The BelTel

In September 1956 a Crossgar schoolboy made a shocking discovery after peering into a hen house and locking eyes with a child. The eyes belonged to seven-year-old Kevin Halfpenny – but he has been better known ever since as ‘the hen house boy’.Robbed of human interaction – he seemed to have learned his behavior from the chickens around him. His widowed mother Margaret Halfpenny was arrested and pleaded guilty to neglect. 70 years later, the heartbreaking story has been surrounded by folklore. Olivia Peden is joined by Belfast Telegraph Journalist Kurtis Reid.  

A senior DUP member set out their explicit support for violence - just weeks before the Good Friday Agreement.  Files released in the National Archives in Kew have revealed the details of a politician’s comments to a government official - the individual wasn’t named but there were clues to their identity. It’s also been revealed that First Minister David Trimble was being paid thousands of pounds more than the deputy first Minister, Seamus Mallon, a year after the agreement – despite the roles being equal.  Ciarán Dunbar is joined by Sam McBride. 

When many people hear the words ‘Holy Cross’ - short for Holy Cross Girls Primary School – the words take them back to a dark time.  Holy Cross is a Catholic School in a loyalist area, Upper Ardoyne or Glenbryn. In 2001, community tensions boiled over and led to loyalist residents protesting nationalist parents from Ardoyne taking their kids to schools through their part of the area. That protest became notorious for its viciousness.  Two clerics, one Catholic, one Protestant became synonymous with the events of Holy Cross and attempts to resolve them.   They were Fr Aidan Troy and the Rev Norman Hamilton.  Fr Troy joined Ciarán Dunbar in the BelTel studio with the Rev Hamilton down the line. 

The Good Friday Agreement was signed in 1998, but certain areas of Belfast felt little effect of peace. In September 2001, the Holy Cross dispute became one of the most disturbing flashpoints of the post-Agreement era. Holy Cross was a Catholic Girls' primary school but sat a few hundred yards inside the loyalist Glenbryn estate, in an area known as Upper Ardoyne. Within days of the school year starting, the world watched in horror as demonstrations involving abuse, spitting and a bomb attack ensued. What legacy has the Holy Cross dispute had, what impact did it have on the children involved, and why did protesters feel that they had no other choice? Ciarán Dunbar is joined by Allison Morris and Olivia Peden. 

In September 2000 a body was found in a bog in Fermanagh. This was not a so called ‘bog-body’, sacrificed long ago -  the body turned out to belong to local bus driver David Sullivan, who had gone missing 17 months earlier.  There were things that were particularly disturbing about this discovery – the first of which was that Sullivan was the subject of dozens of allegations of child abuse, the second was that his body had no head. Olivia Peden is joined by Belfast Telegraph’s Andrew Madden and former DCI Norman Baxter. 

For much of the world, the Troubles in Northern Ireland were about Catholics and Protestants fighting each other. With those labels being used as shorthand to this day to describe members of the two main communities, it's easy to see why.  But whilst for some the conflict clearly included a religious element, the role of religion is certainly up for debate.  But what about peacebuilding – what role did Christians have in ending the conflict?  Professor Gladys Ganiel’s research focuses on the role of religion in conflict in Northern Ireland.  She has written a new short book – it's entitled Christianity and Peacebuilding in Northern Ireland. She joined Ciarán Dunbar.  

Lauren Bradford-Clarke grew up believing her mother Lesley had taken her own life before finding out the truth – her father was a murderer. She was told her mum Lesley took her own life, eventually being told it was part of a ‘suicide’ pact with a man, Trevor Buchanan – the husband of the woman who would eventually become her stepmother. That woman was Hazel Stewart, how had been having an affair with Lauren’s father, Colin Howell. Ten 18-years after the deaths, Colin Howell walked into a police station and confessed to murdering them, implicating Steward as his partner in crime.Dr Lauren Bradford-Clarke, now a criminologist, spoke with the Belfast Telegraph’s Claire Williamson. This episode of The BelTel originally aired in February 2026. 

HMS Maidstone, an ex-Royal Navy Ship, was used in the early 1970s to hold internees.In January 1972, a group of IRA prisoners swam 270 meters through an ice-cold Belfast Lough in a bid to escape, greasing themselves in butter to squeeze out of the ship’s portholes. They then hijacked a double-decker bus before slipping across the border, humiliating the authorities. Ciarán Dunbar is joined by James Durney, author of ‘Jailbreak: Great Irish Republican escapes’. This episode was originally published in January 2025.

The Parades Commission acted wrongly in blocking Orangemen from seeking to march down a mainly nationalist road in Portadown, a court has ruled.Senior figures at Portadown District believe it now clears the way for Orangemen to walk back along the Garvaghy Road after almost 30 years, and intend to table a fresh application to march “in the near future”.But what are the origins of the dispute which almost brought Northern Ireland to the edge of anarchy?In this episode of The BelTel, originally published in July 2023, Ciarán Dunbar is joined by former BBC Journalist Mervyn Jess.