The following list of sectarian and other hate-driven incidents and attacks is from 1 through 31 January 2003. The criteria we use for inclusion is based on the Commission for Racial Equality (CRE) criteria; if a person/organisation feels that the motivation for an attack against them was sectarian (or racist or homophobic), then it should be counted as such. We rely on a number of sources for our information, but this is by no means comprehensive. If you find incidents that have been left off the list please contact us.
January 2, Thursday. The Irish News reported a sectarian attack on Frankford Presbyterian Church, and a nearby Protestant primary school, on the outskirts of Castleblayney, Co. Monaghan on Sunday 29 December 2002. Property inside the Church was damaged, and equipment inside the school was destroyed. Sectarian slogans were daubed on a school blackboard, along with a claim that the attack was the work of the "Oram Mafia." Local residents said they were "shocked and angry" after the attacks. (IN)
January 4, Saturday. Linfield soccer fans sang banned anti-Catholic songs for the full 90 minutes during the Linfield v Cliftonville match at Linfield's home ground at Windsor Park, Belfast. (AN)
January 6, Monday. Loyalists planted a pipe bomb at Holy Cross Girl's School in Ardoyne, north Belfast. Local sources blamed the UFF/UDA's C company, loyal to Johnny Adair. (NBN, CW, PSNI)
William Hill (20) and Edward Hill (18), two brothers from Southport Court, Belfast, were charged in connection with the murder of David Cupples. The 22-year-old kitchen porter was fatally assaulted on December 22, 2002, on Cliftonpark Avenue because he had been mistaken for a Catholic. He died on Christmas Day (see December 2002 attacks). The pair were remanded in custody until February 3 (IN, UTV)
January 7, Tuesday. Former UVF supergrass Clifford McKeown, sentenced to 12 years on January 6 for weapons possession, was charged with the murder of Catholic taxi driver Michael McGoldrick during the 1996 Drumcree stand-off. The murder was said to be a "birthday present" for Billy Wright, and was one of the reasons Wright's supporters were expelled from the UVF and formed the LVF. (IN, CW)
At the trial of Clifford McKeown, who is alleged to have killed Catholic taxi driver Michael McGoldrick during the Drumcree crisis in 1996 on the orders of LVF leader Billy Wright, it emerged that the original plan had been to kidnap and murder three Catholic priests. Belfast Crown Court heard that the original plan had been to kidnap the priests from the parochial house in Gilford, Co. Armagh with the help of LVF killer Mark Fulton, to hold them and kill them if the Orangemen were not allowed to march down the Garvaghy Road in Portadown. The court heard that McKeown had confessed to McGoldrick's murder in an interview with journalist Nick Martin-Clarke in 1999. He denied the charge. (ITV)
January 8, Wednesday. It emerged that Father Aidan Troy, chaplain of the Holy Cross Girls' School in Ardoyne, was one of nine names read out to the Samaritans by loyalists after the planting of a pipe bomb at the school. The PSNI also later informed him that his name was on a list held by loyalist paramilitaries. (NBN, CW, IN)
January 9, Thursday. Former RUC Special Branch agent Phillip Joseph Blaney (37) was convicted of manslaughter for his part in a four-man pipe bomb attack during which 59-year-old Elizabeth O'Neill was murdered in her home in the mainly-loyalist Corcrain Estate in Portadown. Mrs O'Neill, a Protestant married to a Catholic, was one of several residents targeted by the gang because they belonged to mixed-religion relationships. (IN, UTV)
Sinn Fein warned nationalists in North Belfast to be vigilant after nine Ardoyne residents received death threats from the Orange Volunteers. (IN)
January 10, Friday. Alison McKeown, a Catholic mother-of-six, was cleared of murder but convicted of the manslaughter "by reason of provocation" of 16-year-old Protestant Thomas McDonald, knocked down and killed during sectarian disturbances in north Belfast in September 2001. Belfast's Laganside court had heard that Thomas McDonald had thrown a brick at the window of the McKeown's car and that in response she had driven onto the pavement and knocked him off his bicycle, killing him. Thomas McDonald's parents said they were outraged by the verdict. Ms McKeown was remanded in custody to await sentence. (IN, BBC)
Hoax parcel bombs signed "Catholic Reaction Force" - a name of convenience used in the past by the UDA when trying to raise sectarian tensions - were sent to two Protestant primary schools in north Belfast. (IN, IT)
Derry's gay community were warned to be alert following a string of attacks on gay men and women in the city in recent weeks. (DJ, CW)
Renegade Loyalist paramilitary leader Johnny "Mad Dog" Adair, whose Lower Shankill "C" Company of the UDA is thought to have been responsible for the majority of violent sectarian attacks in Belfast in recent years, was returned to Maghaberry prison after having his licence revoked by Secretary of State Paul Murphy. Adair, whose faction of the UDA has been engaged in a bloody feud with the "mainstream" UDA for some weeks, was said to be "furious" and intent on appealing the decision.(BBC, IN)
January 11, Saturday. Two presumed loyalists - both masked - "visited" the west Belfast home of Sinn Féin MLA Gerry Kelly before making off by car when they found he wasn't in. This incident follows one where a signet ring bearing UVF insignia was found close to his home in December. (IN)
The home of a couple in the mainly loyalist Linfield Avenue in Belfast was petrol bombed. It is not known whether or not the incident was sectarian. (PSNI)
January 12, Sunday. The priest officiating at a memorial ceremony to mark the first anniversary of the murder of 20-year-old Catholic postman Daniel McColgan, murdered by the UDA on January 12 2002, called for his killers to be brought to justice. Among the massive crowd were the families of local youths Gavin Brett and Gerard Lawlor, who were also killed by loyalists in the same area (see Attacks 2002). (IN, CW, BBC, AN)
January 14, Monday. It emerged that detectives investigating security force collusion in the murder of Belfast solicitor Pat Finucane in 1989 have interviewed Brigadier Sir Gordon Kerr, head of the secretive Force Research Unit at the time. It is Kerr who recruited Brian Nelson to infiltrate the UDA and take over the UDA's intelligence files to target people. Finucane's killers used one of his files. It would later emerge that the investigation team, headed by former Metropolitan Police Commissioner John Stevens, is to broaden the probe to look at MI5's activities.(G, PFC, BT)
January 14, Tuesday. A bus carrying supporters of Cliftonville Football Club was attacked as it left Portadown after a football match. Several passengers, including a 10-year-old boy, were injured. Cliftonville FC would be perceived as having a mainly Catholic support base. (IN)
January 19, Sunday. Nationalists firebombed a car in the driveway of the home of a Protestant woman and her three children in Torrens Crescent, north Belfast. (NBN, CW)
January 20, Monday. Eight men, six of whom were from Larne, were remanded at Laganside Magistrates court following their arrest after a UVF show of strength in Monkstown, north of Belfast, on January 19. A number of weapons were seized. (IN, BBC)
The Ulster Unionist Party has shelved plans to re-examine the official ties between the party and the anti-Catholic Orange Order at its annual conference on March 1. (BT)
January 22, Wednesday. Loyalists are believed to have been behind an arson attack on the home of a 64-year-old woman in the mainly Catholic Ligoniel area in north Belfast. It took rescuers three attempts to get the woman out of the house because of the severity of the smoke and the flames. (NBN, CW)
Father Aidan Troy, the Chaplain at the Holy Cross Girls' School in Ardoyne, north Belfast, received another death threat from loyalists. (See also January 8.) (IN)
Anne Bill, a community worker from the mainly Protestant Glenbryn estate in north Belfast, withdrew from the Forum for Peace and Reconciliation in Dublin following alleged threats to Protestant community workers from the IRA. Republicans denied that any threats had been made. (IN)
January 23, Thursday. The UDA threatened to "put out" a young pregnant Protestant woman and her children from the Glenbryn estate in north Belfast because she had allowed a Catholic cross-community worker from a local crèche to help her home. The Catholic woman was also threatened. (NBN, CW)
January 24, Friday. Loyalists attempted to kidnap a 21-year-old Ardoyne Catholic as he was on his way to a local bar. He fractured his hand fighting off his attackers when they tried to drag him into a car. (NBN, CW)
The Derry Journal revealed that the PSNI had advised senior members of the loyalist Apprentice Boys of Derry to review their personal security and said they would be investigating claims that that their personal details had fallen into the hands of the IRA. (DJ)
January 27, Monday. In north Belfast, loyalists attacked a Catholic home on the Limestone Road in spite of the presence of CCTV cameras. Asked whether they had caught the perpetrators on film, a PSNI officer told the family whose house was attacked that the cameras had been switched off at the time. The PSNI later denied this claim. The family have taken legal action to gain access to the footage. (IN, CW)
Loyalists firebombed the home of a Catholic couple and their two young children in Ashley Park, Dunmurry, on the outskirts of Belfast. The children's father put out the fire with a garden hose. The family car was also damaged. The house had until recently belonged to Robert Saulters, the current Grandmaster of the Orange Order, who extended his sympathy to the family. A shop belonging to the family on the Stewartstown Road was burned down in December. (IN, CW)
The Andersonstown News reported that a young Catholic mother of two had been ordered to leave the Greystone Estate in Antrim by the UVF. (AN)
Nationalists used a bulldozer to rip an eight-foot hole in the wall of Moree Orange Hall, near Dungannon, Co Tyrone. The hall, which has a history going back to 1797, was destroyed in an arson attack in1997. (IN, IT)
January 28, Tuesday. Four loyalists broke into and ransacked the home of a deaf Catholic woman on the mainly loyalist Antiville estate in Larne. During the attack they threatened her, broke her windows and threw TV sets through windows. The attack was widely condemned by local unionist councillors. (IN, CW)
Loyalists from Tigers' Bay petrol bombed several Catholic homes on the Limestone Road in north Belfast. (IN, CW)
January 29, Wednesday. For the second time in three years the personal details of a Catholic single mother from the Short Strand in east Belfast were discovered in the possession of loyalist paramilitaries. Paula Burns, a volunteer worker at the Short Strand community centre, who previously had to move out of her mother's house so as not to put her mother at risk, was told by PSNI officers that her details had been found on a computer disk following a raid on a premises on January 9. "How can it possibly take 18 days to tell someone they are under a death threat?" asked the young woman. Details of a number of other interface community workers were also found. (SBN, CW)
The North Belfast News reported that, following a request from the DUP's Ian Crozier, Belfast City Hall would ask the Department of Social Development for the former home of RUC Officer and Unionist MP John Nixon to be declared a national monument. Nixon masterminded the murder of numerous Catholics during the 1920s unionist pogroms in Belfast, including the infamous McMahon family murders. (NBN)
January 30, Thursday. Four members of Sinn Fein, including Antrim Councillor Martin Meehan, received death threats from the Red Hand Defenders, a cover name for the UDA. (IN, CW)
It emerged that former LVF leader Billy Wright had written a threat to kill murdered human rights Solicitor Rosemary Nelson into a diary, which was found in his cell after his death more than year before the Lurgan woman was assassinated by "loyalists". Death threats made by members of the security forces to Rosemary Nelson and allegations of security force collusion in her murder are currently being studied by Canadian judge Peter Corry, who will rule on whether there is to be an independent inquiry into her murder. Judge Corry is also studying Wright's death in Long Kesh in December 1997. (IN)
It was claimed that members of the UDA are using replica handguns to avoid prosecution if they are searched. This development follows allegations that the Real IRA had exchanged heavier weaponry for handguns with the UFF's C Company. These allegations were later denied. (IN, NBN)
Belfast DUP Councillor Ian Crozier described a planned concert as part of Belfast's St Patrick's Day celebrations as a "Provo fest". (NBN)
A 17-year-old from Portadown was sentenced to four months in prison for a sectarian attack in September 2002. The court heard that he had shouted "we've got a Fenian" after he and others had caught and attacked a youth they had been chasing. The resident magistrate said that he had "attacked this young man for no other reason than his religion." (AO)
Sources:
AN: Andersonstown News
BT: Belfast Telegraph
BBC: BBC radio and television news, BBC online, Radio Foyle
CW: Local community workers
DJ: Derry Journal
DN: Derry News
IN: Irish News
IT: Irish Times
ITN: Independent Television News
LS: Londonderry Sentinel
NBN: North Belfast News
NL: Newsletter
OB: Observer
PFC: Pat Finucane Centre
RM: RM Distribution
RUC/PSNI: Police Service of Northern Ireland (RUC) press office.
SBP: Sunday Business Post
SBN: South Belfast News
SI: Sunday Independent
ST: Sunday Tribune
UTV: Ulster Television