Thousands of School Students Join Walkouts

By Gary Mulcahy, Seamas O'Reilly & Daniel Waldron

ON 5 March over 15,000 school students across the North joined school walk-outs, rallys and mass meetings organised by Youth Against the War.

As part of an international day of action, thousands of students poured out from schools and colleges in Belfast, Derry, Newry, Omagh, Coleraine, Enniskillen, and many other towns to protest against Bush & Blairs war for oil. The walk-outs received huge support and got loads of publicity.

Dozens of schools in Belfast saw mass walk-outs, despite intimidation and harassment of students by senior staff in the schools. At one school in North Belfast, senior staff tried to physically prevent students from marching out and locked the gates. In St. Marys in West Belfast, another Socialist Youth and Youth Against the War organiser had his speech he had prepared for the walk-out ripped off him by a member of staff and was prevented from joining the walk-out.

However, a few hundred students managed to escape out the back to join the protest. In East Belfast, 500 school students walked out of Orangefield waving Youth Against the War leaflets. Also in East Belfast, hundreds of pupils at Grosvenor were locked in. Sarah, a Socialist Youth organiser in the school, called on the students to show how determined they were to show their opposition to the war and led 300 students as far as the gate.

In Newry, over 1000 school students joined the walk-out to join the Youth Against the War

rally outside the City Hall. A group of 50 students from St Pauls in Bessbrook marched the 5 miles to make it into the Newry rally. The atmosphere was electric. Each school had brought their own banners and placards. 10 speakers from each school spoke, tearing apart the arguments of Bush and Blair.

In Derry, thousands walked out from St.Colums, St Josephs, Thornhill, Foyle, even students at Oakgrove Integrated marched the three miles into the city centre to have a protest at Guildhall Square.

In Omagh, over 300 students joined the walk-outs and had a rally outside the Courthouse where Socialist Youth and Youth Against the War activist Daniel Waldron spoke.

In Coleraine, over 100 students turned out for a rally. Chris Henry, Socialist Youth member and local YAW organiser, was joined on the platform by Socialist Party member Ciaran Mulholland representing the Stop the War Coalition and Kieran Barr of the Fire Brigades Union who gave his full support to Youth Against the War. Walk-outs took place in loads of other towns including Enniskillen, Bangor, and Holywood.

Day X - The Day the War Started

ON DAY 'X', walk-outs took place in dozens of school and colleges throughout Northern Ireland. Big rallies took place in Belfast, Derry and Omagh. Walk-outs happened also in Enniskillen, Lisburn, Newry, Coleraine, Limavady, Ballynahinch, Bangor, Armagh and other towns.

Over a thousand school and third-level students joined the Belfast Youth Against the War rally on Day 'X' outside City Hall. Speakers from Friends in Lisburn, Meanscoil, Fortwilliam, St. Marys, Strangford College and St. Dominics spoke to the crowd about why they were opposed to the war.

Billy, who had helped organise the walk-outs from St. Marys said the war would lead to the deaths of thousands of young people who have suffered enough under Saddam Hussein and from twelve years of UN sanctions.

Representing the I.N.T.O. (teachers union), Socialist Party member Mary Cahillane defended all school students who had walked-out to join the rally. Mary told the crowd that her members would not participate in any action to prevent students from protesting, and called on fellow workers to follow the example of the Youth Against the War walk-outs and rallies.

Carmel Gates, Socialist Party member and President of NIPSA, spoke to the rally in a personal capacity. Carmel made the call for the trade union movement to follow the lead given by Youth Against the War and organise walk-outs from workplaces.

Unfortunately, while Youth Against the War had students from different schools speaking from the platform, a few older members of the Socialist Workers Party began shouting into a megaphone and called on people to block the street.

When some school students did sit down it had the effect of splitting the rally and causing confusion. Instead of the SWP trying to hijack YAWs rally, there should have been one rally followed with a major sit-down protest which would have been properly organised and disciplined and afterwards the crowd would have dispersed.

Because this did not happen, the police were able to arrest 4 young people at a later much smaller sit-down protest encouraged by the SWP. Following a Socialist Party delegation protest inside the police station, all protestors were released and all charges were dropped. This was the only blemish on a hugely successful day.

Omagh

On day X 350 students walked out of schools in Omagh and converged at a rally at the courthouse to show their continued opposition to Bush and Blair's imperialistic war against Iraq. Another 400 were locked into the schools.

It was a lively, noisy demo. Daniel Waldron, secretary of Omagh Socialist Youth, said the "allies'" actions are hypocritical and will not lead to real freedom for the people of Iraq.
Youth Against War leaflets were snapped up and many said they were looking forward to the next rally, which will be even bigger.

Derry

Youth Against the War in Derry led walk-outs from almost all secondary and grammar schools in the city to join a rally at the Guildhall. Hundreds marched from their schools and colleges to join with others at the rally. Over a thousand people listened to speeches from local anti-war activists, trade unionists, an Iraqi anti-war speaker and Youth Against the War. Seamas O'Reilly of Youth Against the War and Socialist Youth, was introduced on the platform after Socialist Youth was praised for the months of work we have put in to organising young people against the war.

Get Active

The March 5th and Day 'X' walk-outs show the support Youth Against the War has built in schools and colleges around the North. Hundreds of young people were involved in organising and building the walk-outs and rallys. YAW groups in many schools hold regular meetings to discuss the war and plan future events and protests. In schools which have attempted to clamp down on political activity within schools, it is essential that there is an active group of YAW which can build support for anyone who is targeted by the school authorities and to defend our right to protest.

As well as building support amongst young people, YAW has received support from the trade union movement. YAW is building a mass base. The next step is to establish active groups in all schools which can build for mass protests and strikes again to stop this war.
Join Youth Against the War today or contact Gary on 02890232962.