N. Irish Mother Tells of Pain; More Arrested

Police on Friday arrested four more people in the deaths of three young brothers in a firebombing attack in Northern Ireland. Three other suspects remained in custody.

In her first public interview, aired early Friday, the boys’ mother said she feels guilty about the deaths.

“I wish I hadn’t stayed there,” said Christine Quinn, 29, referring to the town of Ballymoney, where she lived with her four children and her boyfriend before their home was firebombed Sunday morning.

Authorities say they believe that the Quinn home--in a staunchly Protestant housing complex--was targeted because Quinn is Catholic and her boyfriend is Protestant.

News reports said the latest arrests were made in Ballymoney, 40 miles northwest of Belfast.

Death threats were reported against three chaplains who had appealed for an end to a Protestant demonstration over a march blocked since July 5.

The Rev. Robert Coulter, one of the three clergy from the Orange Order, a Protestant fraternal organization, said Friday he believed that the threats were the work of cranks. But another, the Rev. Warren Porter, said police were taking them seriously.

The third was the Rev. William Bingham, the first Orange Order member to declare that a march down the Catholic Garvaghy Road in Portadown, about 25 miles southwest of Belfast, would be a “hollow victory” in the shadow of three coffins.

Tensions spilling over from the blocked march were blamed for the Sunday morning firebombing that took the lives of Richard Quinn, 11, and his brothers Mark, 10, and Jason, 9, in Ballymoney, 40 miles northwest of Belfast.

In the interview with GMTV television, Quinn said the family had fled to England after being harassed for being Catholic, but she returned because the boys wanted to be with their friends.

Her surviving son, 12-year-old Lee, was sleeping at the home of Quinn’s mother during the attack.

Asked if she believed her sons’ deaths would change anything in Northern Ireland, Quinn said in an almost inaudible voice: “No.”