Mrs Tanney has been teaching for 36 years

Anne Tanney, the principal of Holy Cross Girls' School in the north of the city, is stepping down after 36 years of teaching.

A three-month protest by loyalist residents at an interface near the school in 2001, saw pupils being escorted to the school by the security forces on a daily basis.

The dispute, which began in June, centred on alleged attacks on Glenbryn homes by the larger nationalist community in Ardoyne.

It was eventually resolved in November with a package of enhanced security and social measures for the area.

Pupils were escorted to the school by riot police during the protest

Mrs Tanney said for the sake of the school and for herself it was time to go.

"I think it is time for somebody else, I have been here in the school for 36 years, I was nine years a vice-principal and 17 years a principal," she said.

"I think after a while it is good to have new blood coming into a place, somebody with new ideas and different energy."

However, Mrs Tanney said her decision to step down was not as a result of the 2001 protest.

"In fact I may have retired last year, I had been thinking of going at this stage of my life anyway," she said.

"I did stay on because I wanted everything to be calm and everything is calm and peaceful around us and we are looking forward to a better future for everybody.

'Cross-community contact'

"I think the school will do very well without me.

"We have recovered to a great extent but we have not fully recovered because it is very hard to know what the long term consequences are for the pupils or parents or the teachers.

"We haven't got back to our cross-community contact which we had before the trouble and that is one of the things I hope might happen in the future."

Mrs Tanney said that while the dispute had proved traumatic for everyone, the school had retained a very happy working atmosphere, due to its dedicated teachers and charming pupils.

"I think anyone who comes into the school is charmed by the atmosphere and the children," she said.

They have managed to keep the schools as havens for those children away from all the violence, and all the hatred and sectarianism that has been going on outside Anne Tanney Holy Cross principal

"After the end of the second week of the protest we got together and we reviewed all the children and we identified about 60 children about whom we were concerned and we got those children counselled outside the school.

"We knew that the children needed help but we knew we had to teach, this is a school so we had to to concentrate on teaching and we had to concentrate on keeping the routine the same as it always had been."

Mrs Tanney has always insisted that the difficulties faced at Holy Cross were not unique to schools across the province throughout the Troubles.

"I think it has been very difficult for teachers and schools over the past 30 years," she said.

"I know that many schools have had terrible times, where they have had to get on the floor when there was shooting outside or people have had to come in through riots.

"The headmistress of a Protestant school told me that when the children were coming to school one morning there was a body in the playground.

"Those kind of things have been happening to all schools but all schools have held together very closely.

They have been concentrating on the children and have managed to keep the schools as havens for those children away from all the violence, and all the hatred and sectarianism that has been going on outside."

She added that she believed the school would do very well without her and said she was hoping to do some voluntary work after she retired.