NI man held over island fire deaths of three sisters

Saturday/Sunday

Saturday/Sunday

The protest at Drumcree, where Orange Order marchers were again banned from walking down the nationalist Garvaghy Road, passed off quietly. Following The Way Forward joint statement by the Taoiseach and the British Prime Minister, Mr Ahern called on the IRA to make a statement to ease unionist fears over decommissioning.

Reports that the Northern Secretary, Dr Mo Mowlam, was to be moved from Belfast to a different cabinet post were dismissed as "bunkum" by British government sources.

Victoria "Posh Spice" Adams and footballer David Beckham were married at Luttrellstown Castle, Co Dublin.

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Monday

The British Prime Minister, Mr Blair, maintained pressure on the Ulster Unionist leader, Mr David Trimble, to accept the proposals in The Way Forward document to resolve the decommissioning crisis. The IRA leadership was reported to have had a meeting in Dublin to discuss a response to the document. However, there was no indication that the organisation was preparing any move to begin disarming.

Some 20,000 protesters in Belgrade called for President Slobodan Milosevic of Yugoslavia to resign.

Tuesday

Huge interest in shares in Tele com Eireann shares led the public to apply to buy three times more shares as would be available to them. As well as the 574,000 people who applied for shares, there was strong demand also from institutional investors. Reliable republican sources said the Provisional IRA had drawn up an inventory of its weapons which it may present to the international body on decommissioning chaired by Gen John de Chastelain. Three elderly sisters died in a fire on Inisbofin off the Connemara coast. Ms Eileen Coyne (82), lived on the island, and Ms Brigid McFadden (76) and Ms Margaret Concannon (72) were visiting her from England. The former minister for foreign affairs, Mr Ray Burke, took the stand at the Flood tribunal for the first time, although his testimony was delayed by a legal attack on its procedures.

Counsel for the Fine Gael leader, Mr John Bruton, told the Moriarty tribunal he accepted that the chairman, Mr Justice Moriarty, had notified the party of his shares in Cement Road stone before he was appointed as the tribunal's sole member.

Wednesday

The offer price of Telecom Eireann shares was set at £3.07 (€3.90), higher than expected. The Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, nominated the Attorney General, Mr David Byrne, for the European Commission, saying he was "losing a colleague of enormous experience". Former Progressive Democrats TD Mr Michael McDowell was appointed Attorney General to replace Mr Byrne.

Nationalists accused the Orange Order of deliberate provocation after its decision to switch its July 12th march to the Ormeau Road in protest at the Parades Commission's decision to ban the local Ballynafeigh lodge from the nationalist part of the road.

Mr Ray Burke told the Flood tribunal that a portion of the £30,000 that Mr James Gogarty gave to him on behalf of Joseph Murphy Structural Engineering (JMSE) was still held in a "political fund". The tribunal heard that "very substantial sums" of money were passing through Mr Burke's bank accounts at the time of Mr Gogarty's payment in June 1989. Mr Burke said he had acted with the "utmost probity" at all times in his career.

Thursday

A conflict arose between the Taoiseach and the British Prime Minister over whether Sinn Fein was now a separate organisation from the IRA. Mr Ahern said they were two separate organisations but senior police sources on both sides of the Border supported Mr Tony Blair's stated view that the two organisations were "inextricably linked".

Shares in Telecom Eireann closed on the Irish Stock Exchange at £3.64 (€4.62), 19 per cent above the flotation price. Dealers estimated that more than 100 million shares - 10 per cent of those sold by the Government - changed hands during the first day of trading on the Dublin, London and New York markets. Frantic early dealing in Dublin saw the shares soar almost 36 per cent to a high of £4.17 (€5.30), making Telecom briefly the most valuable stock on the Irish market.

A man was remanded in custody in connection with the fatal fire on Inisbofin, Mr Alan Murphy (25), a waiter, from Newcastle, Co Down, with an address at Market Street, Clifden, was charged at Clifden District Court with manslaughter and arson. Mr Burke told the tribunal that an unnamed donor gave him £35,000 just a week before he received the controversial payment of £30,000 from JMSE in June 1989. This contradicted Mr Burke's Dail statement of September 1997 when he claimed that £30,000 was the "largest contribution" he had received during an election campaign.

The Moriarty tribunal heard that former Taoiseach Mr Charles Haughey benefited from more than £300,000 in capital borrowed and interest paid by the late P.V. Doyle. The hotelier took out two loans for Mr Haughey's benefit.

Arthur Beesley

Arthur Beesley

Arthur Beesley is Current Affairs Editor of The Irish Times