July 21, 1997 IRA ceasefire renewed
07/24/97
16 yr old James Morgan was abducted on
his way home from a day of fun
Newcastle. 3
days later his mutilated body was found
in a ditch used to dispose of animal
carcasses.
The body was so badly mutilated it could
only be identified by dental records.
The murder
was totally sectarian, Morgan was killed
soley because he was a Catholic.
His family had no political ties and had
all attended integrated schools , having
both Catholic
and Protestant friends.
A mechanical digger was used to bury his
burned and savagely beaten body.
On the day of his funereal the Orange Order marched in Newcastle, despite requests from Nationalist residents.
07/26/97
RUC and RIR members assisted loyalist
band members in an attack on the Lower
Ormeau
Rd.
The bandsmen,armed with metal pipes,
beer bottles and bricks 1st attacked
homes trying to
break windows and then went for a banner
which read "`Fáilte
go Féile Iochtar Ormeau' for a
neighborhood festival.
A nember of residents were injured.
08/97
The LVF has claimed responsibility for
the attempted murder of a Catholic taxi
driver,
warning Catholics to stay out of
loyalist areas.
08/02/97
A catholic family in Derry's home was
petrol bombed.
The bomb was thrown through the
children's bedroom window. The mother of
the children
was forced to jump over the flames to
rescue her 2 year old son.
08/30/97 - 08/31/97
The home of a catholic man was attacked
while his girlfriends car was also
attacked at the
same time.
Also the home of an elderly Larne couple was petrol bombed, but the bomb failed to go off. One of the attackers was detained by local residents and handed over to the RUC who promptly released him without charge.
09/05/97
A Catholic woman and her partner were
treated for smoke inhalation after two
petrol bombs
were thrown through her front window of
her Deerpark rd home in a predominately
Protestant area of Belfast.
09/11/97
A Catholic family recieved a bullet in
the post, in what appears to be a case
of a wrong
address.
The letter and death threat were
addressed to a Republican man who had
never lived at that
address.
09/97
11 seperate attacks were held on
Catholic school children
At least 18 Girls were injured when their school bus was attacked with stones by a loyalist mob.
Girls from the same school Our LAdy of Mercy,travelling to school on public transportation were tripped and shoved by other passengers.
# other Catholic school buses were attacked near the Crumlin road and a 4th on Ormeau Road.
A child was injured in the Ormeau rd attack by a bolt.
School buses from St PAtricks secondary school were attacked two days in a row by loyalist mobs.
A 14 year old boy was hospitalized for injuries after a brick was thrown the window of the bus he was riding on.
Five children from Christian Brothers' Secondary School needed hospital treatment after loyalist mobs stoned their bus sending broken glass crashing all over the children.
A loyalist mob also attacked schoolgirls walking home from walking home from Our Lady of Mercy. When the RUC arrived they threatened to charge a Catholic girl with assaulting the mob who had punched her, dragged her by the hair and stolen her jewlery.
10/97
Loyalists pickets at Harryville
continue. The church had suspended Sat
eve Mass for the
summer in an attempt to defuse the
situation but Loyalist have resumed the
picket.
A Protestant family was targetted in an Arson attack because they had rented a home to a Catholic.
10/22/97
An 18 yr.old Crumlin village Catholic
left his nome to live with relatives
after receiving a 9mm
bullet and a note to get out signed by
the UFF The bullet and message were hand
delivered.
The young mans Mother and siblings
remained in the home despite threatening
phone calls.
10/23/97
A Catholic couple whose home had been
attacked and car painted with UVF
slogans in
August was firebombed. The couple and
their two daughter ages 6 and 2 yrs.
were sleeping
when their home was ignited by the bomb
but thankfully all 4 escaped uninjured.
11/97
A group of apporoximately 50 teenagers
congregated under the leadership of a
UVF man at
a Larne bus stop near Larnes RUC station.
Apparently they were hunting for a
Nationalist youth alleged to have been
involved in
Nationalist graffiti.
Failing to find him even after moving to
a 2nd bus stop they settled for
attacking the Catholic
children instead with stones and fruit.
The students were in their 1st year of
high school which
would correlate to 7th grade in teh US.
11/16/97
N.Belfast loyalists first attacked the
cars of parishioners at Holy Family
Church. Then they
chased some young Mass goers before
venting their fury on Catholic homes. A
26 year old
woman was rushed to the hospital after
be struck in the head by a brick thrown
through her
living room window.
11/26/97
Cars and busses were burned in Loyalist
areas of Belfast as response to news
that daytime
army patrols in W Belfast would be
halted.
11/27/97
Catholic school children found a hit
list with the names of young Catholics
posted on their bus
stop.
The loyalists had been carrying on a
campaign of terror against Larne's
Catholic youth,
imposing a 10 pm curfew on Catholics and
warning them not to leave their homes at
all on
weekends. They were also harrassed for
playing hurley.
The RUC have taken no action in these
cases.<
11/27/97
A N.Belfast family recieved a sympathy
card addressed to one son who had been
murdered
by the UDA 5 years prior, and naming a
second son. The man named had been
hospitalized
only 2 days before after a RUC arrest
and beating.
The fact that the family had just moved,
yet the loyalists knew the new arrest
and the card
came only 2 days after the arrest and
beating of the man named is highly
suspicious.
12/05/97
Gerry Devlin was killed, shot at close
range 4 times in the head and body, at
the GAA
facilities in N Belfast.
Mr Devlin was well respected and known
for his involvement in youth Gaelic
Games and
soccer.
The gun used to kill him was later
linked to earlier LVF killings.
12/27/97
Seamus Dillon the doorman of the
Glengannon Hotel, sacrificed his own
life, blocking the
doorway with his body as loyalist gunmen
charged in. Four others were injured
including a
14 year old boy.
12/31/97
Edmund Treanor was shot to death when
loyalist gunmen opened fire in the
Clifton Tavern in
North Belfast. Six others were seriously
injured.
12/97
Sinn Féin councillor James McCarry
received a bullet in a UVF Christmas
card in the post.
Prison guards inercepted two more UVF
cards and bullets mailed to Republican
POW's and
a memeber of the Irish Republican
Socialist Party received a card and
bullet as well.
01/11/98
Terry Enright was shot in the stomach by
a loyalist gunman. He ran about 40 yards
before a
shot from the second gunman ended his
life.
01/12/98
A Catholic man escaped an abduction
attempt by grabbing the steering wheel
and causing
his
kidnappers car to crash.
01/13/98
A Catholic employee of Rupert Stanley
college was pursued by loyalists, but
escaped by
running and then hiding.
01/18/98
Fergal McCusker murdered by loyalist
gunmen, shot twice in the back of the
head.
01/19/98
Larry Brennan a catholic taxi driver was
shot to death on Belfast's Ormea
01/21/98
Ben Hughes a 55 year old Catholic was
murdered by a loyalist gunman on his way
home
form work.
John Mc Farland a Catholic taxi driver
was shot in the head, but survived.
Loyalist gunmen
also shot a Protestant man several
times, motive unknown.
01/22/98
Chris McMahon A N. Belfast Catholic was
shot by a loyalist gunman while locking
up the
bakery he worked in.
01/23/98
Liam Conway a Catholic construction
worker was murdered by loyalist gunmen
while
working.
01/24/98
John McColgan, Catholic taxi driver,
shot 5 times to the back of the head.
01/25/98
A Catholic Lorry driver was shot in the
shoulder by a loyalist gunman in Lurgan.
Also a pipe bomb was placed in the
driveway of a Carrickfergus Catholic
family.
01/25/98
Two Catholic homes in Larne had their
windows smashed.
01/26/98
Home of Catholic family in Craigyhill
petrol bombed.
01/27/98
Attempted murder in Belfast Taxi depot.
01/98
The RUC informed a Dungannon man of a
loyalist death threat against him.
The man has been the subject of intense
harassment by the crown forces including
having his
hoe photographed by the RUC and BA. He
has had previous threats made against
him by
the
RUC and BA. It is feared that the pics
taken of him and his home might be
handed over to a
loyalist death squad.
02/01/98
Two buses with passengers returning from
the bloody Sunday Commemoration were
attacked with rocks. Several people were
hospitalized with injuries from flying
glass.
Also two 12 year old girls returning on
a 3rd bus were struck by a hit and run
driver as they
got off the bus to use the restroom at a stop.
02/27/98
A bomb made of commercial grade
explosives ( possibly power gel a low
grade plastic
explosive) and with a commercial
detonator was placed in Carnlough. The
type of explosives
and detonator suggests that a mainstream
loyalist group was involved.
02/98
The windows of a wheel chair bound man
in Newington were smashed out.
02/98
Sectarian graffiti was painted on a
Derry Catholic school.
03/03/98
Two men were killed and two other people
injured when loyalist gunmen opened fire
on
customers in the Railway bar. The bar
was Catholic owned. The two men killed
were
reportedly good friends, one Catholic
and one Protestant.
03/14/98
A lurgan woman suspects the RIR may have
played a role in the attempted bombing
of her
home.
A shrapnel loaded bomb was found in a
box at their doorstep at 1:30 am Sat
morning. The
RUC was called 3 times. By the third
call more than 30 minutes had passed
The woman's husband and a Sinn Fein
councilor evacuated the area, when the
RUC had still
failed to arrive.
RIR involvement was suspected because of
the high saturation of their troops in
the area all
day Friday, including 3 jeeps pulled up
alongside the home earlier. In
fact the neighbors had thought the house
was being raided. Also a taxi driver
testified that by
12:30 a.m. the RIR had the area sealed
off.
The following day an RIR patrol warned a
neighbor "we'll have better luck next
time".
03/14/98
A bomb exploded outside a Catholic
woman's Carrickfergus home causing
structural
damage
to the home.
03/21/98
Approx 50 loyalist rioters tried to
force they way into a nationalist
neighborhood in N.
Belfast.
The home of an elderly couple was
damaged by a petrol bomb.
03/21/98
An 18 year old girl was burned on her
leg in a loyalist arsonist attack on her
Larne home.
03/29/98
A Catholic family in Greymount, N.
Belfast has decided to abandon their
home after the third
arson attack on their home. Another
catholic home and the
Star of the Sea youth club were also
attacked by petrol bombers this weekend.
04/04/98
A Catholic couple was attacked and
beaten while out shopping with their 3
children in
Annalong, Co Down.
04/06/98
A 12 year old child was hospitalized
with a fractured skull when a mob of
loyalists attacked
Catholic school children with bricks.
04/21/98
Adrian Lamph, a 29 year old catholic
council worker in Portadown, and father
of two was
assassinated. He was fatally shot by a
loyalist
04/25/98
Ciaran Heffron, a 22 year old Catholic
student was murdered in Crumlin, Co.
Antrim. He
was shot several times in the head just
hours after a loyalist rally in Antrim
led by DUP
Councilor Sammy Wilson. The LVF gunmen
believed responsible for the murder were
present at the rally where the crowd
proudly wore LVF t - shirts and shouted
" No
Surrender".
04/25/98
Two men were dragged from a cafe and
beaten in Castlederg after a loyalist
march. Other
Nationalists were also assaulted.
04/98
Also in April, a 21 yr.old man beaten
unconscious by loyalist gang, the sister
of murder
victim
Robert Hamill was harassed and
intimidated by loyalists, Loyalists
opened fire on Catholic
home in Ballycraigy estate, Antrim,
Steptoe's bar in Armagh was bombed
and there was an attempted abduction of
a Catholic man in Belfast. A number of
Nationalists were also given warning
that their names were on loyalist death
lists.
And attempted abduction of Catholic
woman in Belfast's Whitewell Road area.
05/98
A number of residents of the North
Belfast Whitewell estates were informed
by the RUC
that
they were on a hit list for loyalist
death squads.
Also many homes in the area have been
recently attacked by loyalist gangs and
2 cars were
burned.
05/01/98
A Newtonstewart couple was attacked
following a loyalist march.
05/05/98
Two Antrim UVF men tried to assassinate
a Catholic man in his Belfast Home. The
victim
had been driven form hi home in Antrim
by a brutal sectarian attack the
previous fall.
05/05/98
The Craigavon home of Sinn Fein
Councilor Brendan Curran was bombed.
Fortunately the
bomb did not break trough the window
before exploding.
05/08/98
A 15 year old boy was beaten in co
Antrim by a mob of loyalists with
sledgehammers and
bats.
05/09/98
05/09/98
The home of a Derry Catholic family was
attacked.
Attacks on Nationalist homes have become
a regular occurrence in North Belfast's
Newington area.
05/23/98
Loyalists have at last called off their
picketing of Harryville's Catholic
church. For 2 years
Loyalist mobs had attempted to prevent
residents from attending Mass by
subjecting them to
verbal abuse and physical assaualts.
05/25/98
A 12 year old Catholic school boy was
savagely beaten by two loyalist men
before his
rescue by passing motorists.
No motive for the attack is known other
than that the boy was wearing a uniform
for a
Catholic School.
05/28/98
A Portadown woman and her child were
sprayed with broken glass when a stone
broke
through the toddlers window.
A number of other homes in the Craigavon
area have also been attacked recently
05/30/98 - 05/31/98
A number of homes in N. Belfast's
Whitewell estate were damaged by rocks
and bricks
thrown by loyalists mobs. One Iron fence was torn down, but a second fence
prevented
loyalists from gaining direct access to
the estate.
05/98
Also in May:
A member of the women's coalition was
driven from her east Belfast home,
Catholic homes
in Portadown and Derry as well as
belfast were attacked, an attempt was
made on the life of
Francis McCourt,
06/04/98
Loyalists attack Nationalists in
Portadown, a number of residents were
hospitalized. Homes
and vehicles were attacked as well.
06/06/98
Loyalist attack on young Nationalists
near Ormeau rd.
06/98
The homes of North Belfast Nationalists
were attacked as tensions built prior
the "Tour of
the North March" later in June.
One families home had the roof damaged
allowing rain to flood the home.
06/25/98
A Lurgan man with his son and daughter
all three required hospital treatment
after an attack
by
loyalists while out shopping.
