TUES. OCTOBER 3, 1995: The non-jury Dublin Special Court decided to request the British Lord Chief Justice of the Occupied Six Counties to have evidence in a forthcoming trial heard in a Belfast Crown Court. The trial concerns Noel Christopher Magee (34), a native of Leggs, Co Fermanagh, with an address at Ballyshannon, Co Donegal.
THURS. OCTOBER 5, 1995: At Belfast Crown Court two loyalists —Norman Green of Malvern Way and Thomas Porter of Tyndale Green, both in Belfast — were sentenced to 16 years and 15 years respectively for conspiring to murder a person or persons unknown and possession of a loaded .38 Smith and Wesson revolver with intent to endanger life. Séamus Heaney, the poet from County Derry, was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, the fourth such prize to be awarded to an Irish writer.
FRI. OCTOBER 6, 1995: Two people were injured when three men burst into their house in West Belfast's Glasvey Park. A man was dragged downstairs and hit several times with an iron bar. A woman received cuts to the face.
The number of people unemployed in the 26 Counties, according to figures supplied by the Irish National Organisation for the Unemployed is 305,650.
SAT. OCTOBER 7, 1995: Petrol was poured through the letter-box of a clothes shop in Molesworth Street, Cookstown, Co Tyrone and then ignited causing smoke damage. Also on the same day flammable liquid was poured into an Orange hall in Dundrod, Co Antrim after a window was smashed — the liquid failed to ignite.
The annual conference of the British Labour Party, delegates adopted a resolution re-affirming the Party's commitment to "Irish unity by consent" and commending the London/Dublin joint framework document "as the basis for all-party negotiations and agreement".
SUN. OCTOBER 8, 1995: A petrol bomb was thrown at a house in Portrush, Co Antrim. There was scorch damage to the front door. A couple and their children who were inside escaped injury. Another petrol bomb which was unlit was found outside. At Lighinmor Avenue in Ballymena, Co Antrim two homes were broken into on the ground floor of a flats complex, one was engulfed in flames. It was unoccupied at the time. A short time later a man was arrested.
The Tory majority of John Major's government in the British House of Commons has now dropped to seven following the defection of the Conservative MP Alan Howarth to the Labour Party.
MON. OCTOBER 9, 1995: Gerry Adams, Provisional Sinn Féin President, said that "The achievement of peace must involve a permanent end to all violence" repeating a precondition in the Downing Street Declaration of 1993.
TUES. OCTOBER 10, 1995: Michael Hegarty, Clare, who had spent eight days in the punishment block in Cork jail, was released on bail by the Special Court in Dublin. The Dublin Comhairle Ceantair of Republican Sinn Féin picketed the 26-County Department of Justice in Dublin in protest at the conditions under which he was held.
WED. OCTOBER 11, 1995: The British High Court ruled that Irish political prisoners in England will retain their 'Category A' status, which means they will continue to be denied any physical contact with their families during visits.
A demonstration by the Provisionals in Market Street, Lurgan, Co Armagh was subject to an unprovoked attack by the RUC after 10 minutes who hit out indiscriminately at the protesters with batons and boots, injuring several people.
THURS. OCTOBER 12, 1995: An advocate-general with the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg backed the claim by John Gallagher that the British breached EU law by deporting him to Dublin. The European Court is expected to deliver its binding decision early next year.
FRI. OCTOBER 13, 1995: Paddy Kelly, who is suffering from skin cancer in Whitemoor prison, was examined by an independent specialist, Dr Amil Shah, an Associate Professor of Medicine at the University of British Columbia, who said afterwards that he would report on Kelly's condition "within a week".
SAT. OCTOBER 14, 1995: The Committee on the Administration of Justice (CAJ) are to bring a case to the European Commission on Human Rights over the killing of eight members of the Provisionals' military wing and one civilian at Loughgall in 1987.
David Atkinson, a former member of the RUC, who was also an ex-British soldier, walked free from Belfast Crown Court after pleading guilty to handling stolen goods to the value of £350,000 on behalf of the British-backed death squad the UVF.
SUN. OCTOBER 15, 1995: A plainclothes RUC man fired a shot outside Peadar O'Donnell's Bar in Waterloo Street in Derry's city centre after he and another plainclothes policeman were recognised drinking in the pub and forced outside. No one was hurt and the two RUC members ran off towards the main RUC barracks at Strand Road.
The RUC provoked a confrontation with nationalists when they dragged a former prisoner and two women who were leaving a function in the Irish National Foresters' Club in Armagh out of a taxi and began beating them.
TUES. OCTOBER 17, 1995: Republican Sinn Féin held a press conference in Dublin to publicise the recent protest for political status by Republican prisoners in Limerick and Cork jails and to outline the atrocious conditions in the purpose-built 'punishment block' in Cork jail.
132 workers at the Liebert plant in Cork were given protective notice following rejection of cost-cutting measures put forward by the US-owned company.
WED. OCTOBER 18, 1995: A nationalist couple, Stephen and Angela Lismore and their children aged 11, nine and seven, narrowly escaped serious injury in the early hours of October 18 when petrol bombs were thrown at their home at the Black's Road area of west Belfast for the 56th time.
John Bruton, leader of the Rainbow Coalition which makes up the 26-County administration. confirmed that he was checking procedures for changing the National Anthem.
FRI. OCTOBER 20, 1995: The new British army commander in the Six Occupied Counties, Lieutenant-General Rupert Smith, is a member of the Parachute regiment and commanded the regiment's third battalion when they served in Ireland between 1982 and 1985.
The number of people out of work in the Six Counties is 105,100 according to the Irish National Organisation for the Unemployed.
SUN. OCTOBER 22, 1995: It was reported that the parachute regiment of the British army is being sent to the Occupied Six Counties in 1996 for another six-month tour of duty.
WED. OCTOBER 25, 1995: Three judges of Dublin's non-jury Special Criminal Court sat with a British judge in a court at Enniskillen, Co Fermanagh, hearing evidence against Noel Christopher Magee, who is charged under the Criminal Law Jurisdiction Act with the attempted murder of an off-duty UDR man in 1992.
THURS. OCTOBER 26, 1995: It was announced in the British House of Commons that legislation would be brought forward at the beginning of November to increase remission for political prisoners in the Six Counties to 50 per cent. However prisoners would be released on licence and can be recalled under certain conditions.
MON. OCTOBER 30, 1995: Two Irish political prisoners, Patrick Kelly from Co Laois who is suffering from skin cancer and Mick O'Brien from Dublin began their 100th day of blanket protest in Whitemoor prison in England.
TUES. OCTOBER 31, 1995: A bill to reintroduce 50 per cent remission to political prisoners in the Six Counties was passed by the British House of Commons and then went to the House of Lords.
Judge Wayne Iskra, a federal judge in the US ordered the deportation early in 1996 of Gabriel Megahey (52) from Belfast. Megahey went to the US in 1975 and later sought political asylum.
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