THE two teenage boys planned to commit suicide together. But after a punishment beating by paramilitaries, Anthony O’Neill couldn’t wait. Last week he took a belt and hanged himself.

At his graveside, his best friend, 17-year-old Bernard Cairns, said under his breath: “We were supposed to do this together . . . I’ll be with you soon.”

At Anthony’s wake, Bernard told his sister Bernie about their plan to commit suicide together. Then he climbed to the the top of scaffolding attached to a church above the Belfast ghetto where he grew up and hanged himself with his fleece jacket.

Anthony and Bernard are the latest in a spate of suicides that have claimed 13 young lives since January in North and West Belfast.

Both boys had been victims of paramilitary “punishments”. Two years ago, Bernard was abducted from a friend’s house, taken to a deserted spot and had a hole shot through both his shins.

When Anthony’s turn came he was grabbed from his bed in the middle of the night and stuffed down a manhole.

That was when the two boys decided that only their deaths stood any chance of bringing an end to the terrorism that was wrecking their lives and those of many other teenagers in the Ardoyne.

Yesterday Bernie Cairns told The Times: “We were at (Anthony’s) wake, and Barney told me that he and Anthony had decided to highlight what was going on by killing themselves in a pact.”

She believes the boys were driven to their deaths by the sheer fear to which they and their friends had been subjected since the 1998 ceasefire that has allowed INLA paramilitaries to tighten their grip on the area in the name of “community policing”. In May, another close friend, 18-year-old Philip “Pip” McTaggart, hanged himself with a length of hosepipe outside the Holy Cross Church where Bernard Cairns took his life.

Mr McTaggart was an ostensibly happy young man who had just started work in a job he loved. He killed himself a day after he smashed a car window belonging to a member of the INLA. It is thought that, fearing violent consequences, he pre-empted a paramilitary reckoning.

He knew what he could expect; just recently, a 14-year-old among his circle of friends was tarred and feathered then dragged from his home and shot through the back of the knee after the INLA accused him of being a police informer. The boy claims that the group’s leader has since threatened him with rape.

The boys, who grew up on the same street, were part of a close-knit group of seven teenagers who attended St Gabriel’s College in Ardoyne and spent all their spare time with each other. Of those seven, just two now survive.

Three other friends, Gary Black, 23, David Anderson, 18, and Piers Doherty, 18, died when the black Ford Mondeo they were driving torpedoed into a brick wall. It is believed that one of the victims, who had made an attempt on his own life in December, was also expecting a knee-capping from the INLA. In the Ardoyne, boys of 13 are approached as they play in the park and told they will be eligible for their first shooting come their next birthday. Teenagers who commit petty misdemeanours must brace themselves for the worst.

The “six pack” is a paramilitary speciality. It involves shattering the ankles, knees and elbows. The day Bernard Cairns had his legs permanently crippled, members of the INLA waited outside his house chanting: “Come out to play, Barney.”

The reaction of children brought up in the area is becoming fatalistic. Philip McGarry, a consultant psychiatrist at the Mater Hospital in North Belfast, says: “In a culture where it is acceptable for a young man to be dragged down an alleyway and shot, children grow up believing there is no such thing as respect for human dignity. They often become depressive or develop anxiety and a fatalistic approach to their own lives.

“Suicide and homicide are intimately linked. Some of these children are contemplating suicide or self-harm almost as a protective measure. They’re thinking, it’s going to happen anyway so I’ll do it instead of someone else.”

Although the police do not keep figures on paramilitary-style attacks where both perpetrators and victims are of the same religion, many of those living and working in North and West Belfast’s traditionally violent areas, claim that they have increased. “Since the Good Friday agreement and the IRA ceasefire we’ve seen more shootings and beatings than ever before,” Dr McGarry said. “We’ve seen fewer people injured by bombs or beatings from the so-called ‘other side’ and more of these young fellows attacked by people of their own religion.

“These kids are growing up in a society where violence is acceptable, where you can go to the Sinn Fein or INLA office and they will tell you, yes, an attack is planned on your child.”

The Northern Ireland police said that, despite high levels of policing, many people in Ardoyne were still afraid to contact them for help. “We’re trying very hard but people in these areas feel they can’t be seen to support the police as Sinn Fein is not represented on the policing board.”

Father Aidan Troy, a local figurehead who came to international recognition during the Holy Cross stand-off, said: “There’s a certain tolerance of the punishment culture that arises from decades of violence and no policing but I think people are beginning to say that this is not place for any self-appointed group.”

On Sunday Patricia O’Neill, the sister of Anthony, plans to lead a peace march to the door of a key INLA member. Her plea: a guarantee from the group that no teenager in Ardoyne is under threat.

It is a brave act, never before contemplated in a country where paramilitaries are known for their vengeful tendencies.

Audrey Cairns, the mother of Bernard, plans to join Patricia on the march, along with at least 200 others.

“The INLA made my child commit suicide and it’s time that they were made to take account,” she said. “I am not afraid of the consequences of this. The worst they can do is kill you.”

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