THURS. MAY 3, 2001: Two men attacked a 29-year-old nationalist man from Maghera, Co Derry and tried to force him into a car as he walked home after an evening in a local pub. A six-foot Gaelic footballer, he fought off his attackers and escaped.
FRI. MAY 4, 2001: A Belfast man, Paul Daly was shot dead in Belfast in front of his wife and 13-year-old daughter outside a relative’s house in Stephen Street, off Carrick Hill. Locals heard up to nine shots as two men approached. A car used by the gunmen was later found abandoned in the loyalist Shankill area, where an attempt had been made to burn it out.
The European Court of Human Rights at Strasbourg ordered the British government to pay £10,000 to the relatives of 12 men shot dead by the British army between 1982 and 1991.
A blast bomb attack was launched at the rear of the Glen Road RUC barracks in Andersonstown, west Belfast.
SAT. MAY 5, 2001: Republican Sinn Féin commemorated the 20th anniversary of the H-Block hunger strikes with commemorative events in Belfast, Dublin, Galway, Limerick, Tipperary, Kerry and London.
MON. MAY 7, 2001: Two amateur ornithologists were walking on the Black Mountain outside Belfast when they stumbled across elaborate spying equipment trained on homes in West Belfast. Within minutes of the discovery, British Crown Forces launched a major recovery operation in the area. One of the walkers attempted to dislodge some of the cameras and listening devices but they were too entrenched into the mountainside. Included in the find were two high powered telescopic lenses trained on the upper Andersonstown area.
The home in Churchill Road, Larne, Co Antrim of SDLP assembly member Danny O’Connor was attacked by the loyalist death squad the UDA/UFF. Bricks and stones were thrown at the house but did not break the bullet-proof glass, but did smash a window of a car belonging to Danny O’Connor’s disabled father in the latest of a long string of sectarian attacks on his home.
The Royal Mail office in Hendon, north London was targeted in a bomb attack.
TUES. MAY 8, 2001: David Trimble threatened to resign on July 1 unless the Provisionals’ military wing had put their arms beyond use by the end of June.
THURS. MAY 10, 2001: Three men were arrested and a loaded sub-machine gun along with 50 rounds of ammunition seized when a car was stopped at the junction of Eden Terrace and Northland Road.
An 18-year-old man was shot in the arm as he opened a cabin on a housing development in Portadown, Co Armagh in an attack which is believed to be part of the loyalist feud.
FRI. MAY 11, 2001: In a second murder bid connected to the loyalist feud the home of Barry Bradbury (60) in Donard Gardens, Portadown, Co Armagh was sprayed with gunfire.
SAT./SUN. MAY 12/13, 2001: Nationalists in the Springfield area of Belfast came under attack from loyalists who threw petrol bombs across the Shankill/Falls Road interface. An attempt was also made to abduct a man near Lanark Way. He escaped from four men who pulled up in a car and tried to stab him with a screwdriver.
SUN. MAY 13, 2001: Catherine Swindell (30) and her children, including one aged four months, were awakened from their sleep when an explosive device which had been shoved by loyalist death squad members through the letterbox of their home in Snugville Street in the Shankill area of Belfast went off. The hallway and its door took the main force of the blast preventing the flames from spreading to the living room. The family has since fled their home. Two petrol bombs were thrown near Workman Street.
A group of about 30 loyalists attacked a nationalist-owned pub in Woodhouse Street, near the Garvaghy Road in Portadown, Co Armagh, leaving one nationalist with serious head injuries and chanting slogans about Robert Hamill, the nationalist man kicked to death in front of the RUC in 1997. The attack sparked a confrontation between the loyalists and people from the nationalist community which led to several people being arrested by the RUC.
Nationalists in Mountpottinger and Short Strand sustained loyalist assaults which resulted in street clashes between nationalists and loyalists at the junction of the loyalist Thistle Street and nationalist Madrid Street and Bryson Street..
MON. MAY 14, 2001: Nationalists in the interface area of Bryson Street and Madrid Street in Belfast’s Short Strand claimed they were fired on by a single gunman who appeared from the loyalist Tower Street and fired two shots at the crowd which had gathered at the interface. A number of empty blank cases and the remains of fire crackers were recovered. There were further clashes between loyalists and nationalists in the area.
In Portadown it was reported that up to 300 loyalists had gathered at the town end of the Garvaghy Road.
In the Ballysillan area of north Belfast a man was shot in the leg as he walked along Ballysillan Avenue in an incident connected to the loyalist feud.
TUES. MAY 15, 2001: A missile was fired from a vehicle parked close to Bessbroook Mill, Bessbrook, Co Armagh at Bessbrook RUC barracks.
WED. MAY 16, 2001: The American Administration banned the so-called Real IRA as well as the 32-County Sovereignty Movement and the Irish Republican Prisoners Welfare Association.
THURS. MAY 17, 2001: A bomb was left outside a British army barracks in Derry city. No one was injured.
A pipe-bomb was thrown through the window of a nationalist home in Mossvale Park in the Ballysally area of Coleraine, Co Derry. Another pipe-bomb was pushed through the letterbox of a house in Quickthorn Place in the Harpers Hill area of the town five minutes later.
FRI. MAY 18, 2001: Republican POW, Tommy Crossan, Maghaberry prison, had his nomination papers rejected by the British government under a law passed by the British House of Commons preventing the nomination of prisoners following the election of hunger striker Bobby Sands in 1981.
SUN. MAY 20, 2001: Loyalist stone-throwers carried out a sustained attack on Bombay Street. Bricks, golf balls and other missiles smashed windows of houses and damaged cars.
MON. MAY 21, 2001: Fourteen mothers and more than 20 children were forced to flee the Cuper Street hostel in the Bombay Street area of west Belfast in which they resided when loyalists mounted an arson attack on the premises.
Nationalist residents in the Bombay Street area have been under almost nightly attack by stone-throwing youths thrown by loyalists across the peace-line.
Raymond and Christine Nixon fled their Forthriver Link home in the loyalist Glencairn estate in north Belfast after a petrol bomb and breeze block were hurled through their living room window, in the second attack on their home in two weeks.
SAT. MAY 26, 2001: Four people were in a house in the Carnany estate, Ballymoney, Co Antrim, a woman, her partner, a 16-year old boy and a baby when an explosive device was thrown. The inhabitants escaped injury but a car and fence were damaged.
Eighteen civilians and 57 RUC members were injured following serious rioting on the Garvaghy Road in Portadown, Co Armagh following a Junior Orange Order parade loyalist parade. The RUC fired between 12 and 15 plastic baton rounds and a number of people were struck. Local residents said the clashes began after a day of sectarian intimidation from British army units.
Photographers were singled out and set upon during a UVF parade in north Belfast.
An unexploded grenade was found beside a British army base in Strabane, Co Tyrone.
TUES. MAY 29, 2001: A GAA club in Killyleagh, Co Down was destroyed in an arson attack.
A passer-by sustained minor injuries when the RUC opened fire on a car containing two men in Hillview Road in the Oldpark area of Belfast. The car struck the vehicle in which the passer-by was travelling.
THURS. MAY 31, 2001: People going to see the relics of St Therese of Lisieux at the Holy Cross Catholic Church in Ardoyne in north Belfast were stoned by a gang of loyalist youths.
A woman in the garden of a house in Alliance Avenue in the Ardoyne area of Belfast had a lucky escape when a man produced a gun and fired it at her. The gun failed to fire and the man crossed back into the loyalist Glynbryn Drive. Nationalists were warned to be vigilant.
Dermot Gannon (34) was jailed for four years for membership of the Continuity IRA on the word of a police superintendent.
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