By Frank McNamara


ANNE Tanney is an unlikely media personality. Normally at this time of year, she and her teachers would be getting together to discuss common projects and trips with teachers at neighbouring Wheatfield school.

Instead, she has been consoling children, reassuring parents and talking to media from around the world.

Having endured one of the most trying weeks of her 32 years in teaching, she admits that community relations are at an all-time low.

“We have been working for the last 10 years or more at cross-community contact with Wheatfield primary school. All the children work together on projects between P1 and P7,” she said.

“The sad thing about this is that it has affected all the good work we have built up.”

Mrs Tanney came to Holy Cross Girls School as a young teacher when the school was opened in 1969. Her first and only posting, she was made principal 14 years ago.

Four years ago, she came across a quotation from Abraham Lincoln and decided it was so appropriate that she would display it in the school entrance.

It reads: “If we’d been born where they were born. Taught what they were taught. We would believe what they believe.”

“That’s what we’ve always tried to teach the children long, long before all this started,” she said.

“And it’s funny because when I first saw it I thought how appropriate it was. Little did I know what it would mean now.”

Mrs Tanney (56) is a native of Ardoyne with two grown-up children. She still lives within a mile of the Holy Cross school with her husband, Pat.

As principal of a school containing 230 children and 12 teachers, she has experienced the sectarian hatred that has divided north Belfast.

Six years ago, the school was petrol-bombed by loyalist youths and suffered fire and smoke damage. More recently, a gang drove a stolen car into the front entrance and set it alight. But nothing has prepared her for this week.

Her strategy has been simple: “What I’ve tried to do is to make sure that as soon as the children get to school they go into their classes with their teachers and get on with their work,” she said.
“Some of them have been terribly distressed by everything that’s been going on and I think it is very important that we remain a safe and normal environment.

“These children have been through an awful lot and we need to think about how this may have affected them and whether they will need professional help from the outside to help them get through it,” she added.

“I am adamant that children from both communities should be living and working together and it is only a minority who want to upset that,” she said.

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