MON. FEBRUARY 1, 1999: The British government announced that four-inch plastic bulltets will continue to be used by British Crown Forces against unarmed civilians in the Six Counties.
TUES. FEBRUARY 2, 1999: Trouble flared in Portadown, Co Armagh when loyalists supporting the Drumcree stand-off clashed with nationalists on the Garvaghy Road. Several cars were damaged and stones and other missiles thrown. It was reported that masked loyalists had forced several nationalist families out of their homes in Victoria Terrace and that loyalists had attacked motorists driving on the Garvaghy Road.
WED. FEBRUARY 3, 1999: A mob of 200 loyalists support the Drumcree stand-off in Portadown, Co Armagh attacked the RUC with bottles, stones, ball bearings and fireworks as they rampaged through the town. Portadown Orangemen have held a 24-hour picket at Drumcree church since they were refused permission to march down the Garvaghy Road in July 1998.
THURS. FEBRUARY 4, 1999: Four people, Paul Morris (25) from Divismore Crescent who was awarded £20,000, Robert Miliken (23) from Glencolin Heights, who received £5,000, Nicola Duffy (25), from Farringdon Gardens, Ardoyne, who suffered post traumatic stress due to a serious thigh injury caused by a plastic bullet, was awarded £12,500 and Michael Cosby, a 36-year-old father of three from Prestwick Drive in west Belfast and a former member of the British army, was awarded £115,000. All had been hit by plastic bullets arising out of events surrounding the Drumcree stand-off in July 1996 when British Crown Forces fired over 6,000 rounds of the heavy-duty missiles.
In a statement to the media a man claiming to be from the UVF British-backed loyalist death squad north Ulster Brigade’s “officer in command” said the UVF was increasing in membership and stock-pile of weapons and it was continually recruiting, re-arming and training throughout the whole of “north Ulster”.
The last Provisional prisoner to be held in an English jail, Nick Mullin (50) was freed by a British court of appeal which held he had been illegally extradited from Zimbabwe.
SAT. FEBRUARY 6, 1999: Around 200 loyalists attended a rally in east Belfast in support of the Orange Order’s right to march down the Garvaghy Road in Portadown, Co Armagh.
MON. FEBRUARY 8, 1999: The loyalist death squads the Red Hand Commando and Orange Volunteers attacked two nationalist pubs, the White Horse Inn, near Crumlin, Co Antrim and McNally’s Bar in Toomebridge, Co Antrim. No one was hurt but a customer in the White Horse Inn had a narrow escape when he picked up a pipe bomb threw it into a nearby field, thinking it was a firework.
TUES. FEBRUARY 9, 1999: The prominent human rights lawyer, Gareth Peirce who was instrumental in the freeing of the Guilford Four and the Birmingham Six has rejected her award of a CBE given to her in the British Monarch’s New Year’s Honours list. Realising the award was a deliberate play by the British government to compromise her should she wish to pursue the cases of future human rights abuses of Irish nationals, Peirce wrote within days to 10 Downing Street asking that the CBE awarded to her for “services for justice”, be withdrawn.
TUES. FEBRUARY 16, 1999: The RUC discovered an assault rifle, coffee jar bombs and a quantity of home-made explosives from a house in St Katherine’s Street in west Belfast. These are believed to belong to the Provisional’s’ military wing.
SUN. FEBRUARY 21, 1999: The Save Josephine Hayden Committee sponsored a packed political prisoner’s forum at the Irish Arts Centre in New York City bringing members of the various activist communities in New York together. The meeting was attended by the Josephine Hayden Committee, PRO Libertad, the Leonard Peltier Defence Committee and the Committee for Justice for Nassar Ahmed.
It was reported that five Republican prisoners, four in Maghaberry Prison, Co Antrim and one in Mill Bank Juvenile Centre were being denied Special Category Status. The British Northern Ireland Office has refused to give them any group recognition and they are in fear for their lives because of enforced shared exercise with loyalist prisoner and ordinary prisoners. The men are being held on remand on charges of possession of arms and ammunition. Their visitors are also being singled out for harassment and mail has not been delivered on several occasions.
MON. FEBRUARY 22, 1999: It was reported that Michael Stone, the loyalist who shot dead three people at Milltown Cemetery in 1988 as they attended the funerals of the Gibraltar Three (shot dead by the SAS in March 1988), is to be released from prison by the British in the middle of next year.
TUES. FEBRUARY 23, 1999: Deaglán Lavery (23) Dundalk, Co Louth, took a successful challenge in the High Court in Dublin against the draconian legislation introduced on both sides of the Border following the Omagh bomb last August, and was released from 26-County police custody on the direction of the court. This judgement was based on the fact that Deaglán Lavery’s solicitor had not been given access to 26-County police “interview notes”. This judgement was overturned by the five-member Supreme Court, who whilst noting there was inconsistency in the State’s case in that the detained men could see the “notes” but not his solicitor, ruled that the solicitor was not entitled to be present at interrogations or prescribe how they were conducted or where they were held.
WED. FEBRUARY 24, 1999: Colm Murphy (48) of Ravensdale, Co Louth was charged at the Special Court in Dublin with conspiring with another person before the court to cause an explosion between August 13 and 16 last year. He was also charged with membership of an illegal organisation.
The British-backed loyalist death squad styling themselves the Red Hand Defenders claimed responsibility for a pipe bomb attack on the home of a nationalist family in the Ardoyne area of north Belfast. The device was thrown at the house on Rosapenna Street while three children played inside. In a statement, the loyalist group said its members threw the device from over the so-called “Peace Line”. The bomb was defused and no one was injured.
FRI. FEBRUARY 26, 1999: The RUC British colonial police discovered a “huge bomb”, believed to belong to the Provisional’s military organisation at Benady Glen, near Burren Road at the foot of the Glenshane pass in Co Derry. The explosives which were in a ‘wheelie bin’ included 180lbs of home-made explosive, a Mark 16 mortar including a war head and two timing devices.
SAT. FEBRUARY 27, 1999: Orangemen marched through the town centre in Portadown, Co Armagh to Park Street, a loyalist enclave at the bottom of the Garvaghy Road.
In an MRBI opinion poll support for the Stormont Agreement in the 26 Counties had dropped by 25% since May 1998.
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