THURS. APRIL 2, 1998: The ban on handguns rushed through the British parliament following the Dunblane massacre is not to be extended to the Six Counties. The number of private firearms sanctioned by the British government for their Irish Colony has been estimated at 138,000. This number includes handguns, shotguns and rifles.
Twenty-Six-County police intercepted a 1000lb car-bomb as it was being taken in the boot of a hijacked vehicle onto the Dún Laoghaire-Holyhead ferry. The driver of the car was arrested. It is thought that the car-bomb was the work of dissidents from the Provisionals who claim to hold the same objectives as the 32-County Sovereignty Committee.
The British-backed loyalist death squad the LVF, issued a warning, accompanied by a recognised codeword, to workers at the British Department of Health and Social Services across the Six Counties, stating that they would become targets if they went near their place of work.
FRI. APRIL 3, 1998: The Parades Commission, a body responsible to the British Colonial office at Stormont and whose remit is to decide who should and who should not march down Irish streets delivered its first ruling, prohibiting the Apprentice Boys from crossing the Ormeau Bridge on Easter Monday.
Larry Keane (41) of Athy, Co Kildare was charged at the Special Court with possessing explosives at Dún Laoghaire ferry-port on April 2.
MON. APRIL 6, 1998: The inquiry into the infamous Bloody Sunday Massacre of January 30, 1972 opened formally. The tribunal headed by Britain's imperial law Lord Saville, flanked by two commonwealth judges, William Hoyt of Canada and New Zealander, Edward Somers, chose Derry's Guild Hall to launch it's proceedings.
TUES. APRIL 7, 1998: The RUC uncovered a bomb factory containing more than 1.5 tons of explosives in the nationalist area of Kansas Avenue, off the Antrim Road in Belfast.
WED. APRIL 8, 1998: Trevor Deeney (34), a married step-father of four, was shot dead by the INLA in the Kilfennan area of Derry. The LVF said there would be reprisals for the shooting.
THURS. APRIL 9, 1998: A half-page newspaper ad taken by eight US Irish American organisations called for the rejection of any changes to Articles 2 and 3 of the 1937 Constitution stated: "A just peace will only come when Ireland is free from British control."
FRI. APRIL 10, 1998: An agreement, signed at Stormont by the parties participating in the so-called multi-party talks, was said by Ruairí Ó Brádaigh, President, Republican Sinn Féin, to have updated and strengthened British rule in Ireland.
Graffiti from Republican youth appeared following the Stormont Agreement on the walls of William Street, Little Diamond and Rossville Street in the heart of Derry's Bogside: "SIX COUNTIES GOING CHEAP — SELLING AGENTS — ADAMS AND McGUINNESS".
SUN. APRIL 12, 1998: Republican Sinn Féin held ceremonies throughout Ireland to commemorate the 82nd anniversary of the Easter Rising of 1916.
The Sunday Business Post editorial was headed "This is no 'deal' for nationalist Ireland" and described it as "an enormous disappointment" which was likely to "copperfasten partition on this island for many years to come, perhaps for decades".
TUES. APRIL 14, 1998: Nine Provisional prisoners were released from Portlaoise prison by the Dublin Administration.
THURS. APRIL 16, 1998: Pro-British elements launched gun attacks on two adjacent homes in Antrim town. At 11.30pm a woman leapt from her bed in terror to the sound of a gun blast at the front door of her house in Ballycraigey Estate. She escaped uninjured.
Within seconds, the gang struck at another house a few doors away. A couple and their three-and-a-half year old son were in bed when a single shot was fired through their living-room window. The family were badly shaken but were unhurt.
Around the same time an explosive device was thrown through a living-room window of a house in Carnany Drive, Ballymoney, Co Antrim. The device failed to explode. A man and a woman who were present at the time escaped injury.
FRI. APRIL 17, 1998: Mark McNeill (32) from Helenswood Court off the Stewartstown Road, a west Belfast nationalist, was gunned down at his place of work, Apollo Taxis on the Shaw's Road. A former member of the INLA, that grouping's political wing, the IRSP, denied rumours of INLA involvement in the killing of Mark McNeill.
SAT. APRIL 18, 1998: A 21-year old nationalist machine operator was attacked and badly beaten by three members of a loyalist gang wielding iron bars as he walked along Diamond Gardens towards Finaghy Road North in south Belfast.
TUES. APRIL 21, 1998: Adrian Lamph (29), a nationalist resident of Ballycran Park off the Garvaghy Road, died instantly when a lone gunman entered the council yard where he worked in Portadown at around 3.45pm. He singled out his victim and fired a shot to the head at close range before escaping on a bicycle. The pro-British death squad, the LVF, is believed to be responsible for the attack.
WED. APRIL 22, 1998: In what they described as a planned operation the RUC uncovered an AK47 assault riffle, an armalite rifle, a pump-action shotgun, a machine pistol, two 9mm handguns, five magazines and a quantity of ammunition in the predominantly nationalist Lake Street area of Lurgan, Co Armagh. Two people were arrested.
THURS. APRIL 23, 1998: Five political prisoners were transferred from prisons in England to Portlaoise prison in the 26 Counties. They are Joe O'Connell, Harry Duggan, Eddie Butler and Hugh Doherty, all of whom have been in prison since 1975 and Paul Magee from Belfast.
SAT. APRIL 25, 1998: Ciarán Heffron (22), an uninvolved nationalist student, was shot dead as he walked home from a Friday night drink with friends in the village of Crumlin, Co Antrim, outside Belfast.
A combined British army/RUC patrol discovered a handgun near the County Armagh Slieve Gullion Park. After saturating the area which is close to the South Armagh village of Forkhill, the RUC said they found the weapon at the Drumintee Road entrance to Slieve Gullion.
Steptoe's Bar/Restaurant in Kilmore, five miles from Armagh city on the Moy Road was the scene of a pro-British death squad bomb attack at around 10.15pm. Twenty-five people were in the bar when the bomb went off but nobody was injured.
THURS. APRIL 30, 1998: Republican Sinn Féin launched its Vote NO campaigns against the Stormont Agreement and the Amsterdam Treaty at a press conference in Dublin.
A massive car-bomb, said to contain over 600lbs of home-made explosives was packed into a grey Toyota Carolla and left in the Market Square, Lisburn, Co Antrim. A series of bomb warnings were phoned to a Belfast Newsroom at 10.40am using a recognised code-word ensuring evacuation of hundreds from the area. The bomb was defused by British army experts.
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