeat prescriptions, and 12 per cent admitted to using recreational drugs. There was also an extraordinarily high level of cancer. Among women aged 51 to 53, some 31 per cent suffered from breast and cervical cancer. There was a major screening campaign by Action Cancer's mobile screening unit, and 70 per cent of Ardoyne women were screened for cancer. The study found 72 per cent of women smoked, and most believed this was a serious health problem for the community and caused extra health problems.
Remarkably, in an area with a large number of drinking clubs and pubs, women and mothers in particular were found to have drinking habits well within safety limits. This might be caused by the fact that drinking premises in Belfast still tend to be male-orientated, and women in Ardoyne also tend not to have enough money for drink.
The lack of medical facilities in Ardoyne is a chronic problem. Some 24 per cent of women had to attend the accident and emergency departments of Belfast hospitals for treatment.
The RCN pointed out that Ardoyne experienced a combination of being one of the most deprived areas of Northern Ireland as well as being the area most beset by violence during the past 30 years. The report, entitled 'Evaluation in Practice', says: "This combination of violence and deprivation has had a crucial impact on health and the qualify of life in the area, particularly for women". In another report on deprivation in Northern Ireland before Belfast City Council last month, the electoral ward of Ardoyne emerged as the fifth poorest in a list of 51 wards in Northern Ireland. It came eighth in terms of health deprivation, and fifth in terms of child poverty.
Compounding these difficulties, the mothers became highly agitated about the placing of a number of paedophiles in the area. The study said: "The stress of these situation for the people living in the area cannot be underestimated." Families who can tend move out of the area because of the social problems, and the RCN study points out that this contributes further to break-down in social cohesion and stability in the area.
It is against this uniquely terrible and tragic setting that the Passionists seek to rebuild and re-establish themselves and their retreat as a relevant and continuing force for good.