Riot police intervene during walk to school in Northern Ireland

BELFAST, Northern Ireland -- Terrified Roman Catholic schoolgirls clung to their parents Monday as riot police held back crowds of angry Protestants trying to keep them from walking to school through their neighborhood on the first day of classes.

A Catholic mother was hit in the face with a bottle and hospitalized as police pushed Protestants away from the disputed road in Ardoyne, a mostly Catholic district of Belfast torn by riots this summer.

Most of the pupils -- girls as young as 4 wearing brand-new red uniforms -- were sent home early, in tears, from Holy Cross Primary School. A fleet of Catholic-run black taxis ferried them past lines of police with helmets and shields, while many of the Protestants shouted curses and insults.

"This looks like Alabama in the '60s," said Brendan Mailey, leader of a Catholic parents group that refused to use a rear entrance and insisted on using the front door of the school, which lies in the small Protestant section of Ardoyne.

Local Protestants said Monday that they were responding to Catholic attacks on their neighborhood, which is separated from the Catholic part of the district by high metal fences. Houses on both sides have been attacked in recent months with stones, gasoline and pipe bombs and even bursts of gunfire.

Protestant protest leaders said their attempted blockade was aimed at the schoolgirls' parents, some of whom they accused of being Irish Republican Army members orchestrating violence.