The chairman of the British Conservative Party's backbench committee on the Six Occupied Counties, Andrew Hunter, said on January 2 that the 'multi-party' talks in Stormont were as good as over.
The British Crown Forces found explosives and bomb-making equipment in a derelict building near Cullyhanna, Co Armagh.
FRI. JANUARY 3, 1997: A spokesperson for the British-backed death squad, the UDA/UFF, threatened to embark on a campaign against "the general nationalist population".
Éamon Gallagher (14) from Ferndale in the Shantallow area of Derry, claimed he saw a helicopter's rear rotor-blade strike the roof of a nearby house, dislodging some roof tiles.
SUN. JANUARY 5, 1997: Republicans attending the annual Seán Sabhat commemoration in Limerick were subjected to Special Branch harassment both before and after the ceremony. A group of Kerry supporters driving behind the parade because one of them was unable to march the distance had their car stopped and taken from them. Several car-loads of Special Branch converged on Republican Sinn Féin member Declan Curneen of Leitrim when walking back to the city centre. His name and address were demanded and he asked for identification (all were in plain clothes). He was seized, bundled into a squad-car and taken to Henry Street barracks. His son Ciaran aged 11 years clung on to his father and received a blow of a fist in the eye and another son Emmet and his friend Shannon McGrath of Bundoran, both aged 16, were also arrested.
MON. JANUARY 6, 1997: The Provisionals' military wing fired a rocket at a British Crown Forces post outside Belfast's High Court. One member of the British police (RUC) was slightly injured. The car used in the attack was found burnt out in the nearby nationalist Markets area.
TUES. JANUARY 7, 1997: The funeral took place in Dungiven, Co Derry of Patrick Lynch, father of hunger striker Kevin Lynch who died after a 71-day fast in 1981. An explosion in the Shantallow area of Derry narrowly missed a two-vehicle RUC patrol as it drove along Templemore Road shortly before 9pm.
WED JANUARY 8, 1997: A massive turnout of people from the Twinbrook and Poleglass estates in west Belfast attended a public meeting in the Dairy Farm Centre on the Stewartstown Road calling for action to deal with the scourge of car thefts known as "joyriding" which increased dramatically over the Christmas period.
An inquest was told that a young Belfast woman, Sandra Carlisle (46), took her own life because of threats from the British-backed death squad the UDA/UFF after being intimidated out of her home in Carryduff on the southern outskirts of Belfast when she developed a friendship with a Catholic neighbour.
THURS. JANUARY 9, 1997: The home of nationalists Raymond and Anne Coyle's house in Shearwater Way in the Waterside area of Derry was petrol-bombed by a loyalist gang..
Declan Curneen, Republican Sinn Féin Ard Chomhairle member, was charged under the Public Order Act in Limerick with assault. Following the court hearing Councillor Joe O'Neill (Bundoran UDC) was arrested and held in Henry Street barracks for 24 hours before being released without charge.
FRI. JANUARY 10, 1997: The home of an 84-year-old woman was attacked by two petrol-bombs thrown through her window in Dunacloney, Co Down. She was treated in hospital for smoke inhalation after neighbours broke into the house and rescued her.
In Portadown, Co Armagh a 72-year-old man was evacuated from his home early after two suspect packages were left on his door-step. The packages were later found to be hoaxes.
SAT. JANUARY 11, 1997: Republican Sinn Féin sent solidarity greetings to those assembled outside Lufthansa, New York in protest at Germany's attempt to extradite Róisín McAliskey at the behest of the British government.
The military wing of the Provisionals was responsible for a mortar attack in Tempo British police (RUC) barracks in Co Fermanagh, according to media reports.
MON. JANUARY 13, 1997: The Stormont talks reconvened with demands from the unionist parties that the PUP and the UDP, who are associated with the British-backed death squads the UVF and the UDA/UFF respectively, be barred from the proceedings because of recent death squad shootings of their own members and booby-trap attacks on cars belonging to nationalists in Belfast and Derry.
An RUC patrol had a narrow escape when a mortar attack was launched on their vehicles, armoured Land-Rovers, as they drove along Kennedy Way, a wide link road between the M1 motorway and Andersonstown in west Belfast.
TUES. JANUARY 14, 1997: Belfastman James Corry, who was wanted by Germany in connection with a mortar attack on a British army base in Osnabruck in June 1996, was released by the Dublin authorities.
Extensive damage was caused to the home of former Larne and Finn Harps soccer player Terry Leake when a petrol-bomb was thrown into the living-room just before 2am. Neighbours of Terry Leake, a Catholic, reacted promptly to extinguish the blaze in the mainly Protestant Clooney Estate in the Waterside area of Derry city.
Robert McGilloway (28) from Derry and Pádraig Fee (18) of Tattyboy, Iniskeen, Co Monaghan, who had been facing explosives charges and whose trial was due to start were rearrested outside the Special Court in Dublin and re-arraigned on new explosive charges as they had appeared before Judge Dominic Lynch, the judge who had not been informed that he had been delisted from the Special Court. They were remanded on bail.
WED. JANUARY 15, 1997: The trial of Billy Wright (36), the Portadown loyalist known as 'King Rat', who is accused of threatening to shoot a Portadown mother-of three, began in Belfast Crown Court.
THURS. JANUARY 16, 1997: Róisín McAliskey's application for bail was again rejected at Bow Street Magistrates court and she was remanded in custody to Holloway prison, London until February 13.
The first case involving prisoners challenging the legality of their detention following the controversy over the composition of the Special Court began in the High Court in Dublin with Republican prisoner Michael Hegarty from County Clare stating that he had never been a free person.
The British direct-ruler in the Six Occupied Counties, Patrick Mayhew, moved on January 16 to re-open the case of British soldier Lee Clegg who was convicted of the murder of Belfast teenager, Karen Reilly, in 1990.
The British House of Commons passed the Northern Ireland Arms Decommissioning Bill through a third unopposed reading. After three readings in the Commons the Bill goes to the House of Lords on its way to becoming law.
The British Tory government was left in an absolute minority, when one of its MPs, Ian Mills, died. The Tories are now left with 322 seats with all other parties having a total of 323 seats, with two seats vacant. The party breakdown is: Conservative 322, Labour 272, Liberal Democrats 26, Ulster Unionist 9, SDLP 4, Scottish National Party 4, Plaid Cymru 4, DUP 3 and UKUP 1.
FRI. JANUARY 17, 1997: Hidden British army barracks marksmen were responsible for the deaths of several victims of the Bloody Sunday massacre by Crown Forces that claimed the lives of 14 Irish people in Derry 25 years ago, it was revealed on British television's Channel 4 News, who revealed that evidence has come to light of recordings by a leading radio amateur of British army and police radio traffic monitored on January 30, 1972 when anti-internment marchers witnessed Britain's answer to peaceful protest.
Two improvised grenade launchers and a mortar were found in the Old Park area of north Belfast.
SAT. JANUARY 18, 1997: A horizontal mortar was fired at an unmarked RUC vehicle in Downpatrick, County but narrowly missed its target. In Derry on the same night a fully-primed horizontal mortar, a command wire and a firing pack were found in parcels abandoned in Crawford Square near the city's main RUC barracks.
Two hundred loyalists, some wearing Orange Order sashes, staged a picket outside Harryville Catholic church in Ballymena.
A seven-year-old and a four-year-old boy had to run for cover when a British army helicopter dislodged six roof tiles from their home as they played in the backyard in the Camphill estate in Newtownbutler, County Fermanagh. The house is situated near the Newtownbutler RUC British police barracks.
An arson attack on a nationalist-owned garage in Annalong near Kilteel, County Down is being viewed as the latest incident in a campaign of harassment by British-backed death squads directed against nationalists in the area. Tree lorries and a van were destroyed in the blaze at the garage, on Mill Road.
MON. JANUARY 20, 1997: A bomb exploded under a van containing a nationalist family in Larne, County Antrim. A couple and their five month-old baby in the van escaped injury.
Two coffee-jar explosive devices were thrown at Mountpottinger British Crown Forces barracks in the nationalist Short Strand enclave in east Belfast. No injuries were caused in the attack.
A 23-year-old man appeared in court in Belfast on charges of possessing explosives after being arrested in the area.
A high-powered sniper rifle and ammunition were found by the British Crown Forces in a specially-made hide under a stairwell at flats in the Lenadoon area of west Belfast. The weapons had been hidden behind a wall which had been plastered over and repainted. The British claimed a 'tip-off' sparked their search.
WED. JANUARY 22, 1997: The head of the RUC British police, Ronnie Flanagan, rejected a proposal contained in a report by the British Inspector of Constabulary, Colin Smith, who recommended that guidelines for using the weapons be brought into line with Britain, where plastic bullets have never been fired, to limit the use of plastic bullets.
THURS. JANUARY 23, 1997: The trial of six men charged with attempting to escape from Whitemoor prison in Britain in September 1994 was stopped for the second time at Woolwich Crown Court, London because of prejudicial media publicity and the trial judge, Judge Kay, decided against a third trial and ended proceedings.
FRI. JANUARY 24, 1997: British police divers searching a reservoir in Derry uncovered an improvised mortar after a two-day dragnet search of open spaces and outhouses in the Rosemount and Creggan areas.
SAT. JANUARY 25, 1997: A member of the British police (the RUC) cocked his gun and threatened to shoot people leaving Mass during an arrest operation outside St Patrick's Church in Dungiven, Co Derry.
SUN. JANUARY 26, 1997: Robert Breglio, a leading US ballistics expert and a former forensic ballistics detective with the New York Police Department has added his authority to claims that some of the victims of Bloody Sunday in Derry 25 years ago were killed by expert marksmen firing from a height on Derry's walls said there was no doubt in his mind that three of the victims of Bloody Sunday — William Nash (19), John Young (17) and Michael McDaid (20) – were killed by snipers operating from the city walls.
A call for a boycott of German goods and services has been made by the Róisín McAliskey Justice Group as Róisín continues to suffer at the hands of a vengeful British regime whose real agenda is to target certain Irish people in an attempt to humiliate Irish nationalists into accepting a new Stormont regime. A rally in Coalisland, County Tyrone was attended by over 1,000 people in support of Róisín who has been in British custody since November 20, 1996.
Three members of the Grenadier Guards regiment of the British army had a narrow escape when an under-car bomb exploded as they were leaving the White House Hotel discotheque in Ballynahinch, County Down at 1.30am. One of them was treated for cuts and shock.
Meanwhile five men were still being questioned by the British paramilitary police (RUC. The men were arrested after paramilitary police seized a Prig grenade and a rifle at Main Street, Dungiven, the third seizure in the region within a week.
MON. JANUARY 27, 1997:
British army bomb disposal experts carried out two controlled explosions on a suspect device in Abbey Street, in the Bogside area of Derry following a call to a local clergyman. The caller said that a bomb had been abandoned in Abbey Street due to Crown Forces activity in the area.
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