Ned Kelly looks back at a year of concerted violence and attacks on the nationalist community of the Six Counties.

THE murder of GAA man Gerry Devlin on 5 December as he pulled up at the old St Enda's clubhouse in Glengormley, a mainly Protestant area of North Belfast, brings the number of Catholics murdered by loyalists in the last 18 months to seven.

The father of two had been part of an ongoing rebuilding programme at the club, which included a newly laid pitch and a new clubhouse which opened on the Friday after his death.

His murder came days after David Trimble publicly and falsely accused GAA followers of halting a Protestant church service in Pomeroy, County Tyrone.

Earlier in the year, on 11 May, Sean Brown, chair of Bellaghy GAA, was murdered shortly after Willie McCrea told the people of Mid-Ulster that they would ``reap a bitter harvest'' for Sinn Féin's electoral success.

Over the last 18 months five other Catholics were murdered. Michael McGoldrick was murdered at the height of last year's Garvaghy Road crisis.

On 14 March this year John Slane from Thames Street off the Falls Road was murdered by loyalists. The father of 10 was shot five times. Amid the grief, the British government, by their silence, colluded with the loyalist tactic of no claim, no blame. The press was also silent.

On 26 April in Portadown, a gang of 30 loyalists attacked a group of friends on their way home from a night on the town. 25-year-old Catholic man Robert Hamill was fatally wounded. Members of an RUC patrol failed to intervene but watched the incident from their jeep.

In the early hours of 15 July, a gunman murdered 18-year-old Bernadette Martin. Four shots were fired into her head as she lay sleeping at the home of her Protestant boyfriend in Aghalee, near to where Michael McGoldrick was killed the previous summer. Five days later the IRA suprised the world with a cessation of all military activity. On 24 July the badly mutilated body of 16-year-old James Morgan from Annesborough, County Down was found in an animal carcass pit. Loyalists are certainly to blame yet the RUC has yet to describe the murder as sectarian.

Ironically 1997 had started with David Trimble describing loyalist violence as somehow ``different''.

Over the year there were bombs at Sinn Fein offices. On 27 March the Dungannon Sinn Fein office was attacked. Ervine said the CLMC ceasefire was intact. Three days later a 100lb bomb exploded across the road from the Sinn Fein office in the New Lodge in Belfast. No warning, no claim, no blame. British `security' cameras opposite the office provided no clues.

On 21 April, bomb attacks on Sinn Fein offices in Derry and Monaghan could have resulted in serious loss of life. No warning, no claim and no blame.

The British general election was less than two weeks away. Then a week later a 100lb bomb exploded outside the Sinn Fein office on the Falls Road.

Throughout the summer churches were burnt out across the Six Counties, in Randalstown, Co. Antrim and Laurel Vale, County Armagh. The priest at Harryville, where loyalists preaching religious tolerance had been picketing the Catholic Church for 36 weeks, was attacked. And hours after Ian Paisley addressed a loyalist parade in Portadown, St MacNissi's in County Antrim was totally destroyed and St Comgalls in Antrim town attacked.

In May in North Belfast, a regular flashpoint, the British army and RUC looked on as loyalists besieged Catholic homes on the Limestone Road. Over that weekend, 17 Catholic homes were attacked and eight families forced to leave the Limestone area.

At the end of the month an Orange march was halted in Dunloy. The Mid-Ulster UVF issued a threat saying GAA officials either side of the border will be targeted if more Orange marches are re-routed. Homes were attacked in Lisburn, Larne, Derry and North Belfast. There were attempted kidnappings on the Lower Falls and Antrim Road.

These incidents only touch the surface of an insidious campaign of violence against nationalists that has been on-going despite the loyalist `ceasefire'. It makes no mention of the broken windows in schools and homes across the Six Counties, or the calculated and intense harassment generated in areas like Larne.

But most importantly, it doesn't take into account the combined impact of the loyalist `ceasefire' and its interaction with the `loyalist' RUC.

LVF link to Devlin murder

The gun used to kill GAA stalwart Gerry Devlin has been linked to previous LVF killings, according to RUC forensic evidence. Sinn Fein Six County Chairperson Gerry O'hEara has asked why it took over a week for the RUC to issue a statement linking the killing to the LVF.

The LVF is responsible for five murders since it grew out of the split in the UVF during the Drumcree stand-off in 1996. Despite the forensic evidence the LVF has yet to claim responsibility for any of the killings it has carried out.