Loyalists in Ballymena, Co Antrim voted to revive the picket on the Catholic church at Harryville in Ballymena.
In Belfast a one-year-old child narrowly escaped injury when a gang of youths attacked a nationalist home in Castle Gardens.
British army bomb disposal experts examined a suspicious object left on the Dublin/Belfast railway line between Lake Street and William Street in Lurgan, Co Armagh. A telephone call also alleged that a bomb had been left in Banbridge, Co Down.
THURS. JULY 2, 1998: The home in Curlew Way in the Waterside in Derry of an elderly nationalist couple was attacked by firebombs. Two devices were also thrown at a house on Victoria Road in Newbuildings, outside Derry.
A device exploded on the Belfast/Dublin railway line in the Carnagat area of Newry, Co Down. Rail services between Portadown and Dundalk were disrupted with passengers being ferried by buses to their destination.
An attempt was made to burn down Altnaveigh Orange hall, near Newry.
St Patrick's School, a nationalist school at Garvagh, near Coleraine in Co Derry was set on fire.
FRI. JULY 3, 1998: Eleven Catholic churches throughout the Occupied Six Counties were firebombed by loyalists.
SAT. JULY 4, 1998: St Peter's Church of Ireland church in Culmore Road in Derry was set on fire and at nearby Ballyarnet a disused primary school beside a Presbyterian church was also damaged by fire, as was a farm building at Bligh's Lane, also in Derry.
The British-backed loyalist death squad the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF), which maintains it is on a ceasefire, said in a statement that the death of any Orangeman at the hands of British Crown Forces at Drumcree would be considered "an act of war".
SUN. JULY 5, 1998: Following the re-routing of the Orange parade away from the Garvaghy Road, thousands of loyalists stayed outside Drumcree church resulting in a stand-off. Widespread disturbances took place throughout the Six Occupied Counties by loyalists. Barricades were set up on main roads in Belfast and hijackings were reported as hundreds of loyalist protesters gathered in parts of south and north Belfast, north Down and Carrigfergus, Co Antrim. The RUC fired baton rounds as they came under attack from loyalists protesters at Havelock Bridge on the Ormeau Road in Belfast and a school in east Belfast was damaged after coming under attack from firebombers. The loyalists at Drumcree church have vowed to stay there until the Parades Commission's decision to reroute the parade away from the Garvaghy Road is reversed. Two thousand British soldiers and RUC were on duty in Portadown and heavy barricades were set up to prevent the Orangemen from getting through.
A Catholic girls' school towards the north of Liverpool centre was attacked by arsonists for the second time in a month leaving the gymnasium gutted. Notre Dame High School in Everton is situated in a Catholic area, the building lies on the edge of a densely-populated loyalist district. On the same day Liverpool's Orange lodge announced it was sending "hundreds" of marchers to support their brethren on the Garvaghy Road, Portadown (this was the beginning of the Drumcree stand-off).
MON. JULY 6, 1998: Roads were blocked throughout Belfast as Orange protesters set cars alight and prevented traffic flow. A large number of impromptu Orange parades caused problems for residents in a number of city suburbs who were forced to remain in their homes. More than 1,000 Orangemen congregated at Drumcree as the stand-off continued. The most serious trouble in Belfast was in Sandy Row and Wellwood Street, where police were attacked by youths firing petrol bombs. The police were also petrol-bombed in Shore Crescent, Belfast and Ballykeel in Ballymena, Co Antrim. Cars were hijacked in north and east Belfast, Lisburn, Carrickfergus, Antrim and Ballymena.
A senior RUC man, injured in clashedsbetween the RUC and Derry loyalists, was said to be in a comfortable condition in hospital after sustaining a fractured skull on July 5. Five or six shots were also fired at the RUC in the loyalist Village area of Belfast. They had earlier fired plastic bullets in the area after petrol bombs were fired at them. Three shots were also fired at an RUC patrol in the Duncairn Garden area of north Belfast and an hour later a burst of automatic fire was directed at the RUC.
A nationalist family of five had a narrow escape when an explosive device was placed on the window of their home in Willow Park, Carrickfergus, Co Antrim. It exploded and damaged the window-frame but nobody was hurt.
A nationalist home at Mullybrannion Road in Dungannon, Co Tyrone was gutted by fire after arsonists smashed all the windows and set it alight.
In another sectarian attack, a house at Larne Park, Ballymena was set alight. Petrol bombs were also thrown at the back of a house in Central park, Antrim town.
The RUC seized petrol bomb-making material, balaclavas and a bag of ball bearings during a search of the Kilwilkie Estate, Lurgan, Co Armagh.
A pitched battle took place between the RUC and residents of the Short Strand, a small nationalist enclave in Belfast, following a search operation in which the Crown Forces used heavy-handed tactics after they found a rifle and ammunition at the rear of a house at Clyde Court. Bottles, bricks and stones were thrown at the police, who responded by firing plastic bullets.
TUES. JULY 7, 1998: Shots were fired in Belfast and 2,000 Orange supporters blockaded the village of Dunloy, Co Antrim.
St Colman's Catholic Church was attacked by arsonists for the fourth time in the last four years. There was looting by loyalists in Lisburn, Co Antrim during serious rioting in the Longstone Street area of the town and trouble flared again in the Sandy Row area of Belfast with a mobile shop and other vehicles being hijacked in the area. Many masked rioters attacked York Street RUC barracks with petrol and paint bombs and shortly afterwards at the Grove Baths a blast bomb and two petrol bombs were thrown at a police patrol.
Loyalists staged a series of roadblocks across the northwest Six Counties, in Derry city, Newbuildings, Co Derry, Strabane, Co Tyrone and Harpurs Hill, Coleraine, Co Derry.
A guesthouse owned by a nationalist in Carrickfergus, Co Antrim was damaged by a loyalist blast bomb and petrol bomb attack. Two blast bombs were thrown at an RUC man's house in the town and an off-duty RUC man had to fire a shot in the air after being attacked and surrounded by a 50-strong crowd in the town's North Road. There was serious rioting in the Glenfield and Castlemara estates and four nationalist families were burnt out of their homes. Church buses belonging to the Baptist and Elim churches in Northlands were burnt out. Carrick College secondary school was attacked by rioters, causing £2,000 damage.
Nationalist residents of the Old Park Road in Belfast were terrorised by loyalists who attacked their homes with petrol bombs. In Hollywood, Co Down a car at the back of the home of a nationalist man was petrol-bombed.
Séamus Mallon was heckled by 100 angry residents of the Garvaghy Road who accused him of trying to broker a deal on the march.
WED. JULY 8, 1998: Residents of Collingwood estate in Lurgan came under siege from a gang of 30 loyalists firing petrol bombs at their homes. Two houses were extensively damaged and three people treated for shock as the Orange fascists threw nail and petrol bombs and fired shots.
Nationalist schools were targeted by arsonists on July 8. In Belfast, a car was rammed through the gates of Holy Cross girls' primary school on the Ardoyne Road and set ablaze, causing minor damage. In Larne, St Anthony's primary school suffered minor damage when inflammable liquid was poured through a window.
In east Belfast a hostel for the homeless was damaged when it came under attack from a loyalist mob. Also there were petrol bomb attacks on houses in Garvagh and Lurgan; in the latter case the resident was taken to hospital with a heart attack. St Joseph's primary school in Lisburn, Co Down came under attack from loyalist mobs who threw paint and petrol bombs at the school.
A number of RUC personnel were forced to flee their homes as police reinforcements were sent into Drumcree and an eleven-year-old boy and two men, one of them an off-duty RUC man, were detained in hospital after being attacked in their car by a loyalist mob in Derry.
THURS. JULY 9, 1998: an editorial in the Belfast Telegraph called for the British government to force the Orangemen down the Garvaghy Road if nationalists failed to compromise.
Dana and Jason Averill, a Protestant couple with a two-year-old child, were in bed when they were startled by the sound of a 16-strong gang who smashed in the front door of their home in the loyalist estate of Eastvale Avenue in Dungannon. The Orange mob smashed items of furniture and attacked her husband, beating him several times about the head. It is believed that the reason for the attack is the fact that the couple have many friends from the nationalist community and have consistently declined to donate to door-to-door collections in support of the Drumcree stand-off. The couple are now homeless.
Three RUC men were injured by shrapnel when Orange protesters hurled blast bombs at them.
FRI. JULY 10, 1998: British Prime Minister Tony Blair initiated so-called "proximity talks", convened by a member of his staff, Jonathan Powell between the Portadown Orangemen and the Garvaghy Road Residents' Coalition.
Police in London and Dublin arrested six people who were allegedly on a bombing mission in England.
SAT JULY 11, 1998: The "proximity talks" talks between delegates from the Portadown Orangemen and the Garvaghy Road Residents' Coalition meeting at an agreed venue to negotiating, through two "facilitators" shuttling between the two groups, who were in separate rooms, failed to end the impasse and while these "talks" were going on the Portadown Orangemen filed with the RUC and the British Parades Commission to hold another march down the Garvaghy Road on July 12. The request was rejected on the grounds that it did not give the legal requirement of 28 days notice.
Three nationalists were injured in a shooting incident in north Belfast. One of the men is said to be in a serious condition after being hit in the knee, while another man was said to be grazed. A youth in their company suffered a minor leg injury.
A house in Carrickfergus was petrol-bombed and a family were forced to flee their home of 27 years after a second petrol bomb attack on their home in Birchhill Park. In Whitehead, Co Antrim, ten petrol bombs were hurled at Ulidia Integrated School on the Islandmagee Road. Several windows were smashed in the attack but only a few of the devices ignited. And in Craigavon a blast bomb was thrown through the window of a house at Enniskeen causing extensive damage to the kitchen area.
The 26-County President, Mary McAleese, herself a nationalist from Belfast whose home was burned out by loyalists during the 1970s, held an official function at her residence in Dublin for over 100 Orangemen, as the Drumcree standoff continued.
SUN. JULY 12, 1998: A petrol-bomb thrown into the home of Christine Quinn (29), a Catholic, and her Protestant partner, Raymond Craig (31) in the mainly loyalist estate of Carnany, Ballymoney, Co Antrim around 4.30am caused the death of three of her children, Richard (10), Mark (9) and Jason (7).
Portadown Orangemen decided to continue to occupy the area around Drumcree as they have done since they were refused permission to march down the nationalist Garvaghy Road on Sunday, July 5, despite calls to abandon their standoff following the murder of three young children in an arson attack by loyalists on a home in the Carnany estate in Ballymoney, Co Antrim.
The RUC and Orange protesters clashed across the barricades at Drumcree. Police in riot gear fired plastic bullets and baton-charged hooded protesters who tried to tear down the barricades.
British Crown Forces discovered 1,400lbs of explosives, two booster tubes and a timing mechanism on a builder's trailer left between the Moy and Blackwatertown, Co Armagh, following a telephoned warning.
An ambulance crew attending an injured child in Killyleagh, Co Down was sent on a 10-minute detour when loyalist protesters refused to let the vehicle through.
MON. JULY 13, 1998: As a mark of respect to the bereaved family residents on the lower Ormeau Road in Belfast did not block the path of the Orange parade which marched through their area but instead held a silent, black flag protest as the Orangemen passed by. In the week since the beginning of the Drumcree stand-off loyalists mounted more than 130 arson attempts on nationalist families throughout the Six Counties and the British Housing Executive there is in the process of rehousing more than 70 nationalist families.
The Irish Times (Dublin) published a list of incidents from Sunday, July 5 and up to July 10 reported 1,867 public disorder incidents, 55 attacks on British Crown Forces, including 15 shooting incidents and 33 bomb attacks, 151 arrests for public disorder incidents, 53 RUC injured, 548 petrol bombings, 1,901 petrol bombs recovered, 103 buildings damaged, 133 other buildings damaged, 367 vehicles attacked. Up to July 9 only 216 plastic bullets were fired at loyalists.
TUES. JULY 14, 1998: Derek Chambers (32) appeared before Belfast magistrates court after bomb-making materials were allegedly found in his home at a housing estate at Carrickfergus, Co Antrim the previous weekend. He was accused of having materials to make pipe bombs and having an improvised explosive device.
Three Orange halls, Ballyknock on the Moira Road, in Hillsborough, Co Down, on the Lany in Moira, Co Down and Benburb, Co Tyrone and St James Church of Ireland church were damaged in petrol bomb attacks.
WED. JULY 15, 1998: Four people – Anthony Hyland (25), Darren Mulholland (19), (Elaine Moore (21) and Liam Patrick Grogan — were charged in a London court with possession of explosive substances.
Two 26-County police detectives were injured when a parcel bomb, believed to have been sent to a city centre six weeks ago by the pro-British death squad the LVF, exploded during examination at the Garda Technical Bureau in Dublin.
SUN. JULY 19, 1998: The Provisionals are being blamed for the death of 33-year-old Belfastman Andy Kearney, a father of four young girls, who was at home with his girlfriend and two-week-old daughter when five gunmen burst into his flat in the New Lodge area of north Belfast shortly after midnight, dragged him out of his home and into the lift where he was shot three times in the legs. His assailants made sure to rip the telephone from the wall before leaving. Kearney's girlfriend had to run to a friend's house to call an ambulance wasting valuable time. An artery in his leg had been severed and Andy Kearney bled to death.
MON. JULY 20, 1998: Three generations of the Eastons, a nationalist family who live at Castlemara Drive in Carrickfergus, Co Antrim, escaped injury when loyalists attempted to burn their house.
TUES. JULY 21, 1998: Residents of the Carrick Hill area adjoining the Westlink Motorway in Belfast came under sustained attack from loyalist youths firing missiles at their homes and several windows were smashed when the Orange mob, using catapults, launched about 30 heavy metal nuts across the Westlink from the loyalist Shankill area.
A Mark 15 mortar, believed to contain 200lb of explosives was launched on the Corry Square RUC barracks in Newry, Co Down but failed to detonate. It was later defused by a British army bomb expert.
WED. JULY 22, 1998: The Dublin Supreme Court turned down an appeal by Joseph Doyle, whose daughter and two granddaughters were killed in the Dublin bombings of May 17, 1974 to have the files concerning the investigation into the massacre released from 26-County police files to the relatives.
FRI. JULY 24, 1998: During a visit to Old Park RUC barracks in Belfast Eimear Harrison (22), a mother of one from the nationalist Ardoyne in Belfast, to deal with a relative's motoring offence, officers of the British colonial police (RUC) tried to recruit her to inform on suspected Republicans in the area.
A motorist driving past the RUC barracks in Hollywood, Co Down spotted a poster urging loyalists to support the Orangemen at Drumcree. The poster was pinned onto a board inside a glass case and advertising 'Operation Roadside' and a police recruitment ad and called for unity between loyalists and Occupation Forces.
MON. JULY 27, 1998: Two nationalist brothers, Frankie (53) and Anthony (49) Creane, were watching television at their Garvagh Court home in the predominantly loyalist Caw estate in the Waterside area of Derry when a gang of up to six men smashed the door shortly after 12.30am, opened fire and shot Frankie Creane in the leg and Anthony Creane sustained bullet wounds to the upper leg and groin and was taken to Belfast's Royal Victoria Hospital where his condition was described as critical following surgery. Frankie was said to be in a stable condition in hospital. The shooting is believed to have been carried out by the pro-British UDA/UFF death squad.
THURS. JULY 30, 1998:
Ten incendiary devices which were planted at a number of business premises in Portadown, Co Armagh were claimed by dissidents from the Provisionals.
Continue