In that year the monastery was a focal point, as it had been since it was built in the 1830s, of a great deal of religious and charitable activity. Prior to August 1969, the early Protestant resentment at having such a bastion of Catholicism erected alongside a Protestant stronghold seemed to have evaporated. During World War II both Protestants and Catholics had huddled together in the monastery cellars to avoid German bombs (Belfast suffered far more, for example, than Coventry from German attacks). Many a food parcel found its way from the monastery discreetly to needy Protestant families,
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