On driving into the area, the first thing you see will be all the paramilitary insignia. You'll see the murals on the walls, and a fair proportion of the children would wear Rangers shirts, so it would strike you immediately that the school that you're entering, from outside, is bound to be in a so-called very tight Protestant community. The children would be very aware of the area they come from and what their affiliations are, not just to football teams, but to possibly paramilitaries, but also very much Protestantism, even though they don't necessarily know what a Protestant is.
They would be extremely bitter which would be evidenced in drawings, writings and the verbal abuse that they can call others, but in saying that, the peculiar thing about them would be that we're linked with a school in Dublin, and we have warm, wonderful relationships. And nobody in the school, no matter if you like, which side of the paramilitary fence they come from, have never, no child has ever been stopped linking with that school in Dublin. They see Dublin as different and they see that the children from Dublin, despite the fact that they're all going to be Roman Catholics, that doesn't seem to enter the equation. And that's lovely.
Equally so we do an awful lot of work with Mercy Primary School - the girls' school up in Crumlin Road. It's really peculiar. If you suggested we linked with Holy Cross, there would be an absolute outcry and I would be lynched.
So sectarianism is not a rational hatred for somebody else's faith tradition, but it's more to do with a real sense of fear about security?
I don't think it's so much faith, I think it is connected more to the paramilitaries on both sides. It is a deep hatred that one section - all right, they may well be Roman Catholic - but I don't think it… I could be totally naïve; I don't necessarily think it's the faith. I think it's more to do with organisations.