Residents of the Garvagh Road area in north Belfast have spoken of their fears for local children after a primary school was closed due to security concerns.

Bunscoil Eoin Baiste was shut on Monday as a precaution. Teacher Katie Neeson, who lives on the Garvagh Road and teaches seven- and eight-year-olds at the school, said pupils in her class do not understand what is happening. She said they want to go to school and live their lives without fear.

Neeson said the community has been out on the road since Saturday. She praised the support received from other groups who came to stand with residents. She said people are very worried and nervous, and that the situation is affecting many people.

She said it was important to keep children safe, especially since residents were not sure who would be coming onto the road. She said the schools are trying to support people in the community.

Neeson said her family has lived on the road for years and remembers the Drumcree standoff from the early days. She said seeing the faces of her family members when the story broke brought back fears. Her mother and aunt were crying, and her father was worried. She said they did not want other children to be brought up with that fear.

The 28-year-old said she was not born when the original standoff happened and has no memory of it. She said she was worried and scared, and that her 15-year-old brother was also upset. She said the family wanted him to stay in the house but he was willing to stand on the road. She said children do not know about this and should not have to think that people from another community hate them.

Separately, Irish language group An Dream Dearg held an open solidarity meeting to discuss the situation at Drumcree and the Garvagh Road. The meeting discussed ways to show support for the community and what might happen in the coming days.

The group's president, Ciarán Mac Giolla Bhéin, said it was important for certain communities to come together. He said people had been reasonably hopeful that the crisis would end after a court ruling on Friday, but that changed and a group went to the road on Saturday night. He said people from across the country gathered in the area, feeling it was personally important to stand in solidarity with the community.

Mac Giolla Bhéin said he spoke to people with children who said they did not want their children to grow up as they did, in a context where their community is being pushed out of the area. He said there is an incredible spirit on the road, with people of different political perspectives united in feeling it was important to be there.

He said it is a cycle in Irish history where people sometimes believe issues are resolved, but then they come back. He said the new generation will not let a progressive society be dragged back by a small bigoted group, and that the community has a duty to come together and discuss the kind of society wanted for the future.

Conradh na Gaeilge launched a new branch in Portadown last Wednesday. Mac Giolla Bhéin said there was a huge crowd and a warm welcome, and that as an organisation they must stand with that community. He said they cannot deal with the Irish language as a question in itself, separate from everything else, because language is spoken by people and when those people are under attack, the language organisation must stand with them.