BEFORE the van was driven in, nothing seemed particularly different. Irish Ministers for Foreign Affairs have long come north to speak to building peace. Catholics have, even at the height of conflict, always been able to attend Mass, undisturbed, in Holy Cross on the Crumlin Road. A family had just arrived to say their goodbyes in a sacred funeral ritual inside the church. The peace centre was hosting a meeting with the Irish Minister for Foreign Affairs, Simon Coveney. So ordinary was this entire scene there was little security presence or measures in place. The eyewitness reports talk of a man, shaking and distressed, driving his van into the consecrated grounds. He believed that his van contained a bomb after he had been hijacked at gunpoint and a gas canister placed inside. The peace centre in those grounds was the apparent target of those who told him to drive there, or his family would be hurt. All of a sudden, everything changed. The Minister was silenced and driven away.
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THE term penal days is usually taken to refer to the period after the Williamite wars which witnessed the introduction of repressive legislation against Roman Catholics and Presbyterians by the Establishment.