SEPTEMBER, 1999

WED. SEPTEMBER 1, 1999: A basement housing science labs, an IT suite and a sixth form common room were badly damaged Rathmore Grammar School, a Catholic school in Dunmurry, Co Antrim following an arson attack, the fifth on the school in the last six years.

Two men rescued an 11-year-old boy from a sectarian attack in Belfast. The boy, returning from his second day at a new school, had accidentally boarded the wrong bus. After being ordered off the bus by the bus driver, the boy was forced to walk home. As he passed the Hillview industrial estate on the Oldpark Road, he was set upon by four youths. The youths identified him as a Catholic by the badge on his blazer.

The boy sustained serious bruising to his face and eye.

MON. SEPTEMBER 6, 1999: The review of the implementation of the Stormont Agreement, chaired by Senator George Mitchell, began at Stormont.

TUES. SEPTEMBER 7, 1999: The trial of Garfield Gilmour from Newhill, Ballymoney (Co. Antrim) began. Gilmour stands accused of the murder of Jason (9), Mark (10) and Richard Quinn (11.) The Quinn brothers died when fire swept through their home after a petrol bomb was thrown through the living room window.

Gilmour also stands accused of the attempted murder of the boys' mother, her then boyfriend and a family friend.

THUR. SEPTEMBER 9, 1999: The Patten Commission launched its report into the RUC, entitled A New Beginning to Policing in Northern Ireland.

A 13-year-old nationalist girl was knocked to the ground by three loyalist youths who shot her in the stomach with a pellet gun as she walked home from her grandmother’s house on the Serpentine Road in north Belfast.

FRI. SEPTEMBER 10, 1999: John Taylor, deputy leader of the Ulster Unionist party, pulled out of the Mitchell Review.

SUN. SEPTEMBER 12, 1999: Cork defeated Kilkenny to win the All-Ireland Hurling Final in Croke Park, Dublin.

A group of ten loyalists chanted death threats and damaged a car outside an SDLP man’s home in Larne, Co Antrim.

MON. SEPTEMBER 13, 1999: An accused man told a British court in Belfast that the UVF were responsible for the deaths of the three Quinn children in a petrol bomb attack on their home in July 1998.

WED. SEPTEMBER 15, 1999: Incendiary bombs were planted at three locations by a loyalist death squad in Co Antrim. One exploded in the doorway of Xplorus furniture store in Castle Street, another was found nearby at an off-licence in Ann Street in Ballycastle, and a third at the Credit Union offices in Ballymoney. No one was injured.

The Ramton Memorial Orange Hall at Donaghmore, Co Down was petrol-bombed.

Members of the Josephine Hayden Support Group handed in a petition with over 8,000 signatures calling for Josephine’s release from Limerick prison on humanitarian grounds and for political status in the interim were handed in at the 26-County Department of Justice in Dublin.

FRI. SEPTEMBER 17, 1999: A series of sectarian petrol bomb attacks were carried out in the Kilfennan area of Derry's Waterside. The main victims of the attacks were couples involved in mixed relationships. Attacks were also carried out in the Winchester Park and the Sperrin Park areas of the Waterside. Extensive damage was done to both homes and cars.

SAT. SEPTEMBER 18, 1999: Four houses and three cars were attacked by a loyalist gang at Westmount Avenue in Carrickfergus, Co Antrim.

MON. SEPTEMBER 20, 1999: A nationalist mother and three-month-old baby girl were targetted by a loyalist gang from teh Shankill Road who broke the window of their home on the Springfield Road in west Belfast.

THURS. SEPTEMBER 23, 1999: Four nationalist families living on the Neillbrook estate in Randalstown, Co Antrim were sent letters signed by the UVF loyalist death squad giving them two weeks to get out of the estate or be put out.

THURS. SEPTEMBER 23, 1999: The RUC came under attack from paint bombs and bottles hurled by youths during a police search of a house at Springhill Avenue in west Belfast. British army experts were called in when a suspicious object was found in the house and two people were arrested as a sub-machine gun, magazine, timer power unit and a number of detonators were found.

SUN. SEPTEMBER 26, 1999: Meath beat Cork to win the All-Ireland Football final in Croke Park, Dublin.

MON. SEPTEMBER 27, 1999: The Bloody Sunday Tribunal began a week of public hearings in Derry’s Guildhall to address outstanding legal issues before the Tribunal begins its main hearings next March.

WED. SEPTEMBER 29, 1999: Bertie Ahern announced in Leinster House that a former Dublin Supreme Court judge would be appointed to investigate the 1974 Dublin and Monaghan bombings as well as the 1976 murder of Séamus Ludlow in County Louth in two separate private inquiries.

THURS. SEPTEMBER 30, 1999: The British DPP decided that the RUC members who witnessed the murder of Portadown man Robert Hamill in 1997 by a loyalist mob will not face criminal charges.

The organisation which represents the families of those killed and injured in the 1974 Dublin and Monaghan bombings, Justice for the Forgotten, said the organisation had no faith in the private inquiry into the bombings to be set up by the Dublin Administration.

A nationalist man received injuries to his head when he was attacked at the junction of Lanark Way and Workman Avenue in west Belfast by a group of youths as he was went to collect his children from school.
Continue

For the Record