SAT. NOVEMBER 2, 1996: A 36-year-old man appeared in Belfast magistrates' court on charges in connection with the Provisional bomb attack on British army HQ in Lisburn, County Antrim last month.
SUN. NOVEMBER 3, 1996: Barry Porter, a Conservative MP in the British House of Commons, died, leaving John Major's government with a majority of one.
Half a dozen men gathered around the flats on Belfast's Limestone Road at 2am chanting "Fenian bastards", hurled bottles through ground floor windows of the flats and tried to break down the doors. They succeeded in breaking down one door and wrecked furniture after discovering the tenant was out. The loyalists shouted death threats and said they were going to "get" the residents.
MON. NOVEMBER 4, 1996: A woman and her child moved out of one of the flats in Limestone Road after living there only two weeks. British Crown Forces have erected a second spy mast in Derry within two weeks. The latest tower was erected at the British army's Ebrington barracks for "operational reasons".
TUES. NOVEMBER 5, 1996: 26-County police discovered an array of bomb-making equipment and four bags of explosive material at Ballybinaby, near Hackballscross, County Louth Also included in the haul was a cylinder bomb which the 26-County army detonated in a controlled explosion. This is the fifth arms find by 26-County forces since the beginning of October.
A man moved out of the flats on Limestone Road after intimidation by loyalists.
Kevin Barry Artt (38), who was among 38 POWs who escaped from Long Kesh concentration camp in 1983 is now battling against British attempts to extradite him back to occupied Ireland from the US where he now lives. Attorney for Artt, James Brosnahan, told a hearing in San Francisco that his client was convicted in a "trumped-up case" and would face prejudice because of his political and religious beliefs if sent back.
A survey of the labour force in the Six Counties shows that Catholic men are still twice as likely to be unemployed as Protestant men. The survey, which was taken in 1994, shows that Catholics make up 55 per cent of the unemployed in the Six Counties while they make up 38 per cent of the population over the age of 16.
WED. NOVEMBER 6, 1996: Children as young as five years were subjected to a terror ordeal that lasted for over two hours when their school was raided by the RUC British paramilitary police who charged into the premises of Scoil an Droichid at Balfour Avenue on the lower Ormeau Road, Belfast claiming they were looking for ammunition and explosives.
Leading Portadown loyalist, Billy Wright (King Rat), who is under sentence of death from the Combined Loyalist Military Command (CLMC), the umbrella group for the loyalist death squads, was given a three-month prison sentence, suspended for two years, for assaulting RUC Constable David McCausland and fined £150 for assaulting Constable Karl Green at Seagoe Hotel carpark in Portadown on the night of April 21 last year.
THURS. NOVEMBER 7, 1996: Sixteen political prisoners were released and immediately re-arrested because the Special Court was not informed that one of the judges, Dominic Lynch, had been delisted at his own request by the Dublin administration's department of justice on August 1. These include Republican prisoner Michael Hegarty of Clare who was re-arrested outside Limerick prison. The prisoners were re-arraigned at the Special Court, but are taking actions against the state for wrongful arrest.
A nationalist family were forced to flee their home when they were threatened by loyalist gangs.
FRI. NOVEMBER 8, 1996: Peter McMullen (49), a soldier who deserted the British army's Paratroop Regiment to join the Irish Republican Army in the early 1970s and who subsequently deserted the IRA was sentenced to 14 years by a British court and freed on that date by the same court.
SAT. NOVEMBER 9, 1996: Windsor Women's Centre in Rockview Street in the loyalist Village area was attacked by loyalists who cut a hole in the roof, poured inflammable liquid in and set it alight.
A six-year-old child was hit by a concrete slab thrown by loyalists at Massgoers in Ballymena. People were leaving Harryville Catholic church after 6pm when the loyalists began throwing pieces of a concrete slab they had broken into smaller pieces. The young boy suffered a half-inch gash to his ankle.
MON. NOVEMBER 11, 1996: Casement Park GAA grounds in Belfast was broken into and vandalised and changing rooms were damaged, telephone lines ripped out and the main stand was also damaged.
TUES. NOVEMBER 12, 1996: Hammersmith and Fulham Trade Union Council in London called for a public inquiry into the killing of Irishman Diarmuid O'Neill by British police in London in September.
WED. NOVEMBER 13, 1996: Three Provisional prisoners — Derek Doherty, Michael O'Brien and Padraic Mac Fhloinn — were transferred to Portlaoise prison in County Laois from jail in Britain.
St Mary's Star of the Sea Catholic primary school in Newtownabbey was attacked for the second time in four months. A classroom and principal's office were badly damaged in the arson attack.
THURS. NOVEMBER 14, 1996: Sr Sarah Clarke, a campaigner for the rights of Irish prisoners in British jails and their families launched her memoirs, No faith in the System, in Belfast.
At the inquest in Drogheda, Co Louth into the death of Dominic McGlinchey, shot dead in 1994, a detective with the ballistics section of the 26-County police, admitted that no attempt had been made to have the bullets checked against weapons seized by the British in the Six Counties. The inquest found that Dominic McGlinchey died after he was shot 14 times on February 10, 1994. X-rays showed that he had been shot in the neck, skull, chest area, left arm and both legs.
FRI. NOVEMBER 15, 1996: The Star of the Sea Catholic Church near Newtownabbey, County Antrim was attacked for the third time in 12 months. The porch door of the church was badly damaged after an incendiary device was planted at around 3am.
St Joseph's Catholic church in Ballygawley, Co Antrim was attacked when arsonists broke two stained-glass windows and poured diesel and other flammable liquids through to light the fire. There was widespread smoke damage.
The British paramilitary police (RUC) raided a community centre on the Upper Springfield Road in west Belfast. A computer and computer discs containing information relating to the work of the centre and user groups were removed. British Crown Forces also raided the Ballymurphy homes of several people employed at the centre which provides a resource for 85 local community groups in the nationalist area.
SAT. NOVEMBER 16, 1996: Loyalist demonstrations outside Harryville Catholic Church in Ballymena, County Antrim continued into its tenth week. About 100 loyalists, mostly youths, lined up opposite the Church of Our Lady as people entered for Saturday evening mass. The loyalists shouted at the Massgoers and threw eggs at them. They also threw a fire cracker at a journalist who was not injured.
A soccer match due to have been played by Belfast club Donegal Celtic in Cullybackey, County Antrim had to be cancelled because of loyalist threats against the club and its supporters.
Cliftonville FC soccer supporters were stoned during the team's away match against Glenavon at Mourneview Park, Lurgan, County Armagh. The attack occurred after loyalists held an anti-Cliftonville protest outside the ground. No-one was injured in the attack.
A newly-dug hole was discovered in the banking at the side of a road in County Derry. A command wire was found in a follow-up search. The RUC claimed a landmine attack was being planned on the British Crown Forces.
SUN. NOVEMBER 17, 1996: Papers found at a military base in Zaire revealed that a British company, Mil-Tec Corporation, was involved in the sale of arms to the former Rwandan government forces during and after its genocide of a million of its own people in 1994.
MON. NOVEMBER 18, 1996: The UVF is believed to be responsible for a shooting in which a loyalist was shot twice in the chest as he sat in his car in the Cregagh estate in Belfast.
TUES. NOVEMBER 19, 1996: A court was told at the trial of William Felix Whitten (22), charged with hijacking a car in Belfast, that a Protestant family were pulled from their car and attacked by a loyalist mob at an 'eleventh night' bonfire in July 1995 when they were mistaken for Catholics.
One man was arrested after the British police (RUC) captured a quantity of arms in the Dungiven area of County Derry during house searches. The RUC seized an AK47 assault rifle, a PRIG grenade and a Mark 16 horizontal mortar.
WED. NOVEMBER 20, 1996: It was revealed that more than 22,000 Irish people were held in Britain under the repressive Prevention of Terrorism Act during the 18 months of the Provisionals' 1994 ceasefire and 92% of all those detained since 1974 were released without any charge.
THURS. NOVEMBER 21: A 600lb car-bomb was left outside the main gates of the headquarters of the English paramilitary police (RUC) in Derry's city centre. A caller on behalf of the Continuity Army Council of the IRA rang the Derry media at 11.30am warning that a bomb in the boot of a car outside the barracks in Strand Road would explode in 20 minutes. The bomb was defused by the British army.
An information card giving civil rights advice to people arrested by English police was launched by Billy Power and Judith Ward in England. The main-aim of the credit-card-sized 'PTA card' is to help the thousands of Irish people who are arrested every year under the Prevention of Terrorism Act.
The British finally admitted that a member of the RUC British police's governing body was involved in an illegal loyalist blockade in July last in defiance of the RUC when John Wheeler, Crown Forces minister at Stormont, responded to a written question in the British House of Commons.
FRI. NOVEMBER 22, 1996: Desmond Leslie Lindop (43), a former British Aerospace engineer from Durham, England, walked free from Belfast Crown Court after he was found guilty on two charges of having unlawful possession of Sten magazines, ammunition and primers. He was fined £1,000. He was cleared of a charge of conspiring with his brother to manufacture sub-machine-guns for a British-backed death squad.
SUN. NOVEMBER 24, 1996: A 130-strong Orange march once again prevented from going through the nationalist village of Dunloy, County Antrim by a 150-strong group of local residents who blocked the route. After five minutes scuffling with the nationalists the RUC British police told the Orangemen that the parade would have to be cancelled when they saw the protesters wouldn't move.
The RUC British police were surrounded by up to 50 youths and attacked with petrol bombs in Lurgan, County Armagh at Glendenning's factory in Victoria Street shortly after 6pm. Two plastic bullets were fired by the RUC.
WED.NOVEMBER 27, 1996: A Catholic school, Rathmore Grammar, near Dunmurry, on the outskirts of south Belfast, was closed after a sectarian arson attack on the science block. Windows on the ground floor of the four-storey block were forced open and oil and petrol bombs were thrown in.
Rúisín McAliskey, daughter of Bernadette McAliskey, appeared in a court in London on an extradition warrant to Germany in connection with a Provisional mortar attack on Osnabruck British army base in Germany last June.
A Belfastman, James Anthony Oliver Albert Corry (28) appeared in a court in Dublin on an extradition warrant from the German authorities for the same attack.
A mortar was found during a search by 26-County police at Hackballscross on the Louth Border.
FRI. NOVEMBER 29, 1996: A trailer bomb containing 2,500lb of home-made explosives was defused by the British army half a mile away from the British army base at Drumadd in South Armagh.
A referendum to change the bail laws in the 26 Counties was passed by a majority of three-to-one on a turn-out of the electorate of 29 per cent.
SAT. NOVEMBER 30, 1996: The loyalist protests outside Harryville Catholic Church in Ballymena, County Antrim flared into mob rule as loyalists took over the streets in an attempt to prevent Catholics attending Mass. About 500 loyalists began attempts to block roads at 4.45pm prior to 6pm evening Mass. A force of 300 RUC members with 30 Land Rovers were put into place to prevent road blocking.
Dublin administration minister for trade, transport and communications, Michael Lowry, was forced to resign after it was revealed that Dunnes Stores paid over £200,000 for an extension to his family home.
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