WED. DECEMBER 1, 1999: The British government’s order devolving powers to the institutions set up under the Stormont Agreement came into effect at midnight.
THURS. DECEMBER 2, 1999: The Leinster House assembly removed Articles 2 & 3 from the Free State Constitution. The Provisionals’ military appointed a representative to the Decommissioning Body and Peter Mandelson and David Andrews signed a new British-Irish agreement.
Darren Mulholland, the Irish political prisoner began a blanket protest in Frankland jail in Durham in England after he was transferred there from Full Sutton and told that he had to wear a prison uniform. He was stripped naked, put in solitary confinement in an empty cell, as well as being put on a sparse diet as punishment for refusing to wear the prison clothes. He ended his protest on December 17 when he was transferred to another prison where he would be allowed to wear his own clothes.
MON. DECEMBER 6, 1999: The Provisionals' military wing confirmed that they had opened talks with General John de Chastelain of the British Decommissioning Commission.
WED. DECEMBER 8, 1999: It was reported that a high-tech intelligence-gathering device had been planted by British Intelligence in a car in which Gerry Adams had travelled during the Mitchell Review.
FRI. DECEMBER 10, 1999: A spokesperson for the RUC announced that Castlereagh Interrogation Centre was to close at the end of December.
SAT. DECEMBER 11, 1999: A caller to a Belfast newsroom claimed that a bomb attack on Crown Forces had been abandoned at Kennedy Way on the outskirts of Belfast. The area was sealed off and wide-spread disruption was caused while British army bomb disposal experts carried out three controlled explosions on the suspect car. The alarm turned out to be a hoax.
MON. DECEMBER 13, 1999: The first meeting of the so-called 'North-South' body took place in Armagh.
Residents in South Armagh claimed that new military installations were being built in the area, that new surveillance equipment was being installed and that military activity was at an all-time high there.
FRI. DECEMBER 17, 1999: The 'Council of the [British] Isles' set up under the Stormont Agreement met at Lancaster House, London. The 'British-Irish' Intergovernmental Conference also had its inaugural meeting in London.
The last 22 Provisional political prisoners in Portlaoise prison were transferred to the lower-security prison at Castlerea, Co Roscommon. Eighteen of them are to be granted temporary release for the Christmas period before being released early next year under the Stormont Agreement. Remaining political prisoners in Portlaoise prison, who do not accept the Stormont Agreement, were refused Christmas parole.
SAT. DECEMBER 18, 1999: It was reported that the Provisionals' Westminster MPs will be allowed to have offices at Westminster and use the facilities there.
TUES. DECEMBER 21, 1999: Five men from the Waterside area of Derry city, David Pywell (24) was jailed for 15 years, having admitted a catalogue of shootings, beatings and robbery, Richard Harper (23) and Edward Allen (30), were sentenced to 15 years, Stewart Macrory (19) and Gary Fry (21) were jailed for 10 years each, having being found guilty of shooting and causing serious injury two middle-aged nationalist Derry brothers, Anthony and Francis Creane, at their home on July 26, 1999.
MON. DECEMBER 28, 1999:
A race meeting at Kempton Park, in Surrey, England was abandoned and race-goers evacuated after a caller to the BBC in Belfast, claiming to be from the Continuity IRA but using an incorrect code, said that a bomb had been planted there.
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