Boy finds pipe bomb at school in Northern Ireland

12 April 2012

Four hundred children were sent home today because of a security alert at a Northern Ireland school.

Army explosives experts were called to St Comgall's Primary School in Antrim when one of the pupils, an eight-year-old boy, carried a suspected pipe bomb into the classroom.

Brendan Shannon, eight, found the bomb in the playground then handed it over to one of the teachers. Police later confirmed they were treating the object as suspicious.

The children were immediately taken to a nearby church hall and then sent home.

Brendan's mother Siobhan Shannon, a nurse, said later: "The people who left that device probably have kids of their own. Have they no conscience?"

The boy and his twin sister, Ciara, had arrived early on their bicycles to help deliver milk to classrooms when he noticed the device lying on top of a painted line close to the playground wall.

He said: "I didn't know what it was. It was like a pipe with a screw and some wires were hanging out of it."

Brendan gave the device to one of the teachers, Marie Hannigan. Around the same there was a telephone warning of another device at a second primary school in the town, St Joseph's.

Headteacher Hilary Cush said he was outraged: "It's absolutely crazy. It's unbelievable that innocent children should be caught up in something like this."

William McCrea, the Democratic Unionist Party MP for South Antrim, said the incident was obscene and an utter disgrace.

"It proves just how depraved some of those who want to drag Northern Ireland backwards are. To target a primary school and to put innocent children at risk is plumbing new depths."

It was announced today that former US president Bill Clinton will return to Northern Ireland next month.

Mr Clinton, who was heavily involved in the peace process before the signing of the 1998 Good Friday Afreement, will visit Belfast before an economic summit on the province in Washington DC on October 19.

The trip is being organised by Mr Clinton's office and Declan Kelly, the US economic envoy to Northern Ireland. Mr Clinton met the Northern Ireland First Minister Peter Robinson and deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness in Washington earlier this year.

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