FRI. JANUARY 1, 1999: Around 5,000 Orangemen marched through Portadown, Co Armagh, accompanied by 18 bands, to Drumcree church in the first Orange rally of 1999 in support of marching down the nationalist Garvaghy Road.
WED. JANUARY 6, 1999: A loyalist bomb attack on the O'Donovan Rossa GAA club in Magherafelt, Co Derry injured a tradesman working there and damaged the premises. The attack was claimed by the British-backed death squad the Orange Volunteers.
FRI. JANUARY 8, 1999: Around 300 people attended a rally, organised by the Hollywood Arches Civil Liberties Group, in east Belfast in support of the Portadown Orangemen's 24-hour picket at Drumcree.
SUN. JANUARY 10, 1999: Two men were injured when an RUC mobile support unit stopped a victory cavalcade of members of the Slaughtneill GAA club in Maghera, Co Derry. The GAA fans were celebrating a double victory having won the Co Derry minor hurling and football championships when the RUC pointed guns at the young jurlers and when two men protested they were arrested and beaten in the street. One of the men sustained a broken arm, mild concussion and bruising to the body by police weilding batons. Following the arrests a large number of GAA supporters went to protest at Maghera RUC barracks.
WED. JANUARY 13, 1999: Leo Johnston (44), a Dundalk man who left the political wing of the Provisionals a year ago, was abducted by their military wing and ordered to rejoin the party before being released after six hours.
THURS. JANUARY 14, 1999: The British Crown Forces barracks at Woodbourne in West Belfast was attacked with automatic gunfire. Following the attack in Belfast, the head of the RUC Ronnie Flanagan said that the Continuity IRA was extending its campaign. Later seven men and a woman were arrested. Local nationalists vented their anger later the same evening by attacking Woodbourne Barracks with petrol bombs.
A nationalist woman and her three young children had a lucky escape when loyalists fired a petrol bomb at her home in Thistle Court in the Mount Pottinger area of Belfast at 6pm, just 10 minutes after they had left the house. Four youths were seen fleeing in the direction of Madrid Street after the attack.
Two DHSKA Russian heavy machineguns, a general purpose machinegun and several rounds of ammunition, believed to belong to the Provisionals' military wing, were found by the 26-County police in a field near the Border in the Blackstaff area of Co Monaghan.
SUN. JANUARY 17, 1999: Republican Sinn Féin in Tipperary held a ceremony to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the ambush at Soloheadbeg, Co Tipperary, the first attack on British Crown Forces during the War of Independence, which coincided with the inaugural meeting of the First Dáil Éireann.
TUES. JANUARY 19, 1999: In Loughanisland, Co Down the pro-British death squad, the Orange Volunteers threw a pipe-bomb at an isolated farmhouse, the home of Patsy Shields and his wife Bernadette, about one mile outside the village shortly after 9pm. Patsy Shields was hit by flying glass and sustained hand and groin injuries in the attack. His wife sustained shock but no physical injuries. He said a missile had been thrown at the windscreen of his car two weeks previously.
THURS. JANUARY 21, 1999: Republican Sinn Féin held a picket on the British Embassy in Ballsbridge, Dublin to mark the 80th anniversary of the First (All-Ireland) Dáil and a letter was handed in by Ruairí Ó Brádaigh, President.
Later that evening the organisation held a public meeting to mark the occasion in Dublin attended by over 100 people who heard the Declaration of Independence, the Message to the Free Nations and the Democratic Programme read. The meeting was addressed by Éamon Larkin (south Armagh), Michael McManu (Fermanagh) and Pádraigh Ó Baoighill (Monaghan). Dolours and Marion Price (former IRA prisoners and hunger strikers from Belfast) and relatives of JJ O'Kelly (Sceilg), one of the First Dá TDs, were among the attendance.
Four Belfast men, all in their twenties were charged before a British court with possession of an AK-47 (Kalashnikov) assault rifle, and a .38 revolver and ammunition. The were Brendan Burns (20) of St James' Gardens, Carl Reilly (22) of Beechmount Street, Seáan O'Reilly (23) of Ardkeen View and Thomas Crossan (27) of Rodney Parade -- all in west Belfast. They were remanded in prison until February 10.
Speaking to the Belfast Telegraph, UVF spokesperson, Billy Hutchinson of the PUP, threatened that loyalists were ready to embark on a more "sophisticated" campaign.
FRI. JANUARY 22, 1999: Two members of a pro-British death squad disabled a security door at the front of the Sunday World's Belfast office before placing a firebomb in the hallway. The explosion sent a raging inferno up a nearby staircase melting the wall and light fixtures. The first and second floor of the building were smoke-damaged. It is believed one of the arsonists may have been injured in the attack. There were no staff members inside at the time. In a phone call to the media on the night of January 22 the pro-British death squad, the Red Hand Defenders claimed the attack on the Comercial Court premises.
An attempt was made to burn the home of a nationalist man in Jubilee Walk, in Larne, County Antrim.
SAT. JANUARY 23, 1999: The homes of two nationalist families in Larne came under loyalist blast bomb attack within minutes of each other. The crude explosive devices were fired at the houses, one on the Seacliff Road and the other in the Roddens area at around 3am on Saturday. A pro-British death squad operating under the name Red Hand Defenders claimed responsibility for the Larne attacks.
SUN. JANUARY 24, 1999: It was reported that eleven nationalist families have been forced out of the Garvaghy Road in Portadown, Co Armagh since the current stand-off began last July. The latest family to vacate their home spoke of their ordeal to the media and now live in a caravan in Armagh city. Ten of these familes lived in Craigwell Avenue, a link road between the main Garvaghy Road and the loyalist Crocrain area where the Orangemen hold their nightly vigils.
MON. JANUARY 25, 1999: Pro-British elements attempted to wipe out a nationalist family, Séamus Mullan, his 84-year-old mother and two brothers, in a bomb attack in the County Antrim village of Greenisland. A pipe bomb was planted under the family's car which was stationed outside their home in the mainly loyalist Glenkeen Avenue. British Crown Forces were alerted to the bomb and defused it.
It was reported that a Channel 4 Dispatches programme to be boradcast on February 4 at 9.30pm received a video showing Continuity IRA Volunteers in a house in Derry's Bogside with a hand-held grenade laucher, an AK-47 assault rifle and a Magnum revolver. Channel 4 subsequently handed over the video to the British colonial police even before it was screened or demanded by the RUC.
TUES. JANUARY 26, 1999: British Crown Forces found an assault rifle, handgun, mask, gloves and ammunition during a planned search at Cathedral Close, in Armagh city.
WED. JANUARY 27, 1999: Émon Collins, self-confessed British informer, was found dead outside Newry, Co Down with massive head injuries.
THURS. JANUARY 28, 1999: A nationalist family, Mary Quinn (41) and her four children Oriel (12), Tony (10), Christopher (8) and Nathan (5), from Beech Valley, Dungannon, Co Tyrone escaped without injury when a pipe-bomb was lobbed into their home in the early hours. The device failed to explode. The attack was claimed by the British-backed death squad the Red Hand Defenders.
It was reported that nationalist residents of the Collingswood estate in Lurgan, Co Armagh have been leaving in numbers because they fear that loyalist violence will escalate in the coming months. The houses are situated on a flashpoint with the loyalist Mourneview estate and have borne the brunt of violence from that area during the Drumcree crises of 1996, 1997 and 1998.
FRI. JANUARY 29, 1999: In a statement, Ruairé Ó Brádaigh, President, Republican Sinn Féin, reiterated that Republican Sinn Féin was vehemently opposed to the Fianna Fáil move to get the 26-County State to join the so-called Partnership for Peace, a sub-grouping of the NATO military alliance.
SAT. JANUARY 30, 1999: Republican Sinn Féin held a picket at the GPO, Dublin to commemoarate the 27th anniversary of Bloody Sunday in Derry when 14 people were shot dead by the Parachute regiment of the British army on January 30, 1972.
SUN. JANUARY 31, 1999: Former political prisoner Paddy Fox of Dungannon was abducted from the carpark of a Monaghan hotel in the early hours of Sunday by armed and masked men believed to be members of the Privisionals' military wing. He was released later that day having sustained a severe beathing. It is believed that the reason for the abduction and beating was his outspoken political opposition to the Stormont Agreement and criticism of the Provo leadership.
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