7–11 July - Drumcree conflict: A standoff over the annual Orange Order parade at Drumcree leads to rioting here and elsewhere in Northern Ireland.
This practice has been broken only once when, in 1999, the House of Bishops voted unanimously in public to endorse the efforts of the Archbishop of Armagh, the Diocese of Armagh and the Standing Committee of the General Synod in their attempts to resolve the crisis at the Church of the Ascension at Drumcree near Portadown.
The killings took place at the height of the stand-off over the Orange Order march at Drumcree, which created a tense atmosphere in various towns across Northern Ireland.
He received a national media award for comment and analysis in 1992 for Sunday Independent articles on the fall of Charles Haughey as Taoiseach and was awarded the 1998 Templeton European Religion Writer of the Year for articles in The Irish Times on Drumcree, the papal visit to Cuba that year, and articles criticisng the Irish Churches for failing to practise what they preached on reconciliation.