Chai Brady
Several young people were chased away from Clonard Monastery in Belfast by locals after they were said to be interfering with a statue and trying to dislodge a stone cross.
Fr Peter Burns CSsR, Rector of Clonard Monastery, told The Irish Catholic that on Monday evening young people were “trying to interfere with” a statue on one side of the church.
“Above that there’s a very nice stone cross, it’s part of the structure of the building, and they were trying to dislodge that.
“This is just fairly routine antisocial, delinquent behaviour. The main problem we had a couple of weeks ago seems to have gone away,” he said.
Last month the west Belfast church was targeted four times by teenage boys who broke a window, stole food from the kitchen and one teen exposed himself to an elderly priest.
Clonard’s gardens had also been targeted with flowers and lights destroyed.
On another occasion youths climbed onto the roof of an outbuilding in the monastery grounds and threw stones at the church windows.
“It’s very invasive and it’s very unpleasant. We’re mostly an elderly community,” said Fr Burns.
“We do have very good local support and we have spoken to the community restorative justice people and they set up a meeting with the police, and the youth centre and the residents associations.
“These young people that were there last evening they were chased by the neighbours which was good. People are being vigilant and supportive.”