Inside the UDA: Volunteers and Violence

Inside the UDA Volunteers and Violence

Colin Crawford Foreword by Marie Smyth

Pluto

P

Press

LONDON • DUBLIN • STERLING, VIRGINIA

First published 2003 by Pluto Press 345 Archway Road, London N6 5AA and 22883 Quicksilver Drive, Sterling, VA 20166–2012, USA Distributed in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland by Columba Mercier Distribution, 55A Spruce Avenue, Stillorgan Industrial Park, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland. Tel: + 353 1 294 2556. Fax: + 353 1 294 2564 www.plutobooks.com Copyright © Colin Crawford 2003 The right of Colin Crawford to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 0 7453 2107 0 hardback ISBN 0 7453 2106 2 paperback Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Crawford, Colin, 1948– Inside the UDA : volunteers and violence / Colin Crawford ; foreword by Marie Smyth. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 0–7453–2107–0 (hardback) –– ISBN 0–7453–2106–2 (pbk.) 1. Ulster Defence Association––History. 2. Northern Ireland–– Politics and government. 3. Paramilitary forces––Northern Ireland––History––20th century. 4. Political violence––Northern Ireland––History––20th century. 5. Northern Ireland––History, Military. 6. Unionism (Irish politics) I. Title. DA990.U46C726 2003 941.60824––dc21 2003011541 10

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Designed and produced for Pluto Press by Chase Publishing Services, Sidmouth, EX10 9QG, England Typeset from disk by Stanford DTP Services, Towcester, England Printed and bound in the European Union by Antony Rowe, Chippenham and Eastbourne, England

In memory of Cassie, 2003

Contents

Abbreviations Acknowledgements Foreword by Marie Smyth 1

ix x xi

Introduction to the Conflict in Northern Ireland 800 Years of Troubled History The Roles of the IRA and of the UDA/UFF in the Conflict Since 1969

1 1 5

2

Researching the UDA The Probation Service, Long Kesh and Political Prisoners Specific Methodology

10 10 16

3

The UDA/UFF: History, Organisation and Structure A Brief History of the UDA/UFF A Paramilitary Organisation? A Working-class Organisation? Strategy and Tactics: Selective Targeting versus Random Killing Infiltration by the Police and the Security Forces Collusion Between Elements of the British Security Forces and Members of the UDA/UFF From Paramilitaries to a Politicisation of the Conflict

20 20 24 30

42 46

Phase One: Beginnings – the UDA’s Chaotic Sectarian War of the 1970s Sam Duddy ‘Ken’ ‘Billy’ John White

51 51 63 76 89

Phase Two: The 1980s UDA/UFF – from Infiltration to Reorganisation ‘Terry’ ‘Jackie’

97 97 112

4

5

vii

32 39

viii

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Inside the UDA

Phase Three: The Mid-1980s UDA/UFF – Travelling Gunmen and the Selective Strategy ‘Gary’ Michael Stone

127 127 143

Phase Four: The 1990s – the Selective Strategy and Retaliatory Sectarian Murder ‘Tommy’ Johnny Adair ‘Gordon’ ‘Alan’

154 154 165 173 183

Phase Five: The UDA/UFF 1993 – the Shankill Bomb and the Greysteel Massacre Combatant A Combatant B Combatant C Combatant D

193 193 196 202 206

Conclusion Bibliography Index

210 218 221

Abbreviations

ASU CO DUP FRU INLA IRA IRB IRSP LVF

MI5 PUP RHC RIR RUC SAS SASU SDLP UDA

UDP UDR UFF UPRG UUP UVF

active service unit. Commanding Officer. Democratic Unionist Party. Forces Research Unit. A British Security Forces Unit drawing upon MI5, Army intelligence and Police (RUC) Special Branch. Irish National Liberation Army. A small republican terrorist group. Irish Republican Army. Irish Republican Brotherhood. Irish Republican Socialist Party. Loyalist Volunteer Force. A small but dangerous and fanatical group, considered to be ‘outside’ mainstream paramilitary loyalism. Military Intelligence, Section 5. Progressive Unionist Party. The party which represents the UVF/RHC politically. Red Hand Commando. Closely linked to the UVF, this is considered to be a small but elite loyalist paramilitary group. Royal Irish Regiment. Royal Ulster Constabulary (Police). Special Air Service. special active service unit. Social Democratic and Labour Party (of Northern Ireland). Ulster Defence Association. The largest of all the paramilitary groups in Northern Ireland, and possibly in the Western world. Ulster Democratic Party. The party which represented the UDA/UFF politically. Ulster Defence Regiment. Ulster Freedom Fighters. The more militant ‘military wing’ of the UDA. Ulster Political Research Group. Ulster Unionist Party. Ulster Volunteer Force. The second largest loyalist paramilitary organisation in Northern Ireland. ix

Acknowledgements

I should wish to thank the officers and men of the Ulster Defence Association, the Ulster Freedom Fighters, the Ulster Democratic Party and the Ulster Political Research Group for their help and for contributions to this work. I was afforded a very special access to the organisation which was greatly appreciated. I hope that this work meets the expectations which were placed upon it, in recording a history of the UDA. Thanks also to my wife Gillian for her patience in giving me the time and space to write and to finish this work. Most of all, however, I should wish to thank my colleague and friend Marie Smyth, of the Institute for Conflict Research. This work may have remained unpublished had it not been for her academic guidance, and more particularly her connections within the literary and publishing world. Also to Julie Stoll in Pluto Press whose French flair assisted greatly in the coherency of the book. Finally, I should wish to thank all those many people, loyalist and republican, whose political vision and courage are helping to bring peace to our shared country.

x

Foreword Marie Smyth

In the context of a growing global interest in non-state military actors, this book sets out to provide an account of the Ulster Defence Association (UDA) and it more militant wing, the Ulster Freedom Fighters (UFF), and their role in Northern Ireland’s troubles. It is produced in the global context of George Bush’s war against terrorism, and growing interest in understanding the origins, modus operandi and motivations of such organisations. Some seek this understanding in order to overcome such organisations militarily. Others seek to understand the political and social circumstances that give rise to the formation and proliferation of violent non-state intervention. In the local context of Northern Ireland, the book appears at a particularly challenging time for loyalist politics in general, and for the UDA in particular. In the wake of the Good Friday Agreement, unionism and loyalism have faced the challenges involved in the transformation of Northern Ireland politics, from direct rule to a locally devolved assembly. This has required substantial changes in unionist/loyalist and nationalist/republican political behaviour. For Loyalists it has meant moving from a position where they shunned republicans, refusing even to be in the same room as them, to one where they sat together with them in government. For those within the ranks of the paramilitaries, it has meant the transition – albeit imperfect – from militarism to democratic politics. For the UDA, the subject of this book, this transition has not been easy, for a number of reasons. Perhaps most importantly, the organisation has enjoyed a very limited amount of success in electoral politics. It has been observed that unionist constituents do not readily vote for parties with paramilitary links. Both political parties associated with loyalist paramilitaries, the Ulster Democratic Party (UDP), which is associated with the UDA, as well as the Progressive Unionist Party (PUP) associated with the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF), have struggled to become electorally viable. The PUP, however, has met with more success than the UDP, winning two assembly seats whereas the UDP won none. The UDP eventually folded as a political party and was xi

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replaced with an interim organisation, the Ulster Political Research Group (UPRG), whose task it was to reform, unify and revitalise the political operation of the UDA and its political associates. However, the disputes within the UDA, the UDP and latterly the UPRG mirror the wider pattern of dissention and division with unionism and loyalism in the post-Agreement period. Splits and vitriolic disputes within the mainstream Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) were marked from the early days of the Agreement by Jeffrey Donaldson’s walkout at the time of the signing of the Agreement. This was followed by the outbreak of a series of loyalist feuds, within and between loyalist paramilitaries, the most serious of which was between the UVF and the UDA from 2000 onwards. The result of these disputes was the internal segregation of some loyalist workingclass communities, separating UVF and UDA supporters from each other. Nor was life within the Ulster Defence Association unmarked by division. (In September 2002, they expelled Johnny Adair, the Commander of C Company in the Lower Shankill, and his associate, John White, who appears in this volume.) There are three kinds of substantive causes of these disputes: the tension between militarism and politics; the tension between those for and those against the Belfast Agreement; and the tension between those motivated by personal gain and involved in crime, racketeering and drug trafficking. MILITARISM VERSUS POLITICS The first tension, between militarism and politics, is between those who espouse militaristic solutions to political problems, in opposition to those who tend to choose the political path. There has been much debate in Northern Ireland among paramilitaries in general and their supporters about the effectiveness of politics, compared with that of violence. Some argue that violence works, that Sinn Fein would not have had two ministers in the Northern Ireland Assembly had not the Irish Republican Army (IRA) bombed and shot its way into the political arena. There are other examples. One referred to by Mo Mowlam in her account of her time as Secretary of State for Northern Ireland was the infamous ‘lesser of two evils’ decision at Drumcree (Mowlam, 2002: 97). Orangemen were allowed to march through a Catholic estate at Drumcree in 1999, because the Chief Constable argued that, if they were prevented, the violence that resulted would

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be worse than the violence emanating from the Catholic community. Therefore, on that basis, the Orangemen were allowed to march. In a militarised society, evidence is plentiful to support the argument that it is might not right that often prevails. Within loyalism, then, to argue for the adoption of an exclusively political path is to face the accusation of having ‘sold out’ unionism and loyalism by abandoning the battle against the IRA. Support for a military engagement has a wider currency within unionism. Both the UUP and Paisley’s Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), while eschewing paramilitary activity themselves, have argued that the IRA should to be defeated militarily by the use of the security forces. Both parties would see themselves having special links with the security forces, many police and RIR members are DUP or UUP supporters, and both parties have argued against the reforms of the police proposed by the Patten report. So even within parties that have no paramilitary link, military solutions are favoured for the problems of Northern Ireland. Yet the argument that ‘terrorists’ should be defeated by military means is not without its contradictions. The first contradiction, British military or loyalist paramilitary action directed, in this case, against republicans has arguably provided and maintained a context in which the IRA has been easily able to continue to recruit those who wish to defend their community against such patent threats. For example, the IRA was inundated with recruits after Bloody Sunday, when the British Paratroop regiment killed 14 Catholic civilians on a civil rights march in 1972. So, military strategy may be counterproductive, in that it can serve to escalate, not end, conflict. The second, the pursuit of a physical force solution may be difficult to present and justify in the political domain, and may risk the loss of the moral high ground. This is inevitably politically dangerous, and in the post-conflict period has been played out within paramilitary groups as the tension between gangsterism on the one hand and bona fide politics on the other. This second contradiction is particularly pertinent to this book. Within these pages, those who have pursued strategies such as the use of sectarian assassination of Catholics articulate their feelings and thoughts about their past actions. Were these actions morally justifiable or were the individual actors criminals or psychopaths? Were they dupes of the state, used and discarded when their usefulness was over? Were they heroes, taking up arms for a political cause and in defence of their communities and political heritage? Or were they victims of circum-

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stances, the accident of birth into a loyalist community? Would we, the readers, have done likewise if we had been similarly born and reared? It is a topic that Crawford addresses, but one on which it is difficult to reach independent conclusions without reverting to default sectarian positions. The physical force argument has been taken up with some gusto by the Bush administration in the United States in the wake of the al-Qaeda attack of 11 September 2001, and thus been provided with a new global currency. It is one thing, however, when a state government declares war on terrorism, and quite another when nonstate actors takes the law into their own hands, deciding to prosecute their own war, albeit on the side of the state, on their own terms. This, in essence, is what the UDA did. Indeed, the evidence now points to collusion and cooperation between the state and the UDA. The UDA were fighting for the state, not against it. Yet those who take up arms in order to defend the state, but operate outside that state’s law, paint themselves into a peculiar political and moral corner. This dilemma is more than a matter of historical interest. It is a contemporary political struggle for those who now wish to pursue a political rather than paramilitary path, and who now must explain their own past to themselves and to their electorate. PRO- VERSUS ANTI-AGREEMENT The other context for disputes within and between loyalist organisations has been the shifting attitude of the unionist community as a whole to the Agreement. Unionists and loyalists have become increasingly divided in their attitude from the late 1990s onwards. Whereas at the time of the referendum on the Good Friday Agreement, it was estimated that half of unionists supported the Agreement, support has subsequently steadily declined. This is partly due to a perception among some loyalists that the Good Friday Agreement is a bad deal for loyalists and represents a shortcut to a united Ireland. Some also allege that those who sit in political negotiations in local government or in the Assembly, with republicans in particular but also with other rival loyalists, are betraying the cause for which loyalists have fought and died. The UDP’s failure to win a seat in the Assembly elections of 1998, and their general lack of much electoral success, has fuelled this tension. It has been assumed by Mo Mowlam and others that inclusion in dialogue and the political process is an effective prophylactic against a return to violence. The

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exclusion – albeit democratic – of the UDP from the Assembly is perhaps one factor in their continuing volatility and internal division. CRIME VERSUS POLITICAL IDEALS The final tension within and between loyalist paramilitaries is related to their involvement in gangsterism, racketeering and drug trafficking. Although those close to the UVF would contest that that organisation is heavily involved in these activities, few who know the UDA would argue that there has been heavy involvement by UDA members in a range of illegal activities, and much of that activity has been for personal, not political gain. Turf wars over territory are related to racketeering and drug trafficking, and latterly, competitive recruitment of young people by the two main loyalist groups has made unaligned loyalist young people the subject of another form of turf war. John White, among others, has called for an end to racketeering and illegal activity and a return to politics. However, the presence of competing financial interests within the organisation makes it volatile and liable to internal disputes. This book is a privileged account of the UDA and the UFF, and their role in Northern Ireland’s troubles. The author gained the trust of his informants, themselves members and former members of these organisations, during his time as a probation officer in the jails. It is written with their consent, knowledge and cooperation, and this has shaped the kind of access that Colin Crawford has had in the preparation of this book. The production of this book has been judged by some of the members of these organisations, if not the organisations themselves, to be an important contribution to the documentation of the history of the organisation, and thereby to its understanding of itself and its own history and dynamics. Yet this very support and cooperation raises issues about the work itself, its objectivity as well as the ethical propriety of publishing it. Does it advance the cause of terrorists? Does it glorify the deeds it recounts? Does writing and publishing such a book serve any legitimate historical or political purpose? One concern about this kind of account is that it gives comfort to those who deserve none, and that those who produce such work are apologists for terrorists. The combatants interviewed in this book are presented inter alia as victims of circumstance. Their family backgrounds, their own losses or anger at losses in the Protestant community provide the context for the choices they made to take up

xvi

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arms and in some instances to kill or to attempt to do so. Unfortunately, suffering and victim status has often been used in Northern Ireland in order to justify acts of violence or damage done to those associated with the victimiser. Subjective perceptions of victimisation provide a context for the motivation to take up arms in some of these accounts. Yet this fails to explain why others in similar positions do not do take up arms or harm others. A more robust analysis of the motivation of those represented in this work must take into account factors such as age, gender, educational level and social class. These are all males who became involved as adolescents or young men. All of them came from working-class backgrounds and none was bound for third-level education. The inclusion of their perceptions of their own suffering does, however, attempt to engage the sympathy of the reader, and no doubt engaged the sympathy of Crawford himself. As a probation officer, he was professionally tasked with helping these men with their personal and intimate problems, and with helping to rehabilitate them. Crawford himself has struggled with his role in relation to both loyalist and republican prisoners. As a result of his work in the prisons, and his subsequent research for an earlier book, he formed personal relationships with some of the loyalist informants in this volume. Robbens (1995, in Sluka, 2000) whose work involved an ethnography of Argentinian generals who had perpetrated dreadful acts of violence, describes what he calls his ‘ethnographic seduction’, where he began to like these men after they became his hosts. Any sympathetic portrayal of these men will be repugnant to many. Some such as Abu-Lughod (1993) argue that a humanistic approach, which includes, for example, the family background data, should only be used in circumstances where the aim is to broaden support for a particular group. The inclusion of personal details challenges the reader to see those portrayed here as similar to the rest of us, with families, uncertainties, unresolved issues, in short as human beings. Bornstein, in his analysis of his own study of the Intifada argues that: For those not immediately threatened by violence … commitments are often shaped by emotions of fear or empathy largely in response to narratives of suffering of others. Because of the empathetic power of suffering, different groups will actively seek to make it useful in different ways. Victims might speak to bring order to their psychic disorders, social workers quantify and classify

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suffering to move their own agenda, politicians invoke the victimized to bolster their legitimate rule, later generations act in the name of honouring those long dead and academics and intellectuals speak or write of violence to give important relevance to their work. (Bornstein, 2001: 550–1) Kleinman and Kleinman describe stories of trauma as ‘the currency, the symbolic capital, with which [victims] enter exchanges for physical resources’ (Kleinman and Kleinman, 1997: 10). This book, while perhaps useful as an accumulation of the Kleinmans’ ‘symbolic capital’, is not simply a bid for sympathy. It simultaneously presents the suffering of the informants alongside their acts of violence, their killings and attempts at killing. It is, at one and the same time, an insider account written empathically, and an account written with one eye on the perception of this group of loyalists by outsiders, perhaps even by republicans. It appears contradictory and uncomfortable at times, perhaps for this reason, and one other. Those inside the UDA and UFF are, indeed, human beings, with insecurities, feelings, blind spots, and have more in common with the rest of us than is, perhaps, comfortable to admit. Such accounting is politically important. The setting out of these contradictions affords a better understanding of these men, and facilitates the development of a deeper and more robust analysis of their organisation and politics. This book appears at a time when interest in the process of postconflict truth recovery has been awakened in Northern Ireland. A group calling itself Healing Through Remembering published a report in June 2002 pointing to the value of personal accounts and storytelling as a method of constructing a diverse and inclusive history of the conflict. The truth that is recovered by such processes is not singular, but multiple. There have been few accounts from paramilitary combatants, and this book addresses that scarcity. The book is also germane to the controversy surrounding the alleged collusion between the security forces and loyalist paramilitaries in Northern Ireland. As I read the earlier drafts of the book, it became clearer how this collusion operated. As Northern Ireland struggles to establish policing and security that is independent and deals equitably with those who break the law from both communities, the accounts in this book add to the available evidence on the relationship between sections of the security forces and the paramilitary groups. That more of the loyalist side of that story is now on record in the public domain is an important contribution to truth recovery, and to public

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understanding of relationships between the security forces and the UDA in particular. This book adds something to the understanding of one issue, related to one central activity of the UDA/UFF, that of the sectarian killing of Catholic civilians. For many, particularly those from the nationalist community who were its targets, this has been the most repugnant part of this organisation’s operation. In this book, the portrayal of the UDA/UFF as a ‘people’s army’ with a loose affiliation across many loyalist communities in Northern Ireland, where the boundaries between members and non-members are blurred, suggests that perhaps the concept of a civilian – particularly a Catholic civilian – is not clear. Certainly, the IRA killing of police officers, who were almost all Protestants, was perceived by many in the loyalist community primarily as the killing of Protestants, not, as republicans would see it, as the killing of combatants representing the state. There does not seem to be a clear distinction within the accounts and analysis in this book between the political meaning of targeting those who bear arms, and killing those who do not bear arms and are not involved in combat. From a subjective viewpoint, this book is painful and shocking to read. It was my neighbours who were killed in the Greysteel killings. The lack of remorse in one of the accounts published here makes it even more painful. One would wish to protect those bereaved by these men from reading some of their proud, unrepentant statements. It has also, no doubt, been a difficult book to produce. Spending long hours immersed in such terrible stories casts a deep shadow over one’s own life. Colin Crawford has brought these stories into the public domain as a result of remaining in these shadows, without distancing himself from those he interviewed, and without disowning his human connection to them. This is a great risk to take, and no doubt some will condemn him for it. Although the analysis in this book will not be palatable to many, it is nonetheless important that, as a result of Crawford’s efforts, we can know a little more about the hidden side of loyalism, and the perspectives of those who have killed out of loyalty. This goes some way to filling a gap in existing published material. Bowyer Bell, on the topic of documentation and analysis of loyalism, wrote: Such [a] history is especially difficult because increasingly the lethal loyalists were so few, so haltingly structured, so transient

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and inarticulate, and thus, almost always beyond analytical reach. (Bowyer Bell, 1993: 300) This work goes some way to addressing that shortfall within the burgeoning material on Northern Ireland. In terms of the corresponding gap in the documentation on state terror Jeffrey Sluka points out: while there is now a massive literature on antistate terrorism, state terror has been neglected by academics, the media and governments. The reasons for this have been more political and ideological than empirical. (Sluka, 2000: 1) It is only through improving our understanding of the experience of all the citizens of Northern Ireland, and by including all shades of political opinion in political and historical documentation and dialogue, that lasting peace can be achieved.

Marie Smyth Washington DC November 2002

Marie Smyth is CEO of the Institute for Conflict Research in Northern Ireland, a Lecturer in School of Policy Studies, University of Ulster and a Jennings Randolph Senior Fellow at the United States Institute of Peace in Washington DC.

1

Introduction to the Conflict in Northern Ireland

800 YEARS OF TROUBLED HISTORY Relationships between Britain and Ireland have been historically characterised by conflict and discord. A comparative peace had been established by the turn of the twentieth century when Ireland was an integral part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and was democratically represented at Westminster, in common with Scotland and Wales. However, Irish ‘Home Rule’, or independence from Britain, was always high on the (Catholic) Irish political agenda. The First World War (1914–18) involved a conflict between Germany, and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Thousands of Irish men joined (British) Irish and British regiments, serving with distinction in the allied trenches. The Irish population at that time were described as being ‘never more loyal to Britain’ as the kingdom united in war. This was the unlikely background to the Easter Rising in Dublin (1916), involving the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) and IRA. The IRA occupied the main post office in Connolly Street, Dublin, proclaiming Irish freedom from Britain. Irish citizens on the streets of Dublin found it difficult to comprehend the bizarre events unfolding before them. There is no doubt that this ‘rising’ did not enjoy popular support with the Irish people, and 300 civilians, 60 ‘rebels’ and 130 British troops were killed in a level of conflict not witnessed in Ireland for 100 years. Many jeered the IRA men as they were paraded through the streets as prisoners. But the rising was not as it seemed; the rising had been predicated upon the need for a ‘blood sacrifice’, in the cause of a United Ireland. The equation was psychological in nature, a gesture of rebellion, in the full realisation of the likely draconian British military response. And in this regard Britain did not disappoint the strategists of the IRA and IRB. To gain sufficient popular support the IRA had to occupy the role of ‘victim’ and the British that of the ‘oppressor’. This simple strategy was employed, in the certainty of its success. The British military establishment was challenged by the poets, writers and visionaries within 1

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Introduction

the ranks of the IRA and IRB as the tenure of British rule in Ireland became increasingly untenable. Not for the first time in Ireland it was the prison issue which marshalled popular support for the rebels. The leaders of the rising were shot by firing squad including James Connolly who was executed while sitting on a chair, unable to stand with an ankle wound. The IRA prisoners, who were treated as ordinary criminal offenders, began protesting for ‘political status’ or ‘prisoner of war status’. IRA prisoners were both being shot and brutalised as public sympathy swayed away from the British and towards the IRA. The IRA’s strategy was, demonstrably, working, with a direct correlation between escalating British oppression and support for the rebel IRA. In 1917 the first of the protesting IRA prisoners died through forcible feeding while on hunger strike. The London Daily Express commented, in relation to this single gruesome event: ‘Ashe’s funeral has made 100,000 Sinn Feiners [i.e. IRA supporters] out of 100,000 constitutional nationalists.’ The centrality of the prison/prisoner issue in Irish conflicts was, and not for the last time, being demonstrated. A second IRA prisoner, Terence McSwiney, a former mayor of Cork died after 73 days on hunger strike during 1920, in Brixton prison, London. This had, again not for the last time, drawn international attention to the cause of Irish protesting prisoners, significantly alienating the Catholic church and much of the Catholic Irish population. The conflict in Ireland had in the meantime deteriorated in a virtual guerrilla war between the IRA, the Royal Irish Constabulary and the Black and Tans, a ruthless auxiliary British force. The vast majority of the ordinary Irish people were caught between these warring groups. But as British oppression and reprisal became more extreme there was little doubt where Irish loyalty would lie. Britain’s ‘Irish problem’ was spiralling out of control, and causing embarrassment nationally and internationally, as liberal pressure mounted for some form of political compromise. In the ‘Protestant North’ of Ireland, however, unionists and loyalists organised to resist Irish Home Rule. The UVF was formed and by 1912 its membership numbered some 100,000 men. The unionist and loyalists in the North of Ireland at that time had the support of the British political and military establishment. Addressing assembled UVF men Bonar Law, leader of the British Conservative Party, pledged that ‘they will not be wanting help from across the Channel when the hour of battle comes’. A retired English General

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3

of the Indian Army was placed in command of the UVF, the appointment having been arranged by Field Marshall Lord Roberts. In 1914 gun running into the northern ports of Bangor and Larne resulted in the importation of 24,000 rifles and 3,000,000 rounds of ammunition, augmenting the existing 16,000 rifles. The British Army in Ireland when asked about their disposition to ‘coerce Ulster’, i.e. engage the UVF militarily, replied that they’d rather face dismissal. The event was immortalised as the ‘Curragh Mutiny’. An Anglo-Irish Treaty was signed in December 1921, by an Irish delegation representing the IRA and the British cabinet. Michael Collins, Commander of the IRA, reportedly commented having signed the Treaty, ‘I have signed my death warrant.’ This observation proved to be prophetic. The Treaty provided for independence for 26 of the 32 counties of Ireland, which was to be called the ‘Irish Free State’ and not the Irish Republic, which the IRA had fought for. The term ‘Ulster’ wasn’t to be mentioned during the talks; instead the ‘six counties’ could opt out of the newly created Free State. Effectively 26 counties in southern Ireland were given relative independence from Britain, whereas Ulster, reflecting the (Protestant) majority will of the people, elected to remain British. Significantly the signing of the Treaty caused a split within the IRA which has been discernible in the ranks of republicans from that time to the present. Collins’ men in the ‘old IRA’ became part of the Free State Army, while an anti-treaty IRA was formed determined to fight on for total Irish independence from Britain. Ireland had been deeply destabilised by events across what was by then the Ulster border, with 30 people killed in a single night. Catholic refugees streamed out of Ulster and into the new Free State. Collins, now caught in the double bind of having to accept the integrity of the new state, but wishing to defend nationalists in the north made his ‘could not stand idly by’ speech. This was a prelude to his arming those who were by now his enemies, the anti-treaty IRA in the north, for the protection of Catholics in the new state. The Irish Civil War broke out in 1922 between what was now the Irish Army and the anti-treaty IRA. During eight days of fighting in Dublin 60 people were killed and 300 wounded. Collins now engaged the anti-treaty IRA with the same ferocity as he had the British. In a history replete with irony he procured 10,000 rifles from the British and recruited into the Irish Army former professionals from the Royal Irish Constabulary, and the British and American armies. On 22

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August 1922 Michael Collins was killed by the anti-treaty IRA while travelling in his open-top Rolls-Royce car, his armed escort unable to save him. The war escalated as the Irish Prime Minister William Cosgrave assumed power determined to stamp his authority on the ‘rebels’. An Emergency Power Bill was introduced allowing for IRA men taken in arms to be shot. Seventy-seven executions were carried out during the following seven months. Thirty-four IRA men were executed in January 1923 alone in nine different Irish towns. Eamon de Valera eventually gave the order, endorsed by the anti-treaty IRA, ‘soldiers of the rearguard, dump arms’. ‘Other means must be sought to safeguard the nation’s right.’ The Irish Civil War was over, however the anti-treaty IRA’s war was far from forgotten. In 1921 the then IRA had agreed a ‘partitionist settlement’ with Britain separating the Irish and Catholic south and the mainly Protestant and British north. Some 75 years later, in 1998, 94.4 per cent of the population of the Republic of Ireland voted for the Good Friday Agreement predicated upon a partitionist settlement and an internal resolution of the Northern Ireland conflict. This could be seen as a distinctly unsympathetic disposition in the Republic toward those in the Provisional IRA, and others, fighting a terrorist campaign for ‘Irish freedom’, or Irish independence from Britain. (Alternatively this may have reflected a desire to limit any future conflict to the north.) Again in 1998 Sinn Fein, the political representatives of the Provisional IRA, embraced both the peace process and a partitionist settlement, apparently in direct contravention of the IRA’s own Standing Orders. In the Sinn Fein Ard Fheis convened in May 1998 96 per cent, 331 of the 350 delegates, voted in favour of the Belfast Agreement, permitting Sinn Fein members to sit in the Northern Ireland Assembly. In so doing they embraced the reality accepted by Michael Collins some 77 years earlier. Almost one million Protestants and countless others with allegiance to Britain in Northern Ireland would not be coerced into a united Ireland. At the heart of the conflict in Northern Ireland is the constitutional question. For the previous 30 years the Protestant community as a whole had argued that any change to the constitutional status of Northern Ireland can only be achieved through the democratic wishes of its people. Had the north been forcibly subsumed into an all-Ireland state the UDA/UFF would have immediately assumed a total war posture involving a massive escalation in the conflict. This scenario delusionally pursued by the IRA had always been unthinkable, precisely

The IRA and the UDA/UFF Since 1969

5

as the voting patterns confirmed. The current peace process and the resolution of Northern Ireland’s political conflict, politically and within Northern Ireland, remains as the singular way forward. THE ROLES OF THE IRA AND OF THE UDA/UFF IN THE CONFLICT SINCE 1969 The IRA’s 1922 war in Ireland was manifestly political, as a war of independence against the British, or as a civil war fought between pro- and anti-treaty IRA factions. The 1969–2002 Ulster conflict was infinitely more complex, initially involving the relative social oppression of the Catholic minority (pre-1969), civil rights, and a disproportionate unionist/loyalist response, culminating in sectarian attacks upon the Catholic community. This saw the re-emergence of the IRA, and the first political and sectarian murders. (The UDA version of this history is considered in the text.) The interest groups to this conflict were multifarious, and often fickle in their allegiance. These included the British and Irish States, unionists and loyalists, republicans and nationalists, Protestants and Catholics, the respective armies and police forces, special operations groups and intelligence services. The paramilitary groups included broadly the loyalist UDA, the UVF and the republican IRA, both the Official IRA and the Provisional IRA. The war operated at a number of levels involving both loyalist and republican terrorism, state infiltration, agents, spies and informers, sectarian violence and murder, random murder and selective targeting, psychopathic murder and torture, criminal activity, corruption, state oppression, state-sponsored terror, alleged collusion, and state policies of ‘shooting to kill’. All these important themes will be addressed in this book, upon the basis of how they were encountered and experienced by individual UDA volunteers in Ulster’s ‘dirty war’. Of the many books written about the Northern Ireland conflict most attempt to provide for historical and explanatory contexts usually within a republican or British framework. These are usually books which attempt to engage with the global or macro issues and offer analysis and commentary at that level. In my own research and writing this has proven less than helpful, serving to generalise a conflict which is infinitely complex, and precisely as variable as those who became involved in it, be they loyalist or republican. This book will break from literary convention in that it will move from the specific, actual human experience in circumstances of conflict, to

6

Introduction

the general, the social and political context as determined by the given experiences. Accordingly, this work will provide for a minimal contextualisation, into substantially considering the life experiences of individual ‘actors’ caught up in the conflict. Finally, upon the basis of this presented material, a historical analysis of the UDA/UFF war will be considered. This approach has been utilised to both individualise and humanise the experience of conflict as it impacted upon essentially ordinary people at war. While republican ideology has been articulated and disseminated by Sinn Fein/IRA and their public relations, and ‘prisoner of war’ department, the motivation of the loyalist combatants remains something which is largely unexplained. In the early 1970s loyalist ideology could be described as a resolve to remain British and to resist, at all costs, the violently enforced inclusion of the Ulster state into a united Ireland. Many loyalists viewed Catholics as their natural enemy, and found it difficult to distinguish between Catholics and IRA members. They currently point to the massive electoral support of IRA/Sinn Fein (relative to the minimal political support enjoyed by the political representatives of the loyalist paramilitaries) in vindication of such a historical disposition. The loyalist paramilitaries took the view that the Protestant population generally, and their security forces in particular, were under lethal threat from the IRA, and they clearly held Catholics in general as complicit. The loyalist paramilitary ideology is deeply embedded within (if unconsciously) the Protestant religion, and a sense of Britishness, which is probably one of the more traditional forms of Britishness remaining in the United Kingdom’s increasingly multi-cultural society. Both the Protestant work ethic, and a ‘standing on your own two feet’ mentality, are central to this ideology. The cultural emphasis is placed upon the individual, and individual responsibility, ultimately between the individual and his or her God. The Protestant religion reflects this ethos, being hugely diverse, with the congregation of the given churches often holding much democratic power, again emphasising the significance and rights and responsibilities of the individual. The Catholic church alternatively lays much greater emphasis upon ‘the collective’, interdependency, and unquestioning acceptance of both the (Roman Catholic) church and its hierarchy. Within this model dependency is encouraged through the confessional, a belief in the church’s power to forgive, and purgatory, where entry into heaven can be facilitated by prayer, mass and contributions made to the church. The Protestant version of religion

The IRA and the UDA/UFF Since 1969

7

enjoins a somewhat harsher reality, without the possibility of earthly intercession. In all of this, Protestant history has been based upon dissent, while the Catholic experience has been consistently characterised by cultural solidarity and continuity. These philosophical and ideological differences have carried clear but largely unarticulated consequences for the organisation and functioning of the IRA and UDA respectively. The IRA is a highly disciplined and coherent ‘secret army’, while the lethal loyalists ‘were few in number, haltingly structured, and transient to the point of (usually) being beyond analytical reach’ (Bowyer Bell, 1979). Their value base was deeply influenced by the Old Testament view of natural justice and ‘an eye for an eye’, and in this the victims of the IRA were repeatedly avenged by the killing of ordinary Catholics. (However, the loyalist UDA’s operational strategy changed dramatically during the late 1980s and 1990s.) The loyalist paramilitaries were for most of the 1970s and 1980s unapologetically involved in sectarian murder, not uncommonly killing their fellow Protestants, mistaken for Catholics. These killings were not, at any time, authorised by the central leadership of the UDA, again reflecting individuals’ freedom to act at will, without authorisation, and without sanction. Loyalists, unlike republicans, rarely think or speak of ‘an ideology’ per se. Rather, the ideology is assumed, implicit and understood. It is also graphically represented in the militaristic and menacing murals, often depicting doomsday war scenes, which pervade many working-class loyalist areas. Ulster, British, Scottish, UDA, UFF, UVF and Red Hand Commando (RHC) flags also festoon these same areas, reassuring a population as to an identity perceived to be fundamentally under threat. While the paramilitary loyalists emphasise their Britishness, at every opportunity the threat of a British withdrawal during the 1970s was responded to by the UDA through detailed planning for a Unilateral Declaration of Independence. This would have involved a realignment of the Ulster border, the creation of a new and overwhelmingly Protestant state, and no doubt a state of war with the Irish Republic. For the paramilitary loyalists within the UDA/UFF this remains an option of last resort. Republicans would wish to have us believe that their war was driven by ideology, while the loyalists didn’t lay claim to such grandiose motivation. The reality is men and women only become involved in conflict when that conflict becomes personal. This point is usually reached when a specific trigger, or triggers, connect with

8

Introduction

an intensity of human emotion and passion which is experienced powerfully enough to neutralise the prohibition toward violence, and even the instinct of self-preservation. In my extensive professional experience the terrorist is not someone driven by political ideology or other ‘noble’ motivation, but much more usually an ordinary person, driven beyond his or her point of tolerance by extraordinary circumstance. While the war in Northern Ireland clearly had a pathology of sectarian tension and conflict, its connection with the Irish War of Independence (1916–21) and the Civil War was erroneous, and has proven unsustainable. Notwithstanding the IRA’s methodology of conflict was drawn from that period and largely determined the course of the contemporary troubles. However, of much more significance is the question of the motivation of the individual ‘actors’ who choose to enact whichever methodology of violence in the name of their cause, be it loyalist or republican. This book attempts to address precisely that question, from a loyalist and more specifically a UDA/UFF perspective. Under what circumstances do ordinary men and women commit themselves to a paramilitary cause and a willingness to kill, be killed, tortured, or imprisoned, possibly for life? I have found generalised assumptions and constructions in this matter distracting from the individual truth. Why does one man in a street resolve to kill for his cause, while 20 others don’t? To understand this we must develop our understanding of the said individual or individuals, and of the totality of his or her circumstances during the currency of active conflict. In attempting to further understand these complex issues this book considers the oral histories or biographies of loyalist UDA/UFF volunteers throughout their campaign from 1969 to 1994. It is the contention of this volume that understanding the motivation of individuals involved in terrorist or counter-terrorist conflict gives greater insight into the nature of terrorist warfare, or more simply the social psychology of individuals whose lives are touched by war and murderous violence. It is suggested that this work takes us as close as possible to the front line of UDA/UFF experience of conflict, considering as it does the life histories of the combatants involved in it. This is a history of the UDA/UFF as told by the active volunteers of these respective organisations. To my knowledge this is a unique approach to the understanding and analysis of the Northern Ireland conflict, and its appeal is in its individual human quality. Having

The IRA and the UDA/UFF Since 1969

9

established such a basis for the book, this material will be contextualised in a social history of the UDA/UFF from 1969 to 1994, and a critical analysis of UDA/UFF strategy and tactics during that period. The post-ceasefire history of the organisation will also be considered in the conclusion and postscript, highlighting the contemporary volatility of what is now a highly fragmented and dangerous grouping.

2

Researching the UDA

THE PROBATION SERVICE, LONG KESH AND POLITICAL PRISONERS My family owned several businesses and properties in Belfast and I lived in large houses in the affluent south of the city during most of my childhood. I was educated in the genteel Inchmarlo Preparatory School, south Belfast, before progressing to ‘public’ secondary school, the Royal Belfast Academical Institution. My family took a very relaxed view of my education as I was expected to serve in, and eventually manage, the family grocery businesses. I left ‘Inst’ prematurely (at 15, without qualifications) and without regrets, until, that is, my then girlfriend (and now wife) gained academic qualifications and a place at college. That provoked a competitive academic frenzy which exists to this day (I recently registered for my fourth higher degree). At 17 I left the family business, returned to school, progressed to art college and eventually joined the civil service as we, the educated but not professionally qualified, tended to do. I was appointed as an executive officer (grade II) to the Department of Social Security. This was a newly created government department, which in those early years of the troubles, 1969–71 was often confused, in the public mind at least, with MI5. As a visiting officer assessing claims from elderly claimants I quickly demonstrated my ability to award ‘special needs grants’ in complete opposition to the culture of the department. It was during this time that I discovered that I had some skills in working with people. In 1972 I joined the Probation Service and was seconded for professional training to Croydon College, south London. During my final placement in 1974, with the South East London Probation Service, I received a telephone call while in the Eldridge Room, in the Mint Walk office, Croydon. It was the chief probation officer from Belfast, ‘we’ve got a job for you’. ‘It’s Long Kesh, near Lisburn’ (Northern Ireland). Long Kesh was the detention centre and prison camp for IRA and loyalist political prisoners with a brief but already notorious history. My probation colleagues in Mint Walk were genuinely horrified as I began to feel as if I’d been sentenced to some 10

Long Kesh and Political Prisoners

11

terrible fate during my absence from Northern Ireland. One of the assistant chief probation officers, whom I knew in Croydon, touchingly, offered me a prime job in Croydon, within one hour of the call from Belfast. But I’d been given a mission by my superiors in Belfast and I accepted it without question. I had some experience of prisons while working in London, from the closed cells of Brixton to Holloway, where one client held there on remand had no memory of it, such were the drugs she was given. Long Kesh was different, set in a desolate landscape with army patrols, guard dogs, search lights and watch towers, and low-flying helicopters. This was more akin to a scene from Vietnam. I was dispatched to the welfare office in ‘Phase Five’ of the prison which held some 500 IRA and loyalist prisoners in segregated compounds. I remember walking to the office that first morning, past the boundary walls, the security gates, the watch towers, the high wire and barbed wire compound fences, thinking ‘war crimes’. These were the ‘men behind the wire’ of legion and history, and I had ended up right in the middle of them. I was immediately aware that this was the epicentre of the Northern Ireland conflict, and that what happened behind these walls carried consequences for everyone. At first I was appalled that so many men were confined to compounds, or as the IRA prisoners accurately described them, cages, without apparent recreational facilities, or work. As the prisoners stared at me menacingly, an unknown stranger, through the wire fences, my mental associations were with a concentration camp. I questioned, how could we do this to people? To the outsider Long Kesh was a deeply threatening and frightening environment. In the event my first impressions gave way to a very different understanding of the compound system of Long Kesh. The various compounds were, by and large, run as benign communities within which life operated as normally as possible, within the confines of a prison. Prisoners had almost complete autonomy and independence from the prison and institutional forces. The prisoners had ‘special category’ or political prisoner status, and enjoyed the considerable privileges that went with it. The could wear their own clothes, receive extra visits and food parcels. All of these privileges served in maintaining the prisoners sense of self-respect and dignity, their independence from the prison, physically and psychologically, and helped in maintaining contact with the outside world. In short special category status and the compound system helped to avoid many of the devastating personal and interpersonal consequences of institu-

12

Researching the UDA

tional criminal incarceration. There was very limited prisoner–prison officer contact, and the individual supervision of prisoners, providing for the opportunity to degrade and punish prisoners, as in criminal systems, couldn’t even be attempted. As for prison work, this wouldn’t have been acceptable to the political prisoners in any event, who instead had developed a profitable handicraft industry. In those days (1974–79) the prison welfare department both from choice, and of necessity, operated independently from the prison service, in truth maximising distance from it. Credible relationships were maintained with all the paramilitary groups extending to friendships with both the loyalist and republican leaderships. Certain members of the Prison Welfare Department were by now (1974) firmly embedded in the covert paramilitary world and in paramilitary politics. Cordial relationships between some of the loyalist and republican leaderships already existed in the prison, which was all the more remarkable given the state of the war in the outside community. The stark choice which faced loyalist and republican prisoners, facing each other in compounds only yards apart, had been live together, or die together. Intergroup ‘non-aggression pacts’, and ‘no conflict policies’ had already been agreed, to ensure the survival of individual prisoners caught in the wrong place, at the wrong time. This was the beginning of a procedural resolution of conflict between the warring factions with an obvious potential for development. There was a realisation that if this could happen in the nucleus of the conflict in Long Kesh, among the so called extremes, it could be exported outside, into the community. A paramilitary Camp Council was formed involving the most senior members of all the paramilitary groups at that time: the Official IRA, Provisional IRA, the Irish Republican Socialist Party (IRSP – a splinter republican grouping), the UVF and RHC, the UDA and UFF. They discussed ‘matters of common interest’, and even united in protest actions over food and visiting arrangements. The two most powerful paramilitary leaders in the prison, by a very long stretch, were Gusty Spence of the UVF, representing loyalists, and the Provisional’s leader David Morley, representing republican interests. There was a mutual desire to replicate the paramilitary talks on matters of common interest inside Long Kesh, ‘to the outside’, among the representatives of the same groups in the community. This was a very high risk project but it was pursued regardless with considerable commitment. (I know of at least one loyalist shot dead because of his involvement.) The welfare of the prisoners was always high

Long Kesh and Political Prisoners

13

on the Camp Council’s agenda, and a Downtown Welfare Office was proposed (1975) to include conference facilities, to centralise the various operations of the prisoner welfare groups, loyalist and republican. The office was to be manned by ‘an accepted probation officer’, who would offer professional assistance and support to the said groups. That officer was also to maintain regular contact with the prison’s welfare department, and through him or her the Camp Council, in an attempt to provide for an ‘all inclusive process’. What was being proposed was an embryonic peace process. The proposal was at first well received by the Northern Ireland Office but eventually it insisted upon having a role. This had always been a fragile, ultra-sensitive and potentially dangerous project, significantly under paramilitary control. The involvement of an official government agency was unacceptable to all sides, including the Prison Welfare Department, which ironically worked under, but detached from, the same Northern Ireland Office. The underlying reality was the H Blocks of the Maze were at an advanced stage of planning, and the compound system which had created the possibility of interparamilitary group relationships in the first place was itself doomed. I experienced Long Kesh, subsequently renamed the Maze, to be a unique and fascinating environment. I resolved to research it, in part to further my understanding, but also to record the lessons which I was convinced could be learned. I enrolled for a research Master’s degree with the Cranfield Institute (1976) and published the MSc thesis in 1979. (Published in the university sense, as in made publicly available in the Cranfield library, rather than commercially.) The principal findings of the research were (Crawford, 1999a): 1

Reconviction rates. The reconviction rates for special category or political prisoners was found to be some 12 per cent. That is, of those special category prisoners released from prison, 12 per cent had been reconvicted and returned to prison within a two year period. This was actually a remarkable finding, as it compares with reconviction rates with criminal offender groups of some 70 per cent to 90 per cent. This leads to one of two conclusions. Either a) the compound system as a humane containment penal strategy was some 500 per cent more effective that conventional criminal systems or b) the prisoners contained in the compound system were not criminal offenders in any conventional sense.

14

2

3

4

Researching the UDA

Criminalisation. My research established that criminalisation policy involved a dehumanising and brutal regime which served to alienate prisoners, their families and host communities. Escalation of conflict. My study predicted that criminalisation policy would result in an escalation of the prison protests, hunger strikes, and ultimately in the level of conflict in Northern Ireland. The study also found that criminalisation policy also brought to an end the concrete resolution conflict developments between the warring paramilitary groups.

In 1979 the findings of the research were published in the media, which was clearly in the interests of all the paramilitary groups anxious to regain political status for their members. Sadly the implications of the findings were substantially ignored as prison officers were murdered, the prison protest intensified and the conflict in the community escalated. Northern Ireland seemed to be verging towards civil war as the news broke of the death of each of the ten hunger strikers who died during 1981. Going public with the research findings carried obvious implications and I resigned from the Probation Board for Northern Ireland, before being pushed. I was a career probation officer with little interest in other fields of social work. I was flattered to be offered jobs in the fields of both community work and social work but these were of secondary interest. Eventually I was offered a lecturing appointment in the Ulster Polytechnic (now University of Ulster) at Jordanstown. But this was something of a shot in the dark as I wasn’t trained to teach, and I had no real interest in teaching. In fact I had left art college prematurely in late 1960s precisely to avoid a career in teaching. But the holidays were attractive and the polytechnic theoretically offered the opportunity for further research. In the event my research activity went into almost terminal decline given both the culture and expectations within the Jordanstown social work department. In short I found myself displaced, cut off from my probation career, the paramilitary world, and almost completely from research. I had maintained some contact with individual loyalists and republicans but that part of my life was over, or so I thought. Some 15 years after leaving the Maze, during February 1995, I received an unexpected call from Dublin. It was Tim O’Connor, Department of Foreign Affairs, then assigned to the Forum of Peace and Reconciliation, who informed me that I had been mandated by ‘loyalist prisoners and former prisoners’ to represent them and their

Long Kesh and Political Prisoners

15

interests at the Dublin Forum. I was being offered the position of, ironically, a special category observer. My role at the Forum was to attend all meetings of the Forum, contribute to the proceedings and report back to the PUP (UVF). My task was to advocate the early release of loyalist political prisoners as part of the peace process. My disposition in this matter had been correctly assumed. None of the loyalist groups had informed me of this nomination. I made contact with the UVF to be told that Gusty Spence had personally put my name forward. When I made contact with Spence he was quite nonplussed and seizing the initiative used what was obviously a well rehearsed line, ‘Colin, an opportunity has arisen for you to serve your country.’ ‘We want you to’ etc. However, the Forum’s remit for me was to act on behalf of loyalist prisoners and former prisoners, not exclusively the UVF. Accordingly I arranged a meeting with representatives of the UDA/UFF, who predictably knew nothing about the nomination in question. Within an hour of that discussion I received a reply: ‘I’m to instruct you that you have a mandate to act on behalf of UDA/UFF prisoners and former prisoners at the Dublin Forum.’ The prisoners clearly hadn’t been consulted, but rather decisions had been taken on their behalf, but I knew that there would be no dissension. This reconnection with the loyalist paramilitaries lead to further research, and the publication of Criminals or Defenders? (1999a), and to the subsequent enquiry which resulted in this book. The idea for this current text derived from a conversation with John White (Castle Buildings, Stormont, 1998). John, then chairman of the UDP, told me that, in the light of the adverse publicity given over to the loyalist paramilitaries, he’d like to write a book about the UDA men he knew. In the event we were both acquainted with many of the same people, so I realised immediately what he had in mind. But also perhaps even more than John, as a welfare officer in the Maze, I knew their stories. I knew why some of the men had ended up alone and isolate, estranged from their families and even from themselves. I knew why others had emotional and mental problems and why they used drugs to escape the panic attacks, flashbacks and the uncontrollable tremors. And I knew why some of the most decent men I had worked with ended up killing themselves. The common denominator in all of this, the shadow under which each lived, was, as they termed it, ‘the war’. The project would take the form of an empirically based study which would convey the realities of loyalism, and the UDA/UFF in particular, from the inside. I was fully aware that this

16

Researching the UDA

would stand in direct contradiction to the more conventional stereotype of the UDA and UFF. I thought that it was an excellent idea so I encouraged John in this proposed undertaking, offering my full support as a writer and researcher. John then uttered the fateful words, ‘I’ve been thinking. Maybe you could do it for us?’ The paramilitary loyalists didn’t have too many friends, academics or writers to call upon, the UDA in particular didn’t have anyone to call upon. So I’d just been given another ‘mission’. I realised from the outset that this one was going to take years. John had known all along that I would undertake it, and that was down to one simple fact, there was nobody else. We also knew that if this version of history was not documented now, no meaningful record of this paramilitary group and its history would remain. SPECIFIC METHODOLOGY My earlier research and publication was concerned with scientific social enquiry, involving interviews with larger numbers of respondents, statistical data, analysis and quantification. In all of this, however, there was an increasing preoccupation with the life histories of the individual paramilitary members who were interviewed. The questionnaires and the box-ticking became increasingly irrelevant, given the richness of oral history accounts of people who became individually involved in the Northern Ireland conflict. As each was so diverse, unique and individual, it became increasingly difficult to make any assertions or generalisations about paramilitary loyalists. Clearly there was corruption, criminality, sectarian murder, infiltration and gangsterism, etc., and all of this informs the stereotype of the loyalist paramilitary. However, these descriptions are applicable to what was often the leadership of the UDA/UFF in particular, and tell us little about that constituency of the ordinary loyalist volunteers whose war was primarily perceived of as being fought against the IRA, and not the murder of innocent Catholics (at least after 1989). This element within paramilitary loyalism had its equivalent and mirror image within the ranks of the IRA; sadly, blatant sectarian murderers were common to both sides. In the event the central achievement of this book is to examine the spectrum of volunteers from the sectarian murderers to the soldiers involved in the selective targeting of ‘hard targets’ (the IRA and known republicans).

Specific Methodology

17

The men who agreed to take part in this research were interviewed in the community, usually in the smoky back rooms of UDA welfare offices. However, a substantial number were also conducted in the wings of UDA H Block 7, HMP Maze. Arrangements for access had been made on a weekly basis, extending to approximately one year, as part of a UDP ‘political’ delegation (1999/2000). The role of this delegation was to support UDA/UFF prisoners prior to their release into the community. This was fully consistent with what I was doing in that my interventions increased the men’s self-esteem and sense of worth. In fact, without exception there was a degree of gratitude that someone had bothered to take the trouble to get their side of the story. The respondents were usually interviewed at least on two or three occasions, having been informed from the outset that the resultant transcripts may be published in book form. All the interviewees volunteered to participate in the research, largely because their cooperation had been requested by John White. I hadn’t fully realised the significance of being in White’s company as I entered the UDA/UFF prison wings. The extent of this was revealed when I was acting as a character witness for one of the men some years later. A defence solicitor had been curious as to the nature of my involvement. He had asked the man in question if he trusted me. He replied ‘Yes.’ The solicitor then asked why? ‘Because he came in [to the Maze] with John White.’ ‘And that meant you could trust him?’ ‘Completely, 100 per cent.’ ‘You’d trust him with your life?’ ‘Yes.’ I had wanted to interview as many men as possible in the UDA H Block, possibly 20 or 30 of the 80-odd prisoners there. I had interviewed about ten men and expressed my interest in seeing more, to be told, ‘Colin, there are only seven of us on this wing’ (containing some 20 men). By ‘us’ he was referring to the ‘soldiers’, those who had become the politically motivated gunmen of the UDA/UFF. To give me an example he nodded over at a tall and obviously physically fit man playing snooker. ‘You see him.’ ‘Yes.’ ‘He got drunk at a party and killed a police officer. I really don’t think you’d want to see him.’ There was hierarchy among the prisoners of which I had been oblivious, between the various elements, which could be loosely described as the politically motivated ‘soldiers’, those men imprisoned because of usually unauthorised sectarian offences, and those found guilty of non-political criminal offences. The other remarkable thing was the gunmen tended to be smaller and nondescript, relative to their counterparts who were unmistakably

18

Researching the UDA

‘hard men’. They were also quiet and ordinarily decent people, who kept themselves to themselves. I had noticed precisely the same phenomena when working with IRA prisoners. The gunmen or the soldiers on both sides are precisely those whom you wouldn’t suspect, while the obvious hard men appear at the fringes, often having committed sectarian and criminal offences. I had unintentionally drawn attention to this hierarchy, and there is little doubt that this caused enormous jealousy and resentment. However, I enjoyed the absolute protection of the organisation, and at certain times I had cause to be thankful. Regardless of where I went the ‘politicals’ were never too far away, but I hadn’t understood why before then. I had been surrounded by some very dangerous men, and protected by those who were even more dangerous. Initially it had been my intention to tape-record interviews, and I couldn’t believe my luck when I was allowed to take a tape recorder through prison security, into the H Block. I spent the first few weeks in the Maze simply playing snooker and talking to the men as the opportunity arose. I was trying to blend in as best I could, capitalising on the fact that a new face in prison always arouses some interest. I decided to interview the CO (UDA/UFF Commanding Officer) of the H Block, who was, without doubt, Johnny Adair. I went into Adair’s cell to conduct the interview, and he was obviously in an agitated state. He jumped repeatedly out of his chair to shout instructions down the wing, or to enquire who was or who wasn’t back from a visit. I explained the rationale for the interview facing Adair’s penetrating stare. Then the fateful event, I produced the tape recorder and Adair jumped back so quickly the chair was knocked flying. Adair was so angry he was speechless as he pointed in turn to the tape recorder, and then to me open mouthed. People started to gather at the entrance of the cell, having heard the noise made by the chair. The tension was palpable, and it was between Adair and me, in his cell, in the centre of a UDA/UFF H Block. John White came in and ushered Adair out of his cell. He came back to explain. Johnny Adair had been set up through conversations with police officers which were covertly tape recorded, and used in evidence against him. He was subsequently sentenced to 16 years’ imprisonment for ‘directing terrorism’. Ever since that, understandably perhaps, Adair had been paranoid about tape recorders, and the people who used them. The research instrument was changed accordingly from taped interviews to interviews and note-taking with additional material recorded on tape, in the car, outside the prison.

Specific Methodology

19

I had known about how the evidence was gathered against Adair, but stupidly enough, I hadn’t made the connection. Tape recording in this context was also, as I increasingly realised, simply too dangerous, potentially risking everyone’s personal security. Maybe that’s why the prison authorities allowed me to take the tape recorder in, in the first place. I hadn’t taken account of the fact that it could be impounded going back out, so vital confidentially could have been critically compromised. Adair’s response toward me had been vindicated. Once the interviews were written up they were returned to the men for the purposes of accuracy, and to prevent incrimination. This often involved a process of mediation until the final text was agreed as both factually correct and authentic. Some of those interviewed wished to remain anonymous, others were aware that they could be identified through their stories, while a minority wished to be named. The interviews undertaken in the Maze prison helped to provide perhaps the bulk of the material in this text, and proved vital in further understanding the nature of the UDA/UFF war.

3

The UDA/UFF: History, Organisation and Structure

A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE UDA/UFF The UDA has been, and is, one of the largest paramilitary organisations in the Western world, which had an estimated membership of 50,000 in 1974 (at the height of the troubles) and a current membership of some 20,000. However, the history of the UDA, and its role in the Northern Ireland conflict, has largely evaded academic or research enquiry. This in itself is interesting, particularly in the light of the volumous literature written in respect of the IRA. Clearly the IRA can be understood and contextualised within the Irish War of Independence and the Irish Civil War, 1916–22, affording it a historical legitimacy. From the outset, therefore, during 1969–71 its campaign was viewed as comprehensible and rational. Conversely, the role of the paramilitary loyalists was not widely understood as they were viewed, and portrayed, as acting against the very British state of which they claimed to be a part. Political developments in Northern Ireland in 1970 and in particular the emergence of a militarily effective Provisional IRA were of critical concern to the loyalist and unionist communities. By the end of June 1970 one Provisional IRA ‘special operations’ unit had carried out over 40 bombings. In July 1971 the Provisional IRA increased its campaign of terror attempting to provoke further confrontations between Catholics and Protestants at street level. A number of large car bombs exploded in central Belfast mercifully only injuring nine people. In September 1971 a series of explosions over a two-day period across towns in the Province left 39 people injured. Later that month an IRA bomb in a Shankill Road pub killed two (Protestant) men, injuring some 30 others. (Previous IRA bombs in loyalist bars had caused serious injuries but were without fatalities. These were all manifestly sectarian unprovoked attacks.) Later that month (September 1971) an Ulster Defence Association was proposed, to unify the disparate ‘Protestant Defence Associations’. At its inception during 1972 the UDA had very few guns or arms and significantly it was without friends or allies whom it could call upon. There were a few pistols and shotguns, and rifles which in the main 20

A Brief History

21

dated back to the First World War. (Most of these had been part of the consignment brought into Northern Ireland by the Clyde Valley in 1914 for the UVF. Ironically perhaps the guns were to be used to militarily resist Irish unification and the imposition of Dublin rule in the North.) The Provisional IRA had no such difficulty in acquiring guns, guns were brought in from the United States, and more disconcertingly from the Republic of Ireland during 1971. Two ministers of state in the Irish Republic, Charles Haughey and Neil Blaney, were subsequently charged with smuggling arms to the IRA in the North. They were later cleared of the arms offences as their defence council had argued that the guns had been imported as an officially sanctioned operation for the Irish Army (Bowyer Bell, 1979). The actual significance of this cannot be overstated. The UDA and the Protestant community as a whole considered that government ministers of the sovereign government of the Irish Republic conspired in arming terrorists within the sovereign jurisdiction of another country, to kill British soldiers, Protestants, Catholics and innocent civilians more generally. And there was another, more insidious dimension to this officially sanctioned, illegal importation of arms. In 1971 the IRA had two wings operating in Northern Ireland, the Official IRA and the Provisional IRA. The Official IRA were the inheritors of the traditional legacy of the original (1916) IRA with a commitment to socialist and non-sectarian policies. (For example, it had condemned the Provisionals’ manifestly sectarian bombing of the Shankill Road bar in 1971.) The Provisionals had broken away from the Officials in December 1970 because of the Officials’ obsession with parliamentary politics and the subsequent undermining of the basic military role of the Irish Republican Army (Bew and Gillespie, 1993). Relationships between these two IRA factions, both with substantial community support at that time (1971), were extremely strained with the Officials accusing the Provisionals of conducting sectarian warfare. Significantly the more conciliatory Official IRA were not given guns from the south, those guns were quite deliberately delivered into the hands of the more militant and more sectarian Provisional IRA (Bowyer Bell, 1979). This meant that the Provos were immeasurably better equipped than the Official IRA, which was to have a deadly significance for them in the subsequent violent internecine feud between those two organisations. It appeared that Irish government ministers interfered not only in British political difficulties, but in the violent military politics of the IRA itself. While

22

History, Organisation and Structure

this affair, the ‘official’ importation of guns for the Provisional IRA, had clear and tangible consequences – the military arming of a terrorist faction – the psychological and moral consequences were even more profound. It gave, and it was seen to give, the Provisional IRA a sense of political legitimacy in prosecuting its armed struggle. It was the equivalent of, and tantamount to, the British Army arming the loyalist paramilitaries. The implications of this for the loyalists were plain enough, they now faced not only a republican paramilitary force similar to themselves, but an armed terrorist army with logistical and tactical support from the south. This resulted in a dramatic escalation in the IRA’s violence and murder. While the loyalists faced an enormous threat from the Provisional IRA, they were even more unnerved by the attitude of the British government. In November 1971 Harold Wilson the British prime minister (who the loyalists viewed as ‘their’ prime minister) announced a ‘Fifteen Point Plan’ for a solution to the Irish problem. In this Wilson proposed ‘movement toward a United Ireland over a period of 15 years’ (Bew and Gillespie, 1993), which would have secured Irish unification by 1986. This was to involve the notion of ‘Protestant consent’, although the plan failed to provide any explanation of how such Protestant consent would be forthcoming. The UDA’s construction of this policy was quite clear, the British wanted out, and that in the last analysis the loyalists would stand alone. The ‘siege mentality’ and feeling of isolation within loyalism became even more consolidated. However, there was an even more important implication in Wilson’s proclamation, for the Provisional IRA. Wilson’s statement provided it with an inescapable message, ‘the Brits want out’. Accordingly as the UDA saw it the Provisional IRA would conspire to facilitate their departure through murdering British soldiers, police officers and Protestant and Catholic civilians. Its tactics of terrorism, bombings and murder were (for it) both vindicated and rewarded. It was implicitly invited to kill and bomb its way into a united Ireland. All of this provided for the back-drop of the formation and growth of the Ulster Defence Association, and explains why its membership in 1971 numbered an estimated 40,000–50,000 men and women. The UDA was substantially a Protestant army with a remit of defending the British and Protestant community, and Northern Ireland more generally. Traditionally the police reservists, the ‘B Specials’, had provided for this function, but to loyalists’ fury the B

A Brief History

23

Specials were shamed and disbanded in April 1970. This fact had greatly exacerbated the loyalist sense of vulnerability, and feelings of being both unprotected and isolated. In their view both the army and the police had failed them and the single force which loyalists had traditionally depended upon to protect them from the IRA, the B Specials, had been abolished. In many ways the UDA was formed to fill the security vacuum which now existed with police ranks. Even more fundamentally the UDA had been formed as an army of last stand, to fight the civil war in Ulster, which for many loyalists at that time appeared imminent. The British had indirectly and directly presided over a corrupt and discriminatory state, from the inception of the state in 1922 until the outbreak of the conflict in 1969. The sectarian nature of the Ulster state between 1922 and 1969 has been well documented. Northern Ireland had been characterised by discrimination and oppression, unionist and Protestant ascendancy, and institutionalised Catholic disadvantage. While clearly this was fuelled by unionist self-interest, it was also motivated by a fear of the republican enemy within. However, it should have been self-evident in any political analysis that such a sustained period of oppression would have social and political consequences. Northern Ireland was born out of conflict, and the realities of war and the republican threat to the state’s very existence were, in 1969, within living memory. When the IRA war began, with the inevitable bombings and shootings, it was not the unionist establishment who bore the brunt of its offensive, but the loyalist working-class communities, who had no part in the political corruption which had preceded 1969. The loyalist working class in the Shankill perceived themselves to be as deprived as the nationalist working class in the Falls. The loyalists genuinely didn’t understand the nature and basis of the civil rights protests and disturbances. They questioned what civil rights did they have? There was an endemic cultural resistance to understanding genuine Catholic grievance. They were taught to believe, and did believe, that any protest by Catholics was insurrection, a point behind which lay the gunmen of the IRA. Perhaps history was to vindicate such a view. Northern Ireland had been ‘ignored by London, detested by Dublin, and was unknown elsewhere’ (Bowyer Bell, 1979). The success of the IRA campaign in the early days, months and years of the conflict was in direct contrast to the government’s failure to contain it, and to maintain life, law and order. The British position was viewed by loyalists as ambivalent, lacking in political will and

24

History, Organisation and Structure

military commitment. As Bowyer Bell comments of British attitudes toward Ulster in 1969: Fair or not, it was accurate to say that no one in Britain wanted an Irish problem, few know anything about a real Ireland, and fewer wanted their acquaintance broadened …. In point of fact within the establishment clumps of specialists or Arabian tribes, or the history of the Hittites could be more easily found than those conversant with Irish politics. (Bowyer Bell, 1979) A PARAMILITARY ORGANISATION? The Ulster Defence Association is an umbrella organisation, which was formed when all of the highly localised Protestant Defence Associations amalgamated during 1972. These defence associations had been organised throughout Northern Ireland with concentrations in Belfast, Lisburn and mid-Ulster. Consisting of groups that had formed spontaneously in the loyalist community, the associations were by and large open and democratic with the central raison d’être of defence of Protestant areas against republican/IRA attack. The metamorphosis into a larger organisation, the UDA, was fraught with many problems. There were tensions between localised power and control, the ethos of democracy, and the level of local commitment to the aims and objectives of the centralised leadership. There was a particular tension between the principles of democratic organisation and military or paramilitary operation. The concept of central and hierarchical military control was similarly undermined by the organisational history of localised control. While diverse levels of commitment among individual members of an association was unacceptable, it was even more problematic in volunteers in a paramilitary force. From the outset, therefore, as a paramilitary organisation the UDA had serious structural problems, rendering it ineffective at one level as unarmed local defence associations, while at another it became a potentially deadly terrorist organisation. In September 1972 Andy Tyrie was elected supreme commander of the UDA. Although Tyrie’s title suggested a degree of centralised power and control, this could not be realised, given both structural and ideological deficiencies. On the ideological front, there was no real consensus within the organisation on the issue of whether it was prosecuting a proactive

A Parliamentary Organisation?

25

war against the enemies of the union, or if it was a defence association formed simply for the defence of Protestant communities. Certainly a ‘state of readiness’ of sorts was maintained within the UDA. However, the percentage of UDA members who were actually involved in active service at any one time was minimal, and reached no more than perhaps 5 per cent of all members overall. By 1973 it had become apparent that the UDA needed a separate military wing. As a result, later that year the Ulster Freedom Fighters was formed as a special operations group within the UDA, to be deployed in paramilitary activity. The UFF identified its role as that of maintaining a balance of terror. Within the first six months of its formation, from June to November 1973, the UFF were responsible for the deaths of some 20 nationalists, including a Sinn Fein councillor. The structure of the UFF was streamlined and the organisation had a militaristic ethos, with its own operationally independent command structure, yet it was located within the UDA. In name, the UDA was under the control of the supreme commander, and six battalion commanders, who were in charge of each of the six sub-regions of Northern Ireland. These regions were, in turn, internally controlled by company commanders, and subdivided under the supervision of unit leaders. At the bottom of this hierarchy were the UDA’s greatest resource, the ordinary volunteers. These were usually decent and non-criminal local men, although it emerged that the leadership could not always be described in those terms. Figure 1 shows the command structure of the UDA and UFF, and their relationship to one another. Unit leaders normally controlled large housing estates or geographical areas, and were invariably indigenous to the local population. Democratic organisational practices were maintained in some areas, with offices being filled by election, while in other areas, power was seized by the ‘hard men’ of the UDA. Hard men are described by Feldman (1991) in his study of Northern Ireland as ‘the local barefisted street fighter intimately associated with specific neighbourhoods though often enjoying a city wide reputation. The hard man could have been a semi-professional trained pugilist (Belfast has a rich tradition of boxing families) or simply a street tough’ (Feldman, 1991: 46). From 1971 the UDA had been involved in raising funds which in the beginning had been to procure weapons for the defence of the loyalist and Protestant community (see the accounts of Sam Duddy, ‘Billy’, ‘Jackie’, Michael Stone and ‘Tommy’ for descriptions of UDA

26

History, Organisation and Structure Supreme Commander UDA

Political Advisers

UDA’s Inner Council Representing its Six Battalions

UDA Battalion Commanders

Military Advisers

Overall Commander UFF Company Commanders

Company Commanders Unit Leaders Unit Leaders UFF Cells UFF Volunteers

UDA Volunteers

UDA/UFF Political Prisoners Figure 1

UDA/UFF Command Structure

procurement of arms). Some loyalist areas were coming under sustained republican attack, and the demand for weapons was substantial. In 1972, loyalist paramilitaries were caught trying to smuggle weapons into Northern Ireland from England through Belfast International Airport. One loyalist from west Belfast was arrested and imprisoned during such a mission. The chances of success were minimal rather it was a largely symbolic act of desperation. The UDA, in common with other paramilitary groups of the period including the IRA, developed an income base by becoming involved in protection rackets, extortion and armed robbery. This aspect of the UDA’s operations is described in the accounts of Sam Duddy, ‘Billy’, ‘Jackie’, Michael Stone and ‘Tommy’. While much of the proceeds of these illegal activities were used to purchase guns, and to provide financial support for the welfare of prisoners and their families, the lack of financial governance within the organisation almost inevitably resulted in fraud and embezzlement becoming common practice within the UDA. Some UDA leaders felt secure enough in their power bases to openly flaunt their

A Parliamentary Organisation?

27

newly acquired wealth, in the form of cars, clothes, jewellery and continental holidays. That UDA funds were being used in this way was common knowledge in many of the UDA’s catchment areas, and did immeasurable harm to the reputation and standing of the organisation. Funds that had been accumulated by criminal means were being used for the personal gain of some of those within the organisation. Examples of the kind of criminal activity and personal gain prevalent within the organisation are contained in the accounts of Sam Duddy, ‘Billy’, John White, ‘Terry’, ‘Jackie’, Michael Stone, ‘Tommy’, Johnny Adair and ‘Gordon’. By 1973/74 the UDA had become an organisation composed of clearly distinct and disparate elements. The ordinary volunteers were still by and large politically motivated, not involved in corrupt activities and committed to fighting republicans and the IRA. (The selective targeting of Sinn Fein/IRA is described in many of the following accounts including ‘Terry’, ‘Jackie’, ‘Gary’, Michael Stone, ‘Tommy’, Johnny Adair, ‘Gordon’, ‘Alan’, Combatants A, B, C and D). Others within the UDA simply viewed the conflict as sectarian, and justified sectarian warfare and murder on that basis. The position of the UDA’s leadership was more complex. Many UDA leaders were politically motivated, uninvolved in corruption, and enjoyed strong support within the organisation. They had a very clear view of the war and made various contributions to it (see the accounts of Sam Duddy, ‘Billy’, John White, ‘Terry’, ‘Jackie’, ‘Gary’, Michael Stone, ‘Tommy’, Johnny Adair, ‘Gordon’, ‘Alan’, Combatants A, B, C and D). Because these leaders controlled what were called ‘military active units’ they were commonly arrested and questioned or interrogated by the police. A significantly high percentage were prosecuted and imprisoned. The level of police activity directed at the UDA was usually commensurate with the level of paramilitary activity in the command area of the local UDA battalion or company. A militarily active UDA Commanding Officer in a given location could therefore expect to be arrested or placed under close surveillance by the police on a regular basis, whereas a militarily inactive CO would not attract much police attention. Similarly a CO involved in criminal activity could expect the security forces to attempt to ‘turn’ him into becoming an informer or agent. Thereafter, he would be allowed to carry on his UDA activities relatively undisturbed by security force attention, as a reward for deflecting UDA volunteers from conflictrelated activity as criminal activity increased. Security forces’ infiltration of the UDA is described in the accounts of Sam Duddy,

28

History, Organisation and Structure

John White, ‘Terry’, ‘Jackie’, Michael Stone, Johnny Adair and ‘Gordon’. The IRA’s hatred of the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC), and Special Branch in particular, is well documented, and manifest in their targeting police officers for attack. However, the IRA continues to be unaware of the debt of gratitude which they owe to the RUC, in that it was as a result of infiltration of the UDA by the RUC that the UDA attacks on the IRA were substantially neutralised. The UDA could have identified those COs who were acting as agents, or who had been otherwise compromised by the security forces, through applying these two simple criteria: a) the record of conflictrelated activity, attacks against the IRA or more disconcertingly upon the wider Catholic community, and b) the patterns of arrests of UDA commanders and their relationships with the police. The military leadership simply failed to apply these two simple criteria in assessing the wildly different profiles of the organisation. The outcome was laxity and a benign chaos which was, incredibly, allowed to continue until the reorganisation in 1989. By the late 1970s the criminality and infiltration which had permeated the UDA was an open secret, but in real terms affected only a small percentage of the organisation. In spite of the fact that this element constituted only a small minority within the organisation, it was enough for the media to be able to represent them as being characteristic of the UDA as a whole. Training The most obvious deficiency in the organisation during the 1970s and 1980s was the lack of training and the resultant lack of military coherency (both in terms of military methodology and military psychology). This would always have been apparent to the security forces, but was somewhat belatedly realised by the UDA/UFF during the mid- to late 1980s. During 1987 a UDA training camp, and military training, became established for UDA and UFF volunteers. This was probably one of the most significant developments in the organisation’s history, marking as it did an increased professional capability within the UDA and UFF. Given the state of the organisation during the 1980s it seems unlikely that a development of this magnitude and significance was suddenly initiated from within the UDA. Rather it could be suggested that outside influences were instrumental in what was to be the transition of the UDA/UFF from a largely undisciplined rabble into a militarily competent force.

A Parliamentary Organisation?

29

During the 1970s and 1980s the military training provided for UDA/UFF volunteers could be best described as rough and ready. The lack of efficient organisational practices and professionalism within these groups was surprising given that both the UDA’s and the UFF’s membership included former and serving military personnel. Andy Tyrie was credited for introducing a professional residential training programme for the UDA/UFF in the mid-1980s. This development had been fiercely resisted by a majority of the pre-1989 UDA leadership. They did not wish to see the emergence of a younger, politically motivated, militarily competent force, because their tenure could be readily challenged by such a grouping. The training was provided by former British Army personnel who were experienced in both terrorist and counter-terrorist warfare. The training offered was sophisticated and included in-depth anti-interrogation techniques, forensic science training, secure mobile communications, surveillance and targeting and psychological warfare – the art of inducing fear in the enemy. Weapons training had a decidedly special forces ethos, and included training in the manufacture of anti-personnel devices or bombs, close combat skills, lethal force – how to convert an ordinary rifle into an automatic sub-machine gun and training in the use of ‘speed strips’ for automatic weapons which could double the duration of rapid fire capacity in such weapons. For accounts of training, see ‘Terry’, ‘Jackie’, ‘Gary’, Michael Stone, ‘Tommy’, Johnny Adair, ‘Gordon’, ‘Alan’, Combatants A, C and D. Given the extent of security forces’ infiltration within the UDA, during the 1980s it can be safely assumed that both the British security forces and British intelligence (and special operations groups) were aware of this training initiative, which was allowed to proceed unhindered. Some have suggested that the security forces, including the British Army and the RUC, were at the very least non-interventionist insofar as they did not interfere with this training initiative. In effect, an anti-IRA/republican special operations unit was being formed within loyalism, which could operate outside the law and without the constraints which had hampered the security forces’ efforts to end hard-core IRA terrorism. It does not seem unlikely that the UDA’s movement towards increasing professionalism and the resultant capacity for selective targeting of IRA personnel would have been allowed to proceed unhindered by those wishing to put the IRA out of business. This training undertaken by the UDA/UFF had two significant outcomes. The first was an increased operational capability, and the second and more important was an improvement

30

History, Organisation and Structure

in the morale, psychological preparation and confidence of volunteers. By the late 1980s, for the first time in the history of the conflict, the UDA/UFF had trained soldiers who were both motivated and equipped to take on the IRA. However, this significant development coincided with the Stevens Enquiry in 1989, which culminated in the arrest and imprisonment of the old corrupt UDA leadership. These arrests included that of Brian Nelson, a British agent who was controlled by the Forces Research Unit. Other UDA commanders who were working as double agents or informers for the police and security forces were also arrested at that time. These arrests cleared the way for a younger, trained, competent UDA/UFF leadership to emerge. However, the arrests also compromised the ability of the security forces to continue its de facto control of UDA, while simultaneously facilitating the development of a new pro-British special operations unit, which could fight the IRA and function beyond the constraints of the law and normal military convention. British special operations forces and intelligence services were arguably less concerned with remaining within conventional military or policing protocols in their war with republican terrorism. A WORKING-CLASS ORGANISATION? The UDA has always drawn its members from the Protestant working class, and always has had a working-class, Protestant ethos. For a paramilitary group dependent on community support, there are advantages to this in terms of the sense of ownership within its constituent communities. At another level, however, the deep mistrust of anyone from outside the loyalist ghettos and of the educated middle class excluded those who could have offered professional leadership. The critically important disadvantage of this non-hierarchical kind of organisation is the difficulty in developing the potential of volunteers with the vision, education and personal authority to provide effective leadership. As an organisation, the UDA was formed in great haste, with ordinary men speedily propelled into positions of leadership and power without regard to their experience or aptitude for such roles. This resulted in many being placed in positions beyond their realm of competence. Nonetheless, some good individual leaders did emerge during the 1970s, and notably after 1989, but this was more by accident than design. More commonly, however, a macho culture within the UDA command

A Working-Class Organisation?

31

ensured that leadership positions were usually seized by the hard men, and as a consequence the macho culture and the strategic inconsistency of the UDA was perpetuated. The UDA’s lack of refinement was perhaps most pronounced in the public relations management of the media. With their complete lack of public relations skills, and their studied indifference towards politics and self-presentation, the emerging UDA, composed of working-class men, became a soft target particularly for urbane international journalists. International media reporting of the Northern Ireland conflict tended to reduce the complexity of the so-called ‘troubles’ into the easily digestible accounts of the ‘good guys’ and the ‘bad guys’, the ‘freedom fighters’ and the ‘reactionary thugs’ (Parkinson, 1999). The IRA were quick to accept and exploit their sympathetic and at times overtly partisan media characterisation. In stark contrast to the loyalists, republicans demonstrated enormous sophistication in international propaganda, particularity in North America. Within the context of the United Kingdom, the British were so concerned with republican media and presentational skills they imposed successive media bans. The UDA, on the other hand, with the relative lack of sophistication due perhaps to its working-class orientation and membership, to its great cost readily accepted their portrayal as the hard men. In line with this acceptance, they typically conducted interviews with the international media wearing balaclavas and carrying baseball bats. This was consistent with the image that the UDA of that time wanted to convey, in order to achieve their goal which was to intimidate the IRA. The result was that the world acquired a rather stereotyped image of the UDA. Once a stereotype is formed, and accepted as the reality, the tendency is to look for evidence to support and consolidate the stereotypical view, which becomes the societal view of the labelled and stigmatised group. Evidence which contradicts the stereotypical view or the stereotyped understanding of the given group tends to be discounted, as the psychological disposition is to accept only information that confirms the stereotype – what the external audience ‘knows’ is already formed. Thus the UDA as a working-class organisation had been portrayed by the media, whose language they didn’t understand, as being vulnerable to what Skolnick (1978) has termed ‘riff-raff theory’. According to riff-raff theory the legitimacy of an entire political movement can be wholly undermined by the criminal activities of a minority, however tiny. If the motivation or activities of just a small

32

History, Organisation and Structure

number of paramilitary volunteers can be established as criminal, the integrity of the entire paramilitary organisation can be discounted and subsequently characterised as criminal. Even if the vast majority of men in a paramilitary group or organisation are motivated by purely political factors, this becomes largely irrelevant if they become contaminated by association with the stereotype of the criminal organisation. Any claim they may have to political legitimacy is subsequently discredited and discounted with a wider audience. It was precisely this type of attempted political delegitimisation which facilitated the British government in ending the policy of granting paramilitary prisoners in Northern Ireland the status of political prisoners, and introducing their policy of criminalisation directed at political paramilitary prisoners. The policy of criminalisation ultimately didn’t work largely because of the resolve of the political prisoners to resist it, refusing to accept a designation and status misapplied to them. This was the battle of wills which led, quite predictably, to the hunger strikes of 1981, with contemporary IRA prisoners following in the footsteps of Thomas Ashe and Terrence McSwiney. Once again the prison issue, Irishmen protesting for political status in British prisons, rallied enormous support, with massive rallies, the intervention of the Catholic church and international condemnation (Crawford, 1999a). The British had, once again, shot themselves in the foot, the question being whether or not this was intentional. The prison protests had substantially swung the international audience to conclude that the British should indeed leave Ireland, a policy disposition shared by the British Foreign Office and the vast majority of the British public during 1981. The prison protests and hunger strikes had greatly enhanced the case for British disengagement, clearly serving the interests of those arguing for such an outcome (Crawford, 1999c). STRATEGY AND TACTICS: SELECTIVE TARGETING VERSUS RANDOM KILLING By 1971–72 two main strategies were being utilised by the UDA. This dual strategy involved the selective targeting of IRA/Sinn Fein, and the random murder of Catholics. This was held in response to the IRA’s bombing campaign and strategy of killing members of the security forces, and Protestants more generally. Thus the war in Northern Ireland, as prosecuted by both the UDA and the UVF, was simultaneously a political war against the IRA, a war to determine

Strategy and Tactics

33

the future of the state, and a sectarian war in which random Catholics were killed. The localised UDA/UFF leaderships had embarked upon their random strategy arguing that this strategy was being pursued by them and their members out of military necessity. This aspect of the UDA campaign is described in the accounts of Sam Duddy, ‘Ken’, ‘Billy’, John White, ‘Terry’, ‘Gary’, ‘Tommy’, ‘Gordon’, ‘Alan’, Combatants A, B, C and D. The aim of this strategy was to maintain, as they saw it, a ‘balance of terror’ between the two communities. From 1972 until 1976 the IRA escalated its violence and this was met with an increased and almost equal level of loyalist paramilitary violence. After 1977, UDA violence declined and fell well below the level of IRA killings. As Malachi O’Doherty (1998) commented some years later: ‘Murdering Catholics at random made a certain amount of cynical good sense, if your objective was to keep reminding all Catholics that there was a price to be paid for some of them supporting the IRA.’ In spite of the apparent tactical merits of the random killing strategy, a majority within the UDA/UFF did not agree with it and refused to implement it. By the mid-1980s elements within the UDA, and within the UFF in particular, were increasingly aware that they were not attracting the calibre of volunteer required to effectively engage the IRA. It seemed to the leadership at that time that the organisation would remain unable to attract high-quality recruits while they continued to conduct a sectarian war. A further disadvantage of the random killing strategy became evident: the leadership realised that they could not work with potentially sympathetic sections of the security services until their killing became more targeted, focused and selective. 1972 was Northern Ireland’s most critical year. In January of that year the Parachute Regiment shot dead 14 Catholic civil rights supporters in Londonderry in what became known as Bloody Sunday. This traumatised the Catholic population north and south and paved the way for the IRA to characterise the British Army in Northern Ireland as a hostile army of occupation. This one event led to a massive influx of volunteers into the IRA, and lent a renewed sense of legitimacy to the republican fight to remove the British presence from Ireland. The consequences of Bloody Sunday and the subsequent recruitment into the IRA would be felt in Northern Ireland and elsewhere for decades. In March 1972, the IRA set off bombs in the Abercorn Restaurant and in Donegal Street, both in central Belfast, causing multiple deaths

34

History, Organisation and Structure

and horrific injuries. Media coverage of these events was gruesome. Human torsos were filmed lying smoking on the ground, severed limbs collected in plastic bags. This atrocity was for the loyalists the equivalent of America’s 9/11. Unlike America, however, the moral outrage was met with governmental complacency, and as far as the UDA was concerned further concessions to terrorism. Law and order was fragmenting in Northern Ireland, reflected in a state of increasing social and political chaos and in these circumstances the Northern Ireland parliament, Stormont, was suspended, as direct rule from London became imposed. The loyalists regarded this as a concession to the IRA, and a victory for its violence. This sense of aggrievement was further consolidated when in July of that year the media reported that secret talks had taken place between the IRA and representatives of the British government in London. The UDA at that time saw republican terrorism gaining concessions from government and concluded that when dealing with the British, violence pays. (See the accounts of Sam Duddy, John White, ‘Jackie’, ‘Gary’, Johnny Adair and ‘Gordon’.) That point was not lost on rank and file UDA members, and as result, loyalist violence escalated, mostly in a largely unplanned and spontaneous fashion. In late July 1972, more than 20 bombs exploded in the Belfast area, causing horrific human injury and the loss of lives. As the IRA bombing campaign intensified, the UDA’s random assassination of Catholics increased in frequency. The IRA were claiming 1972 as its ‘Year of Victory’ (Bowyer Bell, 1993). Both loyalist and republican paramilitaries believed that the British were on the verge of disengaging from Northern Ireland. Increased political destabilisation in Northern Ireland resulted, and the loyalists prepared to fight a ‘holy war’, which had in effect already commenced. (See the accounts of ‘Ken’, ‘Billy’, John White, ‘Terry’, Michael Stone, Combatants A, B, C and D for views of the conflict as a holy war.) For the IRA this destabilisation gave them a glimpse of potential victory and led to renewed paramilitary activity on their part, which translated into a ‘one last push’ mentality based on the conviction that one more horrendous atrocity would cause the British to withdraw from Northern Ireland. In July 1972 alone, a total of 401 people were killed, 280 through republican violence and 121 through loyalist violence, 71 of which were claimed by the UDA/UFF (McKittrick et al., 2002). This pattern of violence in 1972 was to set the tone for the UDA’s military strategy, and for the next five years, until 1977, the UDA/UFF continued to wage what was largely sectarian warfare against a

Strategy and Tactics

35

Catholic community, which it regarded as complicit with the IRA. Table 1 shows the total numbers killed by loyalist and republican violence. The interdependant nature of loyalist (UDA/UFF) violence is evident from the total killed and the patterns emerging. The rationale for this is evident in the accounts of Sam Duddy, ‘Ken’, ‘Billy’, John White, ‘Terry’, ‘Jackie’, ‘Gary’, Michael Stone, ‘Tommy’, ‘Gordon’, ‘Alan’ and Combatants A, B, C and D. Table 1

Year

The Statistics of Murder Responsibility for deaths IRA/all republicans UDA/UFF

1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 *

21 107 280 137 149 130 163 74 62 104 58 84 85 62 51 47 41 74 69 57 52 53 42 *39 *27 7 14 *5 37 4 *3 *0

Loyalist killing exceeds that of republicans

Source: McKittrick et al., 2002

1 4 71 44 41 20 50 12 2 10 9 5 1 2 2 2 6 12 12 6 8 17 21 31 12 0 1 4 2 0 2 1

All loyalists 1 22 121 90 131 121 127 28 10 18 14 14 15 12 10 5 17 20 23 19 20 41 39 *48 *38 2 5 *13 17 3 *8 *4

36

History, Organisation and Structure

After 1976 the marked drop in the number of deaths caused by the UDA can be explained by their lack of a military strategy from 1976 onwards. From that point, corruption and criminality began to take hold of the organisation in a substantial way involving protection rackets, extortion, armed robbery and petty crime. Another key factor was the extent of police infiltration of the UDA, with many police informers and double agents involved in the organisation. The combination of these factors had the effect of largely closing down the UDA’s paramilitary operation. This remained the situation throughout the 1980s, when the UDA’s paramilitary campaign remained relatively inactive. One additional factor served to reduce the number of killings carried out by the UDA/UFF. In common with the UVF, the UDA was attempting to become more selective in its identification of targets. From this period onwards, the UDA/UFF began to target known IRA and Sinn Fein personnel in preference to its previous policy of randomly selecting targets in the Catholic community. Martin McGuinness, Gerry Adams, Owen Carron and Bernadette Devlin were among the public representatives on a very extensive list of UDA/UFF targets. (See the accounts of ‘Ken’, John White, ‘Terry’, ‘Jackie’, ‘Gary’, Michael Stone, ‘Tommy’, Johnny Adair, ‘Gordon’, ‘Alan’ and Combatants A, B, C and D.) Loyalist paramilitaries had in fact attempted to assassinate all four. UDA/UFF reorganisation: 1989–94 By the mid-1980s many of the gunmen of the UDA/UFF were being persuaded by their political advisers as to the futility of killing ordinary Catholics as a primary military strategy. However, a significant number of gunmen within the UDA/UFF still reserved the right to carry out fatal attacks on randomly selected Catholics in retaliation for specific acts of IRA violence, although this meant that the UDA/UFF strategy was not entirely coherent, composed of sporadic retaliatory acts attacks alongside attacks on selected targets. The impetus to move towards a more selective targeting strategy was subsequently facilitated by the Stevens Enquiry. This was established in 1989 headed by Sir John Stevens, Metropolitan Commissioner of Police, and was charged with investigating allegations of collusion between the security forces and the loyalist paramilitaries. As a result of the Stevens Enquiry, many of the pre-1989 UDA leaders were arrested and questioned, and the extent of infiltration of the organisation by the security forces began to enter the public domain. This led to a root and branch reorganisation of the UDA and UFF. Many

Strategy and Tactics

37

of the corrupt and criminal elements within the UDA were removed, and the top leadership, which had actually been largely controlled by the police and army through infiltration, was also expelled from the organisation. The resultant internal reorganisation led to the production of a new UDA/UFF mission statement in 1989, which read like an up-dated version of Andy Tyrie’s original 1971 objective of ‘terrorising the terrorists’. This new reformed UDA/UFF formulated the goal of ‘taking the war to the IRA’. The UFF would claim in retrospect that that is precisely what it went on to do. Between 1989 and the ceasefire in 1994 the UDA/UFF claim to have killed some 26 IRA or Sinn Fein personnel, although they have never differentiated between the IRA and Sinn Fein (while acting on reliable intelligence). (See the accounts of ‘Terry’, ‘Jackie’, ‘Gary’, Michael Stone, ‘Tommy’, Johnny Adair for descriptions of this intelligence.) However, this UDA/UFF claim was either ignored or discounted by the media and republicans, both anxious to deny the legitimacy of loyalist paramilitaries. The selective targeting strategy was not always successfully implemented. In 1988, UDA member Michael Stone went to the Milltown Cemetery with the intention of killing Gerry Adams, Martin McGuinness and Danny Morrison at the funeral of the IRA volunteers killed in Gibraltar. Stone conducted a gun and grenade attack in the cemetery in an attempt to selectively kill IRA/Sinn Fein personnel and demonstrate that loyalists were departing from a policy of random killing of Catholics. However, this went badly wrong and two innocent civilians, Thomas McErlean and John Murray, were killed. The third person killed, Kevin Brady, was an IRA volunteer who was given military honours by the IRA at his funeral. The dispute over the effectiveness and accuracy of UDA/UFF targeting came to a head in 1989 over the murder of Loughlin Maginn. Maginn was a Catholic living in Lisburn, killed by the UFF who claimed to have been increasingly selective in targeting IRA/Sinn Fein members. After Loughlin Maginn’s murder the media claimed that it was another sectarian killing of an innocent Catholic. However, the UDA/UFF claimed to be in possession of documentation from the security forces which associated Maginn with the IRA. In its frustration at the allegations of sectarian murder, the UFF showed a BBC reporter the security forces’ intelligence files they had of alleged IRA suspects, including Maginn. Jackie McDonald, a south Belfast UDA brigadier commander, insisted that intelligence information on Maginn had come from the Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR), the local regiment of the British Army. He maintained that

38

History, Organisation and Structure

the intelligence the UFF received was ‘verbal, written and pictorial’ and that ‘there was absolutely no doubt that Maginn was, in UDA/UFF terms, a “genuine target”’ (Taylor, 2000). This led to widespread allegations of collusion between the security forces and the loyalist paramilitaries, and pressure on the legal authorities to investigate, which ultimately resulted in the Stevens Enquiry. The IRA nationalist politicians and a range of human rights organisations continued to claim that there was collusion between the security forces and the UDA/UFF from 1988 until the ceasefires in 1994. The UDA/UFF’s response to these allegations is to maintain that they were acting on good intelligence, and that they were getting the right people, namely IRA/Sinn Fein members. The precise reliability of the intelligence they were acting on and the legitimacy of the targets remains open to debate. The UDA/UFF claim that they were acting upon either their own or low-level security force intelligence. Apart from the broader allegations of collusion between loyalist paramilitary groups and the police from political parties such as the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP), Sinn Fein also complained vehemently about collusion. This was because republicans – the IRA/Sinn Fein – were for the first time being effectively targeted by the loyalist paramilitaries, no doubt to their discomfort. In addition to the 26 republicans – either members of Sinn Fein or of the IRA – that the UFF claimed to have killed, they made over 80 assassination attempts. These attempted assassinations were evaluated as successful operations in that they contributed to the psychological warfare objective of ‘instilling fear in the enemy’, namely Sinn Fein/IRA. According to some accounts, on several occasions a target was deliberately not killed, because the UFF preferred to leave him alive so that he could import the fear back into the ranks of the IRA. The targeting of Catholic civilians may have served to increase Catholic support for the IRA as the defender of the Catholic community, and thus perversely served the interests of the IRA. However, when IRA/Sinn Fein members began to be targeted, many loyalists have observed that the political climate altered quickly, in the direction of a cessation of hostilities. During 1988 and 1989 the UDA/UFF began reorganising all over Northern Ireland. Perhaps for the first time it had an effective leadership and a successful strategy in UDA/UFF terms. The new loyalist campaign had been initiated within the UFF’s 2nd Battalion C Company in Belfast, and steps were being taken to replicate the

Infiltration

39

new leadership’s organisation and tactics of taking the war to the IRA throughout all UDA/UFF units in Northern Ireland. The pre-1989 UDA/UFF with its widespread corruption, criminality and infiltration was being systematically cleaned up and restructured. These changes had many implications for the organisation, and impacted on many of its operations, not least of which was recruitment into the organisation itself. Hundreds of young UDA volunteers had been prevented by the self-serving nature of the old regime from succeeding in their objective of taking the war to the IRA. The inadequacy and corruption of UDA leadership at local level, compounded in no small measure by police infiltration, had conspired to render the UDA largely ineffective. This had resulted in large-scale disaffection within and around the UDA throughout the 1970s and 1980s. Indeed it is surprising to some that the organisation survived at all until 1989. The organisation’s ranks had been depleted because there were many high-calibre young loyalists who had no wish to join an organisation whose principal activity was random sectarian murder. This tension is described in the accounts of ‘Terry’, ‘Jackie’, ‘Gary’, Michael Stone, Johnny Adair, ‘Gordon’ and ‘Alan’. This new generation of recruits had been deterred by the racketeering, drug peddling and gangsterism within the UDA. However, joining the UDA/UFF as a reformed disciplined and military force was quite a different and more attractive prospect. At the point when the UDA/UFF began to demonstrate their new political and military coherence, a new breed of higher-calibre volunteers came forward. Men who would have previously joined the UDA were now recruited by the UFF. This, in turn, led to significant operational changes within the UFF after 1989. INFILTRATION BY THE POLICE AND SECURITY FORCES Prior to 1989 the UDA/UFF had been infiltrated by the police and the security forces at the highest levels (see the accounts of Sam Duddy, John White, ‘Terry’, Michael Stone, ‘Tommy’ and ‘Alan’). This infiltration and external security forces’ control and influence resulted in very few paramilitary operations being carried out by the UDA/UFF. Paramilitary operations were also subverted, and volunteers were routinely arrested. Men were apprehended in circumstances which could only have been possible with information gleaned from security forces’ infiltration of the UDA. The police and army agents in the UDA set about neutralising the military capacity

40

History, Organisation and Structure

of the organisation (see the accounts of John White, ‘Terry’, ‘Jackie’, ‘Gary’ and Michael Stone). In retrospect, this should have been obvious to anyone in the UDA who had bothered to analyse the pattern of arrests and botched operations. Guns were doctored so that they failed to fire during operations, safe houses were kept under surveillance, operations were patently set up by the security forces so that UDA/UFF men could be apprehended en route to or returning from them. Events occurred that could not be coincidences. Elements within the security forces were clearly determined to put the UDA out of business. However, the role of special branch and the British intelligence services with the UFF was distinctly less certain, as is clear from the accounts of ‘Tommy’, Johnny Adair, ‘Gordon’ and ‘Alan’. By 1989, the UDA/UFF began somewhat belatedly to learn the lessons from the 1970s and 1980s about infiltration and security and secrecy within the organisation became of paramount importance. The flow of information within the organisation was reduced drastically, and communications were restricted to a minimal ‘need to know’ basis. Volunteers were not advised of the details of a mission until a particular mission was initiated. Volunteers were ranked according to their level of security clearance, with the highest clearance given only to those who had successfully proven themselves in action. Intermediate clearance was given to those who volunteered for active service, and there were selection procedures, in-depth interviews and trial runs before they were placed on active service. These differences in the UDA/UFF after 1989 were noted by the security forces, in particular by the police. Sir Hugh Annesly, Chief Constable of the RUC, described the newly reformed UFF in September 1991: There is very little doubt that the ‘old guard’ if you like, would have had a level of activity above which they would not have gone, and I think that in that sense they were something of a restraining influence … That influence has now gone … the teams that are coming through are more aggressive … I think they are prepared to match some of the activities the IRA have committed … and I think that some of those who might have stood in the way have been pushed to the side, to be replaced by harder, more determined, more ruthless and better quality individuals in their capacity to organise and carry out attacks within Northern Ireland.

Infiltration

41

The men selected for active service were rated as ‘high calibre’ by the leadership, and only those who were not known to the police and security forces were chosen. This precluded the deployment of those with records of arrests, or with paramilitary or criminal records. Other volunteers with low levels of security clearance were used only in non-combat capacities. At this time, all weaponry was stored in pristine condition in dry storage. All guns were checked and regularly fired to ensure that a supply of weapons in working order was available in advance of a mission. Discussion about missions was only permitted to be conducted by those who had directly taken part in them. Volunteers were provided with training in their legal rights upon arrest and of their right of access to legal counsel. Active volunteers were trained in interrogation and anti-interrogation techniques. They were trained to deny knowledge of anything illegal. As a result of all of this the ranks of the UDA/UFF were not depleted by the operations of the security forces, UDA/UFF volunteers were successfully evading arrest, and those who were arrested mostly managed to avoid subsequent prosecution. In stark contrast to the earlier leaders of the UFF, the new leaders were expected to lead by example, to lead ‘from the front’. No ranking officer could require a volunteer to undertake any action which he had not previously undertaken himself. Accordingly, officers were required to carry out the most dangerous aspects of missions in order to provide role models for the men in their command (see the accounts of John White, ‘Jackie’, ‘Terry’, Michael Stone and ‘Gordon’). All of this effected dramatic changes within the organisation. Prior to 1989, UDA/UFF volunteers who went on active service faced almost certain arrest and imprisonment. It is remarkable that even this prospect did not deter many of them. However the reorganised cells – which were formerly referred to as active service units – operated strictly according to the new organisational ethos and under the new ‘standing orders’. Secrecy became paramount; the information flow was restricted to a need to know basis. Companies acted independently from battalions to minimise the knowledge base to those directly involved in active operations. Nonetheless, as a precaution, volunteers who had been arrested and questioned by the police were stood down from active service, and were forbidden to associate with those who remained active. This was to prevent infiltration and assumed, correctly, that those volunteers who had been

42

History, Organisation and Structure

arrested would be subject to security force surveillance. As the success of the UFF’s more selective strategy of taking the war to the IRA became apparent, and the old strategy of randomly killing Catholics was demonstrably abandoned, the organisation attracted more and higher-quality recruits (see the accounts of ‘Terry’, ‘Jackie’, ‘Gary’, ‘Tommy’, Johnny Adair, ‘Gordon’ and ‘Alan’). By 1994 the UFF was engaged in its war with the IRA/Sinn Fein with growing confidence. As one senior UFF commander put it: ‘For the first time we were playing to win.’ This observation was confirmed by others within the organisation, see the accounts of ‘Jackie’, ‘Gary’, Michael Stone, Johnny Adair and ‘Gordon’. Within the UDA in 1994, morale was high, the new strategy was demonstrably working and they determined to draw their war against the IRA to a successful conclusion. However, the UDP and the political advisers to the UDA/UFF had by now realised, in common with Sinn Fein, that a resolution of the conflict could only be achieved politically. The UFF agreement to a ceasefire in 1994 went very much against the tide within an organisation that was experiencing, at long last, a degree of military success. The ceasefire was agreed as a result of the intervention of trusted political advisers within the organisation, who had a track record within the organisation and had proven themselves militarily. Without their military credentials, they would have lacked the credibility and gravitas to influence the hawks within the organisation in the direction of seeking a political resolution to the conflict. COLLUSION BETWEEN ELEMENTS OF THE BRITISH SECURITY FORCES AND MEMBERS OF THE UDA/UFF One of the key questions about the UDA/UFF as an organisation is also one of the most controversial and perennial dimensions of the Northern Ireland conflict. This is the question of the allegation of collusion between elements of the British security forces on the one hand and the UDA/UFF on the other. Were there sections of the security community who realised that, while conventional police and military tactics could limit and contain republican terrorism, they could not defeat it? Were there some within the intelligence and special forces who feared that the IRA’s terrorist campaign could be waged indefinitely at enormous cost to the lives of British civilians and security forces? After some 25 years of patrolling the streets of Northern Ireland, of sustaining heavy

Collusion

43

casualties, and heavily constrained in how they could respond, did those same forces decide to enlist the help of pro-British paramilitary forces? The UDA/UFF were quite willing to operate outside the law in taking the war to IRA/Sinn Fein, their common enemy. Enlisting the help of ‘friendly forces’, in the form of local militias, against a shared enemy is a standard military tactic, the most recent example being the Americans’ support for the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan. Accordingly, security forces’ intelligence files on IRA/Sinn Fein members and known republicans were passed on to the UDA/UFF. This is addressed in the accounts of ‘Jackie’, ‘Gary’, ‘Tommy’ and Johnny Adair. It has been established by the Stevens Enquiry that security files were indeed passed on. A major debate has arisen around whether sections of the security forces passed over files of innocent Catholics; was this systematic, deliberate, or does this stretch credibility? The status and affiliation of many of the murdered men remains in dispute. There is an inevitable propaganda battle between the UFF and the IRA. The UFF claim to have had their own undisclosed intelligence sources and clearly the IRA would have wanted to keep its volunteers’ membership secret, whenever possible. Accordingly the status and affiliations of many of the UDA/UFF’s victims remain in dispute, as in the case of Loughlin Maginn. For the views of UDA/UFF members on this issue see the accounts of ‘Gary’, ‘Tommy’, Johnny Adair and ‘Gordon’. The UFF maintain that the number of known republicans and IRA members it killed was greater than had been suggested, implying that some of those it killed who are regarded as civilians were, in fact, in the IRA. The UFF claim to know this upon the basis of its own intelligence sources, derived from low-level security forces, their own surveillance, and from a variety of other sources regarded by them as ‘absolutely proven and reliable’. However, this is a difficult issue to resolve without access to this intelligence, and the danger of impugning the reputation of those innocent Catholics murdered by the UFF is a real one; this is simply to record the UFF’s version of its history and motivation. The UFF argue that there is a propaganda battle on this issue, and maintain that the IRA has not claimed all of its dead members for a variety of reasons. First, the IRA wish to deny the legitimacy of UFF killings, and its military success in engaging the IRA. By claiming that those killed were, in fact, civilians, the IRA minimise the success of the UFF. Second, the IRA withhold claiming dead volunteers as members at the request of volunteers’ families who are anxious to

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History, Organisation and Structure

maintain anonymity and respectability in the community. Third, the UFF allege that dead volunteers are not claimed by the IRA as members so that they do not jeopardise insurance and claims for damages against the state. Finally, the IRA allegedly do not acknowledge dead volunteers as members in order to maintain the cover of its remaining volunteers. The IRA, like other paramilitaries including the UFF, had volunteers whose clandestine activities were completely unknown to family members, even their wives. Such individuals’ continued value to their organisations depended on their ability to operate covertly, and to keep their paramilitary involvement secret. One of many cases where an apparent civilian later proved to be in the IRA was that of Kevin O’Donnell, who was killed by the SAS in 1992 as he was attacking the RUC with a heavy machine gun. He had previously sworn in a British court that he was a ‘devout Catholic’ and ‘not an IRA supporter’ (Geraghty, 2000, McKittrick et al., 2002). The truth in relation to the affiliations of many of the victims may never be known, rather the ‘truth’ may be perceived as an entirely subjective entity, determined by whichever version of history one subscribes to. There is little doubt that elements within the British security services during the mid-1980s and 1990s did have an interest in the increasing military, professionalisation of the UDA/UFF. It can also be established that from 1986 in particular, elements within the UDA/UFF were involved in selective targeting. Brian Nelson had been recruited as an army agent by the Forces Research Unit while serving in the British Army. Nelson was encouraged to join the UDA where the Forces Research Unit ensured his progression by supplying him with high-grade intelligence (i.e. about republicans). He was to go on to become the UFF’s Intelligence Officer and his role according to secret army files was to ‘make their [UFF] targeting more professional’, and to get ‘these gangs’ (UDA/UFF) to concentrate on ‘specific targeting’ of ‘legitimate’ republican terrorist targets (Ware, 2002). Security files were passed to Nelson giving details of the ‘right people’ (so called ‘legitimate’ republican targets). The UFF acted upon this intelligence, with a conviction that army intelligence was accurate. This appears to have been a reasonable assumption, but in reality some of the files are known to have related to civilians suspected of IRA involvement, which fell far short of the ‘hard evidence’ the UFF gunmen assumed they were acting upon (Ware, 2002). On one occasion Nelson sent a gunman to the wrong address, and Terry McDaid, an innocent Catholic, was killed. Nelson was furious that a

Collusion

45

Catholic civilian had been killed, and complained aggressively to his army handlers. Nelson was subsequently informed that Terry McDaid was traced as having links to the Provisional IRA. This was the British Army’s attempt to placate Nelson. The significance of this was truly astonishing: the UFF, in the form of Nelson and his associates, were apparently more concerned about the murder of innocent Catholics than sections of the British Army, who had supplied the intelligence, and then subsequently tried to justify the murder through falsely linking the victim to the IRA (Ware, 2002). All of this took the UFF completely by surprise as it had assumed that the FRU would have wished to have attacks on the IRA/Sinn Fein if not clinically, at least accurately, focused. In the absence of any other military explanation the UFF had reasoned that the army’s strategic objective was that of terrorising the IRA’s host (general Catholic) population. This was a tactic which the UDA/UFF had employed for decades but by 1989 many of the commanders reached the conclusion that this was essentially counter-productive. It was precisely that realisation which was instrumental in the UFF’s strategy change to the policy of selective targeting. The UFF knew the balance of terror argument well enough but it appeared to many that as it was becoming more selective, the army’s interest extended to maintaining the random strategy (the tactical murder of innocent Catholics). However, there were those within the UFF who remained uncomfortable with this explanation, believing that it stretched credibility to accuse the British security forces of sanctioning what was in effect sectarian murder. It was not until the Scappatticci revelations (May 2003) that the UFF, and others, understood the underlying dynamic. The UFF had become very successful both in acquiring intelligence on and in targeting IRA/Sinn Fein personnel. The intelligence gathered extended well beyond that which was passed on by the FRU, as the UFF began to independently target IRA men who were in fact British Army agents. The FRU had accordingly passed on information relating to innocent Catholics to deflect the UFF away from the assassination of the army’s own operatives placed within the IRA. By that time (1989) the FRU and British intelligence had almost totally compromised the IRA through intelligence infiltration, and the highest priority was given to keeping agents within that organisation intact. That was the intelligence and operational imperative, regardless of who else got killed or imprisoned or tortured by an IRA increasingly aware of the extent to which it had been penetrated. This was the beginning of the end for the IRA’s long war in the north.

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History, Organisation and Structure

FROM PARAMILITARIES TO A POLITICISATION OF THE CONFLICT The IRA and the loyalists from the outset of the troubles were involved in overtly sectarian murders. These could be listed ad nauseam. However, the ‘political thinkers’ in the IRA wished to legitimise IRA operations through becoming more selective in whom they murdered largely for PR purposes, and accordingly more police officers and soldiers were killed. This extended to include retired police officers, previously serving police officers, members or former members of the security forces, those who worked for the security forces (including cleaning ladies, for example), members of the families of security forces, etc. Accordingly the press would report ‘an innocent Catholic’ being killed but an equally ‘innocent’ Protestant would be described as a ‘former (retired) police officer’, almost implying that one murder could be explained, while the other couldn’t. The list of legitimate targets became so comprehensive it lead Professor Steve Bruce (1994) to comment that ‘the IRA found PR-friendly reasons to kill pretty well everyone in the Protestant community’. However, Protestants did not regard ‘their’ soldiers or ‘their’ police officers or ‘their’ civilians for that matter as legitimate targets and each and every such murder was not uncommonly taken personally. The IRA was fully aware that their actions would result in a loyalist backlash, it had violently pushed for precisely such a backlash, which it knew full well would be visited upon the human shield of ordinary Catholics. This was for the very simple reason that the UDA (and loyalist paramilitaries) didn’t know who the IRA were. However, this situation changed during the late 1980s and 1990s amid the allegations of collusion as discussed. While the IRA could invoke a degree of legitimacy (presumably) in killing a British soldier or police officer (and ordinary civilians for that matter), inevitably loyalists in the early and mid-stages of the conflict would kill ordinary Catholics in reprisal. That was deeply regretted by the command of the UDA throughout the 1970s and 1980s, but it was accepted by others as being absolutely inevitable. As Andy Tyrie, supreme commander of the UDA, subsequently commented (in relation to the 1970s/1980s): I was sickened every time I heard about the death of a Catholic taxi driver or shop keeper. We wanted to go for the IRA and republicans but we couldn’t locate them, we didn’t know who they were. The bottom line was if they [the IRA/Catholics] killed us

From Paramilitaries to Politicisation

47

[Protestants/British citizens], some of us were going to kill them. We would have loved it if the Irish Army had been in Northern Ireland. We [the UDA] would have taken them on, head on. We wouldn’t have bothered shooting one or two in the back, we’d have gone straight for them. You see that’s the way Protestants fight, we make good soldiers but bad terrorists. Well that’s not strictly correct, by the late 1980s some of our men were getting it [terrorism/counter-terrorism] right. Those were men who studied the IRA and who used the IRA’s own strategy and tactics against them. It took us all that time to learn [terrorist tactics] because we had no history and no tradition of it [terrorism]. The IRA started out with an enormous advantage over us. They had a history of terrorism going back fifty years. To be quite honest the Protestant people didn’t know what had hit them. Nobody in Northern Ireland should ever have been regarded as a legitimate target. There never should have been a war here and we are lucky that it didn’t get out of control. As far as I’m concerned the UDA actually prevented total war in Northern Ireland because we held men in line and held them back. Of course we wanted to ‘take on’ the IRA but we couldn’t find them, so it was largely sectarian murder, and I was desperate to limit that. The UDA held the power to escalate things ten-fold but where would that have got us? Tens of thousands dead in a sectarian war just to end up with some sort of a realigned Ulster, as a Protestant state. This thing [Northern Ireland] had to be sorted out politically, there never was a military solution but it took the Provos 25 years to catch on. Elements within the UDA/UFF were fully aware, as were elements within the security forces, that conventional means of engagement were totally ineffectual against determined, ruthless IRA terrorism. That was the unspoken truth, and the underlying reality, which drove the intelligence flow and the specific targeting in the covert war in Northern Ireland from the mid- to late 1980s until the ceasefire in 1994. It was based upon an understanding of brutal reality, beyond the comprehension of ordinarily decent, if naive, British logic, and notions of playing by the rules. As Bowyer Bell (1993) eloquently states: No-one in power in Great Britain, certainly none of the trendy media people attracted like carrion birds to Northern violence, understood Ulster reality, grasped that the IRA not only intended war – was

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History, Organisation and Structure

waging war – but would also destroy all that had been cherished and defended over the centuries. The IRA wanted a 32 county Republic, Tone’s Republic ... The British army saw merely armed agitation ... They [the IRA] wanted everything ... war had come to Ulster, a war waged by the IRA cunningly and with provocation, with recourse to brutality and terror, a war waged regardless of the costs, waged by those beyond shame or compromise. The UDA/UFF accordingly became involved in the intelligenceled, brutal and ruthless dirty war tactics necessary in a counter-terrorist campaign. (However, when such tactics are employed by the state, these can be characterised as governmental oppression of the people, which is almost inevitably counterproductive. This difficulty is substantially overcome when the conflict is articulated between, and confined to, rival terrorist groups.) Some loyalist strategists maintained that only the admittedly simplistic logic of psychological behaviourism would eventually bring an end to conflict and in this the timing of retaliatory strikes became important, with the emphasis upon rapid response. They reasoned that the IRA had to learn that if loyalists, or the wider British community, suffered from republican terrorism the IRA/republicans, and the nationalist community, would bear the brunt of equally brutal counter-terrorism. Many within the UDA/UFF argued that this, and only this, would be the factor of limitation in combating republican terror and in securing a cessation of hostilities. In this regard the UDA/UFF were, with some help, escalating their war in order to end it. Commenting on this in the Sunday Life some years later John Taylor, a unionist MP, stated: ‘The loyalist paramilitaries achieved something which perhaps the security forces could never have achieved. The [loyalist] killings convinced the Provos that they couldn’t win.’ Some time earlier, in 1996, another MP, Colonel Michael Mates, had made a similar assessment: A bunch of loyalists came out of gaol where they had been serving life sentences, during which time they found out a helluva lot about how PIRA worked and they said to themselves ‘There must be a better way than filling a bar with bullets. We need to knock off major players’. The ‘selection committee’ were sitting in the place where all the best candidates were. Among those who were assassinated between the Downing Street Declaration [December 1993] and the declaration of peace [August 1994] were about

From Paramilitaries to Politicisation

49

fifteen top [Sinn Fein/IRA] people. [Again such claims are in dispute.] The IRA were taking a hell of a ‘pasting’. The hard men agreed to a tactical pause. They said ‘we can’t go on taking casualties at this rate’. That’s exactly what it was, a tactical pause. (Geraghty, 1998) An extension of this ‘military’ analysis may point to the desirability of a maintained ‘live’ loyalist paramilitary presence. As Geraghty (1998) himself observes of the republicans’ ceasefire at this stage of the war (1994): ‘The number one theory is that the loyalist assassination offensive had pushed the republicans to a position where they needed some respite … The deniable, surrogate [loyalist] death squads – a potent weapon in the war against the IRA – had had their day.’ The reality is, they remain intact. During the 1970s and 1980s the loyalists waged their campaign, largely reactively, against the ordinary Catholic community, many arguing that this was necessary in maintaining ‘the balance of terror’ in what they viewed as a sectarian war. By the mid-1980s there was a discernible movement toward the selective targeting of Sinn Fein/IRA members. As discussed, the source and nature of the intelligence the UDA/UFF were acting upon remains in contention, as does the actual status of many of the victims. No doubt these matters will be subject to further enquiry. Accounts of the loyalists campaign have been documented, more often critically than objectively, but this has been relatively neglected in relation to the literature amassed on republicanism and the IRA. As Cusack and McDonald (1997) observe: ‘Until now there has been a dearth of literature related to all the Loyalists’ terrorist movements in the North. This may be somewhat deliberate.’ Since 1971 the UDA and UFF have developed very considerably, not only in terms of their military and strategic capacity, but also in relative political sophistication. Since the early days of loyalist militarism, the loyalist paramilitaries have made a commendable and impressive political journey. (In fact the loyalist paramilitaries and their political representatives have had a considerable history of seeking an accommodation with republicans – Crawford, 1993.) The loyalists for example, have no difficulty with ‘parity of esteem’ for all citizens in Northern Ireland, nor with a Bill of Rights which would actively promote non-discriminatory policies. As Crawford et al. (1999b) state:

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History, Organisation and Structure

It is interesting to note that the Loyalist ‘extremists’ and in particular the political representatives of the Loyalist paramilitary organisations are more willing to seek accommodation with Republicans than Unionists, who seem to harbour thoughts of racial superiority, and who wish to maintain a sectarian caste system in which even Loyalists have their inferior place. McDonald and Cusack (1997) make a similar observation relating to the politicisation of the Protestant paramilitaries: Their metamorphosis from sectarian militarism to a position more liberal than the mainstream Ulster Unionist party has been a remarkable political journey. While preserving the Union, they appear prepared to accept some form of Government which would accommodate nationalists rights and fears. However we probably have to draw upon conflict resolution theory to further understand the process of the politicisation of the military conflict in Ulster. If the parties can neither conquer or avoid each other, some form of procedural resolution is likely. In procedural resolution the parties have to stay together, and live with each other. Conflict in general may not be resolved permanently in so far as the parties continue to exist in contact, but particular conflicts may become resolved simply in the sense that they come to an end as social systems and are replaced by other conflicts and other systems. [i.e. from systems of violent conflict, to those of democratic dialogue] … It is almost inevitable that an element of commonness injects itself into enmity once the stage of violence yields to another relationship even though this new relation(ship) may contain a completely undiminished sum of animosity between two parties. (Coser, 1972)

4

Phase One: Beginnings – the UDA’s Chaotic Sectarian War of the 1970s

SAM DUDDY Sam Duddy (now aged 50+) presents as a mild mannered and polite man, smallish with a light build. He is an avid reader with literary interests in history and psychology. Following a visit to the university a colleague enquired: ‘He’s hardly one of “them” is he?’ In the event Sam is an archetypal UDA man who has always maintained a significant role in the organisation. Duddy has been active in work with loyalist prisoners and their families over a period of 30 years. We lived on the Shankill Road. There was my mother and father and I had three brothers and five sisters. I remember my mother died when I was just eight. I was only a child at the time of course but I remember that as a very sad time. The house always seemed to be dark after that. I suppose that we were comparatively well off. We lived in a big house with a third floor, an attic really but that gave us space. I can remember primary school quite clearly. I remember when I was in P1, I would have been five or six, and the teacher asked me to read a passage from my reading book. It was a story about a cottage in the country which had nasturtiums growing around the front door. The teacher was surprised that I could read so well, but my mother had bought children’s books for me with words and pictures and she had taught me to read. Then the teacher asked me ‘could I spell “nasturtiums”’ so I spelt ‘nasturtiums’ for her. She was delighted, she actually went out and got the other teachers to come into the classroom just so as they could hear me read and spell ‘nasturtiums’. I loved to read and I’ve always enjoyed reading books. I enjoyed school a lot, I suppose I would have been a bit of a ‘teacher’s pet’. Although I did very well at school I had to leave at 15 to go into the family business. They gave me something I’d never heard of before or since, a ‘school leaving certificate’. [A school leaving certificate 51

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which may have been something of a rarity and unheard of in the Shankill area, was in fact the state school equivalent of the grammar school junior certificate, denoting academic ability and potential.] I went into the family business after school, with my father, and things were going well but he died two years later. I tried to carry on but it was impossible for a 17 year old in business. I was getting bills left right and centre and tax demands and it got to be that I was paying out far more than I earned. The business was run from our house and when an older brother and sister moved out [and stopped paying their share of the rent] I just couldn’t afford the rent. So we had to leave our home and the family split up. I went to live with a married sister in Rathcoole. That would have been around 1968. I got married shortly after that and my wife and I moved into a terrace house in the Oldpark [at that time a religiously mixed part of Belfast]. This night my wife and I went for a walk down Agnes Street, and on down to the bottom of the [ultra-Protestant] Shankill Road. The atmosphere at the bottom of the Shankill was eerie, very tense. We could sense that something was wrong. There were women standing outside their front doors and huddling in small groups but no children or men were about. I asked one of the women what was wrong and she said, ‘The Catholics were here last night throwing stones and petrol bombs. They said they’d be back tonight with more petrol bombs, to burn us out.’ That was in [Protestant] Conway Street which ran through to the [Catholic] Falls Road. There had been a lot of sectarian tensions in the area and everybody had known for a long time that there was going to be trouble. Then she [the lady in the doorway] said, rather proudly, ‘Our men are down there [Bombay Street] now, they’re going to sort them [the Catholic’s] out.’ I turned to my wife and said, ‘Listen, I have to go down there.’ I half expected her to say no but she didn’t. She just nodded. The lady of the house said, ‘You go on love, don’t you worry about her, she’ll be fine here with me.’ ‘Just you go on and do what you have to do, she’ll be here when you get back.’ Sectarian tensions in Belfast were running very high at that time. There had been rioting all over Northern Ireland and some [Catholic] rioters had been shot by the police. In October of that year Herbert Roy [a Protestant] had been gunned down by the IRA in a sectarian killing while he was standing at the corner of [loyalist] Dover Street. That had sent shock waves through my [loyalist] community, the IRA were back and they were back killing Protestants. That was a big thing at that time. It traumatised the whole loyalist community. It’s

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funny how you can always remember the first one who gets killed. So many people were killed after that you just got used to it, well actually you never did get used to it. But that came out of the blue, Herbert Roy’s murder, and it was a real shock. The IRA are back. There was a dangerous combination of rage and fear of Catholics killing Protestants. There was a real sense in the community that we [Protestants] couldn’t let them [Catholics] away with that. It was as if everyone took it personally, and it was personal – it was between them [Catholics] and us [Protestants]. On the two nights before Bombay Street Catholics had attacked the Protestant lower Shankill. Then Herbert was gunned down. All of that was orchestrated, it had been deliberate in order to provoke Protestants. The IRA were well aware of the tensions in the Shankill and in the Province more generally, but they pushed and pushed and pushed. Shooting Herbert was like throwing petrol onto a fire. The IRA were using tactics but we didn’t have a clue about ‘tactics’. All we knew was our people had been attacked and they were living in fear and that they [Catholics/IRA] had started killing ‘our’ people. There were crowds of men [Catholics and Protestants] facing each other when I got down there [near [Catholic] Bombay Street]. There was a very foreboding atmosphere. There was a young policeman there, a B Special. He was saying, ‘For God’s sake lads keep well back. They [the Catholics] have guns.’ We could hear a burst of automatic fire and the young police officer turned around to look over at the Catholic side. The next thing I knew there was more shooting and he was shot right in front of me. He had been wearing a walkie-talkie and a bullet [from the Catholic side] had gone right through it and into his chest. Me and some of the other men dragged him over to the cover of the wall of a house so as they [Catholics/IRA] couldn’t shoot him again. I noticed a trail of dark liquid and I knew that it was blood. I tried to give him first aid and made him as comfortable as I could. I said to the other men standing around, ‘Look if the Catholics come over [i.e. if they ‘charged’ from Bombay Street] he’s dead. Carry him the fuck out of here because they’ll tear him to pieces.’ I ran to get an ambulance and the police. I was trembling with emotion and anger and I just thought to myself over and over again, ‘Right if that’s what they fucking want, that’s what they’ll fucking get.’ When I got back to the [Protestant] crowd everybody had heard about what had happened and they all felt exactly the same way as I did. First Herbert Roy and then a young B Special gunned down right in front of us. When we started moving down toward Bombay Street we noticed

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the removal lorries. The IRA were moving people out of Bombay Street, with removal lorries. It had all been planned. They [the IRA] had wanted us to invade Bombay Street, it was to be sacrificed in part of the wider strategy. But of course you didn’t think like that at the time. Sometime afterwards, when I started to put two and two together it was obvious the gunmen, the lorries, all of that took planning. They [the IRA] were sacrificing Bombay Street and that part of the Falls Road so as they could take the role of the ‘defenders’ of the oppressed ‘Catholics’. The fact was they had pushed us beyond any reasonable tolerance. They had attacked us, killed and shot ‘our Protestants’ and then that young police officer, right before our eyes so it was absolutely inevitable that we [Protestants] would attack them. Catholics and Protestants in the Shankill and Falls had been like followers of different football teams before that. There was rivalry and fights, that’s just the way it was and you expected that. But then the guns came out and people got shot, and got shot dead, and then everything changes. Can you imagine if Manchester United and Liverpool fans were facing each other in Wembley stadium and suddenly a Liverpool supporter shoots a Manchester United fan! All hell would break loose and the Liverpool supporters would be annihilated. Well that’s just the way it was on Bombay Street that night. As we [the Protestant crowd] were going into Bombay Street we could see them [the IRA/Catholics] setting fire to the houses they had moved out of. You still had gas lamps in those days and they [Catholics] were putting them all out. The street was blackened out. Then they [the Catholic crowd] threw petrol bombs into the houses and they burst into flames. Orange and red flames lit up in the darkness. The police had arrived by that stage and they appealed to us, ‘Come on lads, this is dangerous, go home.’ But nobody listened. After that it was just sheer group hysteria. We [the Protestant crowd] went berserk wrecking all the houses. The Catholic crowd had just disappeared, like they were supposed to. And that was Bombay Street. The IRA had known full well that the world press was there [in Northern Ireland] and sure enough they were there in Bombay Street, by [IRA] invitation. The IRA had wanted to give them a show, and stupidly enough we were so naive we gave them one. Footage of Bombay Street on fire was flashed around the world, and there we were, the ‘Protestant thugs’. What the cameras didn’t show you was the body of Herbert Roy, or the shot police officer, or the Catholic intimidation of Protestants on the two

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previous nights. Fair enough we had run riot and property was damaged but we hadn’t killed anyone. OK you saw the result of loyalist anger, but that was taken completely out of context. The loyalists had valid reasons to be angry, we had been deliberately and calculatingly pushed into doing what we did. The IRA had set us up to give them a mandate and sure enough we walked into it, and we gave them one. I joined the Westland Defence Association [WDA]. I was in the tenants association as well, helping people, particularly the old people, as best I could. There was a lot of sectarian intimidation and people [Protestants and Catholics] were being threatened all over the place. Belfast was being divided up into Protestant territory and Catholic territory. Sometimes you couldn’t even tell where the dividing line was, but it was there alright just as if it was a brick wall. I became involved in printing a local newssheet to let people [Protestants] know what was happening, and to keep the morale up. That showed them that we were organised and that we were in there with them. The IRA got to know about that and sure enough they came for me. My wife and I were put out of our house at gunpoint and we were told that if we ever went back we’d be murdered. We both thought that they [the IRA gunmen] were going to kill us anyway, so we were only too glad to get the hell out of there. We had to leave our home that night with what we were standing up in. A friend in the Westland Estate [a predominantly Protestant housing estate in west Belfast] agreed to put us up, but really they didn’t have the space. We spent the night in the front room [the lounge] but we were well past sleeping so we just drank cups of tea until the morning. Men from the local [Protestant] defence association called the next morning. They knew of an empty [vacant] house on the estate and they helped us move in there. We had no money so they [Westland Defence men] lent us enough to buy a bed and a couple of chairs to sit on. We were glad of anything we got because as we thought, now at least we’re safe. The funny thing about this was the man who was to become the chief constable for Northern Ireland, Ronnie Flannaghan, lived in the next street away from us. There was trouble and rioting all over the place, ‘Prods’ were being forced out of the Oldpark [west Belfast] and the ‘Bone’ [Ardoyne, north Belfast] and Catholics were being forced out of the ‘East’ [east Belfast]. The atmosphere was very ominous, between the rioting, fires, barricades and the gunfire. We hadn’t realised it at the time but we had actually moved out of the frying pan into the fire.

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The Westland Estate was literally surrounded by republicans from the [Catholic] Antrim Road, the Ardoyne and the New Lodge [road north and west Belfast]. We were under attack from republicans and the IRA and make no mistake about it, that was all about naked sectarian hatred. They [the IRA] wanted us [Protestants] out, and they wanted to kill us. People [Protestants] in the area were shot dead. They [the IRA] came in on ‘drive-bys’ and shot people going about their business in the streets. [A drive-by is where a car is driven into a given area carrying one or more gunmen. The car ‘drives by’, identifies a target then the gunman opens fire and the car is driven on usually at high speed.] The army and the police were nowhere to be seen. We [Protestants] were on our own up there [in the Westland Estate]. I was in the Westland Defence Association by that stage. Vigilante patrols were set up but we had no guns. The IRA had automatics [machine guns], high velocity sniper rifles, powerful pistols, the lot, but we had fuck all. There were virtually no guns on the loyalist side. The only weapons we had were baseball bats and I just thought to myself, ‘What the fuck are we going to do when they [the IRA] come in with their machine guns? Throw bats at them?’ The bottom line was, all we were doing was providing targets for the IRA. Everybody knew that, but we did it anyway, all night every night, each man just getting a few hours sleep. The women and children could sleep better knowing that the men were on the streets. Mind you the women were good as well, they supported us to the hilt bringing us tea and buns. When cars we didn’t recognise drove by the estate some of the men would flash ‘handguns’ but they were toy guns. The UDA got the nickname of ‘the water-pistol men’ in those days because all we had for guns were water pistols, which we painted black, that’s how desperate the situation was. In the darkness of night the IRA wouldn’t have known the difference. They were so well armed it probably never occurred to them that we didn’t have anything [guns]. But believe it or not that worked, the areas that were ‘patrolled’ were much less likely to be attacked. So the IRA with their machine guns, AK47s were deterred by WDA men with toy guns. That tells you a lot, doesn’t it? A short time after that the UDA was formed to bring all the [Protestant] defence associations together under one umbrella organisation. That had been a brilliant idea, to have a unified command across Belfast and all of Northern Ireland. One big united Protestant defence force. It was exactly what we all needed. Arrangements were made for a UDA officer to visit our area. He was a colonel in the UDA

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but he had been a sergeant in the [British] army. He must have been promoted every day for a week in the UDA. But give him his dues he was obviously a military man and he was the sort of guy you wouldn’t fuck around with. He told us that republicans and the IRA had started a war with the loyalist and unionist people of Ulster. Some of us resented that because we were in west Belfast and the IRA had been targeting us. We didn’t need somebody from the East coming over to tell us what we already knew. That’s the thing about Belfast, it’s very territorial. Even in the Shankill Road for example, it’s the ‘upper Shankill’ and the ‘lower Shankill’ and there’s great rivalry between the two. So even in the same organisation it would be the upper Shankill UDA and the lower Shankill UDA with different battalions and leaderships in competition with each other, and usually they couldn’t agree about anything. That spirit of independence and local difference would have very serious consequences for the UDA. The UVF was very different, it was run from the Shankill, there was one command and that was it. The Shankill command ran the UVF all over Northern Ireland and that was just accepted. Anyway this colonel from east Belfast told us that there was going to be a war in Northern Ireland between the loyalists and the IRA. He told us what we already knew, that we couldn’t count on the army or the police, because the government controlled the army and the police, and that the [British] government wanted out of Northern Ireland. ‘Therefore,’ he said, ‘the government doesn’t want to defeat the IRA, the government wants to help the IRA.’ ‘The government has already told the IRA that they want out [of Northern Ireland], and they have publicly said that to the IRA, to encourage the IRA.’ ‘But things haven’t changed from 1916, Ulster [Protestants] will still fight, and Ulster [Protestants] will still be right.’ [As quoted by Winston Churchill, 1916.] Then he [the colonel] told us that the UDA needed volunteers and that the volunteers would be armed and trained in combat. He guaranteed that every volunteer would receive training and a gun. Then he told us that guns were expensive and that UDA volunteers would be expected to pay ‘all they could’ in weekly ‘dues’ for the ‘defence of Ulster’. The community centre we were in on the Westland Estate was badly run down. There was no furniture and we didn’t even have glass in the windows. The people [of the estate] didn’t have anything. The seats we were sitting on were comprised of rough wooden planks on cement blocks. The colonel was sitting at a table which was actually two tea chests pushed together and draped with a Union

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Jack with a bible on top. There were about 50 of us in the room and you could have heard a pin drop. We all knew that this was the ‘real thing’. The next thing we knew was the colonel pulled out a submachine gun from under the table. He said, ‘the time has come, the UDA needs you as volunteers’. ‘We need you to serve your God and your country.’ The guy next to me just said, ‘Oh for fuck’s sake’ and ran out. About 20 of the men just ‘bottled’ [lost their nerve] and ran out. They went out of there so fast they left a cloud of cement dust on the floor. The rest of us, about 30 in total, stayed and volunteered. As far as I was concerned this was exactly what we [Protestants] needed, at long last we were organising to defend ourselves. The colonel swore us in one by one. We all took an oath on the bible swearing allegiance to ‘God and country and the UDA’. We were told that the UDA was organising all over the country and that we would have to elect our own officers, ‘men who could command the respect and loyalty of the volunteers’. We agreed to meet the next night because there were men we wanted in who were working and couldn’t attend that night. There were no hard feelings toward the guys who left. Some of them had wives who wouldn’t let them join, some of them held down two jobs and couldn’t afford the time, and some were just too old. We met the next night and elected our Commanding Officer or CO as he was called. It was all above board and democratic. We were just ordinary decent working men trying to defend our area and our families. The guy we chose was the wisest man in the room. He was a shipyard worker and he was a good man. —— was very intelligent, he could have talked about anything, but more than that he’d travelled and he’d been around. —— was a hard man but fair, he never looked for trouble. Another guy had also run for election but we knew that he had a criminal record for fraud against the ‘national assistance’ [department of social security] so nobody voted for him. At that time two police officers lived on our estate. They knew the [UDA] meetings had taken place but they just turned a blind eye to it, and let us get on with it. Later on we asked them to join, but they weren’t having any of it. It was hot and heavy in those days. Protestants were being shot and killed all over the place. But we [Protestants] hadn’t hit back. We knew that the UVF was there and we all thought that they’d hit [the IRA/republicans] first [i.e. before the UDA] because they were more military than us, and they had guns. They also recruited [former] soldiers who had fought terrorists in Cyprus and Borneo, whereas we really hadn’t a clue. I’d never

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fought anybody in my life. I’d run from a fight, but you couldn’t run from this, not the IRA. In June 1970 the IRA shot and killed five Protestants in sectarian murders. That was it, as far as we were concerned the ‘balloon’ was up. It wasn’t long after that [August 1970] they [the IRA] blew up and killed two police officers along the border. Then [February 1971] they blew up a BBC Land-Rover and killed five people, a BBC LandRover! Soldiers were getting killed all the time. Nearly 60 [60 actually] members of the security forces were killed in 1971 alone, and over 20 [27] Protestants murdered and that was just for openers [just the start of it]. We [the UDA] got more and more organised and we had patrols going out every night. By then [1971] we had street barricades, and a few pistols. Two-man patrols would go out and around the estate, and one of the men would have a gun. But it was all psychological more than anything else. A .38 pistol won’t do much up against an AK47, or an Armalite [IRA automatic weaponry], there just was no contest. In the early days we [UDA members] all paid our dues and we could see that guns were coming in, and we knew that the [loyalist] prisoners and their families were being looked after [given money] so that was fine. All of that worked very well for the first couple of years. In those days everything was up front. We were getting Steyr rifles, they were ancient. —— fired one and it knocked him clean off his feet. Flames belched out of the barrel, and you could nearly hear the bullet travelling down it but at least they were guns. After a while we were told that the funds had to go to the [UDA] battalion HQ in the Shankill Road, and that’s when the corruption started. People like —— started to take over. —— was a classic hard man who was no more than a criminal really, and he had worked his way up [the UDA ranks] by bullying and extortion. Even in our own wee area things [corruption] started to happen, and it was probably the same all over [Northern Ireland]. The simple reason was that UDA commanders really had to be full time, because by that stage there were so many people involved and all of that took time. But a UDA commander wasn’t paid. So the vast majority of people, who had jobs, either had no interest, or couldn’t afford to put themselves up for [UDA] office. That meant unemployed people, people who’d never done a day’s work in their lives got into positions of leadership. It was accepted that full time UDA officers were entitled to a percentage of the ‘proceedings’, but it was largely up to area commanders to decide what percentage to take. And human nature

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being what it is, the percentage of what was taken went up and up and up. These guys started wearing ‘the suits’, they drove fancy cars and took continental holidays. In those days none of the ordinary people in our areas went to Spain, we went to Millisle or Ballywalter or Portrush [i.e. stayed in Northern Ireland]. Another side to that was when an area was ‘active’ [in paramilitary terms] the COs would be arrested and taken to Castlereagh [interrogation centre] for questioning. But when an area was inactive the COs would be left alone. Now that was a very clever strategy by the police, because they knew that if they hit the CO on a regular basis for paramilitary activity the COs in question would make bloody sure that paramilitary activity stopped. And that’s exactly what happened, by the end of the 1970s and early 1980s the UDA had become militarily inactive. Police infiltration was another major problem. The police would befriend certain individuals, they’d offer them drinks in the police station. If someone was caught for drunken driving, or a domestic [violence] it was, ‘OK you play ball with us.’ I heard of one guy, they gave him four whiskeys in the police station and then arrested him as he got into his car. Charges weren’t pressed so that was it, the police had him [i.e. as an informer]. We [UDA] knew that they’d [the police] slip our guys some money, and if you accepted that they had you by the balls. You were a ‘paid informer’ and paid informers were tortured and shot [by the paramilitaries] so you had to play ball with them or they’d threaten to tell someone in the organisation. The police would turn a blind eye to the criminal stuff, the racketeering and the robberies, just as long as the paramilitary activity was kept in check. So the UDA was seriously compromised, if not brought to its knees, by the police. All of that posed serious problems for me because I was a UDA man, and I was fully committed and loyal to the UDA, but I was having more and more difficulty with the local command. At that time Andy Tyrie was in charge of the UDA, he was the supreme commander of the UDA, I knew that Andy was straight [i.e. noncriminal] and that he wanted to do what I wanted to do, to take on republicans and the IRA. Tyrie had no interest in killing ordinary Catholics because he knew that that’s what the IRA wanted. When we [the UDA] killed Catholics the IRA was delighted because it gave them the role of the defenders of innocent Catholics. The UDA as an organisation had never been ordered to kill Catholics. Andy Tyrie had given the order to ‘terrorise the terrorists’ [i.e. the IRA]. Anyway I went down to meet Tyrie in UDA HQ in 254A

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Shankill Road. He was a very busy man with a desk loaded with unanswered correspondence. He asked me to draft a few replies for him to sign and because I’m a good writer I was pleased to do that. Tyrie obviously liked the work and he offered me a job there and then in his personal staff. I thought that was tremendous because I would be a salaried full-time UDA man. As far as I was concerned I couldn’t have had a better job. Being in that position gave me an even greater insight into the corruption in the UDA. By the late 1970s nearly all the good military men had either moved on or moved out because of the corruption. It actually seemed that most of the good men who remained became corrupted themselves. So that was the UDA. You had a good top leadership, the best grassroots volunteers anyone could ask for, but almost everything in the middle was bent [corrupt]. Andy Tyrie tried his best to reform the organisation but despite his best efforts it just got worse instead of better. In the end he just gave up and walked away from the UDA, at least as it was then [1988/89]. As a full-time UDA man I was a target for the Provos. I knew that anyway but the police confirmed it for me. I was on an IRA death list. In the early 1970s I drank in a local bar, Crangle’s pub near the Westland Estate. It was a [religiously] mixed pub with middle-class Catholics from the ‘private’ houses around there and working-class Protestants from the estate. That was fine and nobody minded that because we thought that middle-class Catholics would have more sense than to be in the IRA. We met there every Thursday night. This Thursday I left [UDA] headquarters and I was travelling through Belfast when a whole series of [IRA] bombs went off. The town was in chaos and roads were sealed off everywhere because of bombs or bomb hoaxes. Army and police jeeps were flying around everywhere with their sirens going off. It seemed to me that they were just going around in circles. Some of those young soldiers actually looked scared. I was standing at a bus stop when a jeep pulled up beside me in traffic. A young squaddie nodded at me and said, ‘Fucking hell does this kind of thing happen a lot around here mate?’ I just laughed over at him and said, ‘Welcome to Belfast son.’ I arrived at the bar about two hours late. There had been an IRA attack and they had killed two men with automatics and semi-automatic pistols. The IRA team had left just before I arrived, and I knew that they had been there to get me. I was going to be blamed for it anyway. Walking into that bar was like walking into hell, blood, bodies and the

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screams of the injured. I went over to one of the men who had been shot. He was the son of a friend of mine. He was sitting with his back propped up against the bar, the blood pouring from his head where he had been shot. He said, ‘Sammy, Sammy I’ve been hit. I think it’s bad.’ I said, ‘Listen you’ll be fine it’s just a scratch on your fucking head.’ But I knew that he was dying. He said to me ‘Sammy, top pocket it’s my wages, give my wages to my Da to give to Mary [his wife].’ I said, ‘Son, don’t you worry about that now, I’ll make sure your wife’s OK.’ But he insisted, ‘No, Sammy take the wages.’ I pulled the money out of his top pocket, there was £20 soaked from the blood running from his head. The tears choked me; I just thought, ‘You’re lying here fucking dying and all you’re worried about is your wife getting your wages, 20 fucking quid.’ There was something unbelievably human about that, him lying there with a bullet in his head worrying about his wife. I looked over to see another bizarre sight. This other man had been shot in the neck and he was lying beside the phone trying to phone home with the blood pumping out of his neck. He was trying to phone his wife. I knew —— and his wife and they hadn’t spoken in years and here he was trying to reach her. —— thought that he was dying and here he was trying to make the peace, that taught me an awful lot. At the end of the day it’s who you spend your life with who matters, whether you realise it or not at the time. What actually happened [to ——] was he was shot in the neck and the bullet had come out through his mouth. The next thing was the police arrived on the scene, they burst through the door with their guns at the ready. It was like watching a tape at high speed slowing down to low speed. They burst in through the door fast and then they almost froze as they surveyed the scene of carnage in the room. One young police officer in particular went very pale. He started to sway on his feet and then he just vomited. He didn’t have time to turn around, he just spewed up in the direction of bodies he was looking at. A sergeant pushed him backwards, out of the bar. All of that strengthened my resolve to get the IRA, and the people who were bringing such wanton destruction to ‘my’ country, and ‘my’ people. As I walked out of the bar a friend’s wife came running up the road. ‘Sam, Sam is Joey OK, oh please God he’s OK.’ Joey was still lying on the floor in the bar, Joey was dead. I didn’t say a word to her, she knew from my expression, and the tears in my eyes and she just ran on past me wailing. The wailing sound she made will haunt me for the rest of my life. I never ever want to hear that again. We [the

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UDA/loyalists] had no victories [over the IRA] in those days. We were always on the receiving end, it was nearly always Protestants being killed and that’s because we [the UDA] were so badly organised. That’s the price we were paying for the corruption and a leadership who only cared about themselves. That’s the way it went on until early 1989 when Nelson was arrested [Nelson was the intelligence officer of the UFF who had been a police/army agent]. After that a new leadership began to take over and the UDA/UFF became a military operation again. But what happened to the UDA should never have happened and we have to learn from all of this to prevent it ever happening again in the future. It was the UDA’s job to protect the Protestant people but the UDA let them down, it failed them. But they weren’t failed by the ordinary volunteers, because you couldn’t meet better men that them. The people were failed by the local leaderships who cared more about themselves than the loyalist people. Those guys wanted a quiet life, they didn’t want trouble with anyone, least of all the IRA. Let me give you an example of that. After Milltown [the cemetery where Michael Stone attacked an IRA funeral] two UDA brigadiers from two Belfast battalions telephoned the IRA to say that they didn’t know Michael Stone. They said that he was just a rogue loyalist who was acting without authorisation. But Michael was UDA, he was a travelling gunman who went after the IRA and republicans and he needed no authority for that because that was his job. Those two brigadiers were scared in case the IRA would retaliate against them or their areas which would mean trouble, so they disclaimed Michael, one of our [UDA] best operators. By way of contrast the UVF had actually claimed Michael as one of theirs [i.e. as a UVF volunteer]. These guys were top brass in the UDA and they telephoned the IRA to apologise for the actions of one of our top men, because they were scared of the IRA. What sort of a fucking chance did we have? ‘KEN’ ‘Ken’ (now late 40s) conforms to the more conventional stereotype of a UDA man as a tall big man with a menacing physical presence. Obviously a hard man in his day with a formidable reputation for extreme violence he has mellowed becoming almost the opposite of his younger caricature. As a UDA killer who gloried in his role ‘Ken’ gained insights in life which challenged his profound sectarian hatred, giving way to remorse, clinical depression and suicidal tendencies.

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Well basically I lived in an area known as Brown Square which is right at the bottom of the [ultra-loyalist] Shankill Road [in Belfast]. I was born in 1962. As a child I would have remembered playing ‘kick a tin’ in the streets, and ‘rally-o’, those were the sort of games we played. It would have been a happy childhood only we lived in a very small house. I actually shared a bed with my two brothers. My mum and dad had a room and my uncle had the back room, and an old aunt who couldn’t walk she lived in the ‘living room’ of the house. So it was actually a very small house with loads of people in it. I suppose looking back the things you would remember would be the tin bath in front of the fire. Getting washed in front of everyone and that type of thing which doesn’t happen anymore. I would have had a very good relationship with my parents. They were loving parents. Looking back I can never remember my parents working. They couldn’t get work. My dad had worked in the shipyard on a ship called the Canberra, which would have been some time before I was born. He’d got a back injury working on the ship, and so he wasn’t really fit for work. One of the ways we got an income at that time was my Dad used to do the ‘pitch and toss’. My dad and a couple of uncles were hard men. You had hard men at that time, street fighters, Stormy Weatherall and Silver McKee, and my granddad ——, who used to go about with people like that. There was no trouble in those days, no paramilitaries or anything like that, so you had nothing to worry about. They played pitch and toss in a wee entry at the bottom of the Shankill, ‘Brady’s Lane’. For pitch and toss you had a group of adults who stood around in a circle, and one person would have had a small stick with two of the old half pennies. They would throw them in the air and they would land, two heads, two tails, or odds, and the men would bet on how they landed. If they fell on a head and a tail they were thrown again until you got what they called a ‘result’, either two heads or two tails. My dad was always a hunting man. He was away nearly every day hunting for rabbits. Basically in those days we lived on rabbits. Rabbits and hares and fish. He was always out with the dogs shooting or fishing, so there was always food in the house. He used to go down to the [Belfast] lough shore at low tide, and he would have got mussels and cockles and willicks, and that was the diet we grew up with. He also went down to Ballykinler, there was a big sandy strand

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there. I also remember as a child going with him to Rockport just outside Bangor and getting mussels there. The food wasn’t too bad. I remember in those days it was the old street system. You would have had 50 or 60 houses in a street. We lived in a street called Sackville Street. All the doors would have been left open and you could run in and out of anybody’s house. In those days you were ‘elected’ [lucky] if you got a big heel of bread with loads of butter and sprinkled with sugar, or else red sauce or brown sauce on the bread. That’s what you looked forward to. You hoped that whatever house you went into, they would give you the heel of the bread with the butter and the sugar. My mother was a very good person, she was very small. I know that she was a very caring person, a loving person. She always made plenty of time to be with us. If any of us had problems we would have gone to her. She would have tried to the best of her ability to give us all she could. In those days there wasn’t a lot of money about. I can remember one Christmas in particular a couple of the brothers got the old Dalek suit [as in Dr Who], with a toilet plunger sticking out at the front. Because I was the smallest I only got playing with it last. Things like that. There wasn’t much there but there was love, you were respected as a child. I went to Brown Square Primary School. It was built in 1811 and was the oldest school in Belfast. I remember going into my first class in P1. The teacher was called a Mrs ——. She was a big giant of a woman. I was very very small. I remember walking into the classroom on the first day. I fell straight onto the floor and crawled under a cupboard, and I didn’t want to come out. I didn’t want to be left there even though it was only 100 yards from my home. I think I had a fear of authority. Anyone outside your family telling you what to do. I was a very slow learner. In those days you had to work at the teacher’s pace, rather than at your own pace. I found that frightening, because I couldn’t work at the teacher’s pace. That meant that I was always getting into trouble, getting the cane and things like that. I couldn’t learn because I was too frightened, I was always frightened of being caned. I needed people to encourage me for the attempts I was making, not people putting me down. I would have been caned at least once a week, sometimes twice a day because of different things but mainly because I couldn’t keep up. It was very frightening, and very very sore. You got caned right across the tips of your fingers and it was very painful, the ‘whoosh’ of the cane coming down, and if you took your hand away you’d

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get another one. Every time it happened to me I just wanted to run home. I just did not want to be there. When you got beaten you cried, everybody did and it was humiliating. Standing there crying in front of the class. Girls and boys. Secondary school wasn’t much better. I was expelled at the age of 111⁄2. I was in a classroom with all boys then, because I went to Summerdale Secondary School. One of the boys in the class had broken the back off one of the chairs. He broke it off and threw it at the teacher. When I was nervous I always laughed. I was too frightened of school and of teachers to have ever thrown anything at them. But when the teacher turned round he saw me laughing and he assumed that I did it. He came down and thumped me on the head. He hit me so hard it knocked me down and I was crying. I hadn’t done anything. I only knew of one way to respond to that. I lifted a chair and hit him over the head with it. The next thing I knew was I was expelled from the school and I was never allowed back into secondary school after that. So, I didn’t really have an education. At 12 years of age I started working in a pub in the Shankill. There were no social workers or education welfare officers who came to see me from between the age of 111⁄2 until I was 15. When I was 15 someone must have thought, ‘Why’s he not at school? Let’s put him in a home.’ It was like a boarding school for people with learning difficulties, and for kids who had got into trouble. It was a place in Lurgan, a place called Fallowfield. I hadn’t been to school since I was 11. I had started off cleaning glasses in the bar, and I progressed to pulling pints. I had matured very quickly in one sense, always in the company of the men, and they were good to me. But I still couldn’t read or write or put things down on paper. My mum, and an uncle who was on holiday from Australia at the time, drove me down to Fallowfield. Because of my background I was already smoking at the age of 15. When I was unpacking my clothes at Fallowfield the teacher made me hand over my cigarettes, but I held on to one pack. My mum and my uncle had left me there at about 9.30 that morning. They put me into a class with young people. At about 10 o’clock there was a break, to have a glass of milk and whatever there was. I took out a cigarette and started to smoke, with my background I thought nothing of it. I was taken straight over to the headmaster. He said, ‘Hand over the cigarettes.’ I said, ‘No.’ He said, ‘Hand them over now.’ I said, ‘No, and even better than that, give me back the cigarettes you already took from me, because I won’t be staying here. I’m not going to be treated like this.’ So they packed

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my gear and put me on a train back to Belfast. I made my way back to the house, and when I got in my sister and my dad were there. They said, ‘What are you doing back?’, and I told them about the cigarettes. I got back so quickly my mum and my uncle weren’t back yet. The next thing was the car pulled up, and I hid behind a chair in the living room. My mum came in and said, ‘Thank god that’s him away.’ That took me by surprise, I’d never expected to hear her say that. When I came out from behind the chair she couldn’t believe it. I suppose I had been a bit of a nuisance. After that they just sent out a remedial teacher but I didn’t want to know. She didn’t want to know either, because she was scared coming into our area. In the early days, 1970/71, there were vigilantes out in the streets. In Brown Square we were on the front line so there were people out protecting the streets. Even as a child you had wanted to be a part of that. We were under constant attack [from republicans/Catholics]. I lived in Sackville Street, which was opposite Coaches Street. Coaches Street was to become the peace line with barbed wire and that separating the two communities. When I was growing up I felt that this was my community and that we were being attacked by Catholics. I had early memories of being trailed out of bed at one or two in the morning with fires and burning all over the place. Smoke and shouting and screaming. Petrol bombs coming over. We lived at the end of the street so we always got it. We used to be taken into Duncairns Court, which was two small streets in the middle of Brown Square. We would have been herded in there like cattle, maybe 50 kids in the one house. You had to soak blankets in water and hold them up against the doors to keep out the smoke and the CS gas that the army would have fired. When you got up the next morning it would have been over and the army would be there. The streets would have been littered with bricks and broken glass, smouldering houses and burnt out cars. In Wilson Street you could have seen the petrol bombs lined up. These were there to protect your community from attack, to keep the Catholics out. There would have been gunfire, bombing and shootings. Many a night I hid under the bed, it would have frightened the life out of you. In Brown Square we were at the bottom of the Shankill, but we were actually very isolated. We had to get hundreds of people from other [Protestant] areas to come and help us protect our area but sometimes other areas were also under attack and they couldn’t send anybody so you felt very vulnerable. At that time in 1969 when I was nine they sent the soldiers in. They were based in Brown Square Barracks, presumably

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to defend the Protestants, but sometimes all they could do was protect themselves. I always hung around with the soldiers and I became a sort of mascot for them. They gave me my own bed, and my own wee uniform. At that time, when I was nine I can remember them buying me a wee plastic rifle for my birthday, out of Woolworths in Lower North Street. The reason I remember that was, one of the soldiers was playing about with me and he broke the rifle, and I started crying, so he gave me the money and sent me down to Woolworths to get another one. In Brown Square Barracks they [the soldiers] used to give me bread and butter, meat and cheese and I would have taken it home to my mum, and my mum would have made sandwiches for the soldiers on the streets. She did that because we felt that they were there to protect us, because it was our community that was under siege. When I think back to it I was involved [with the loyalist paramilitaries] without even realising that I was involved. I was 12 years of age and I went up to the Salisbury Bar and I had this wee scooter with me, I was on this wee scooter. I went into the bar, and the barman said to me, ‘Can you run down to the loyalist club and get ——’ [a former UDA leader who was later shot by the UDA, suspected of criminal activity]. I went down to the loyalist club, and all these guys were coming out with white shirts and ties. I said, ‘I’m looking for ——.’ This small stubby guy said, ‘I’m—— what do you want?’ I said, ‘I’ve been sent down from the Salisbury Bar, there’s some fella there you want to see.’ ‘Right,’ he said, ‘come on.’ I remember we went up the Shankill together, me beside him on my wee scooter. As we got closer to the bar he started to quicken his pace, then he pulled out a gun and ran into the bar. The next thing there was a shot. That was my first involvement with a killing, but I thought to myself it must have been OK, because —— was UDA, and the UDA were protecting us. When you work behind a bar people ask you to take this here, put that there, so at the age of 12 I was involved before even realising it. But I regarded these people [the UDA] as my community, these people were protecting me and I wanted to be a part of that. I can remember when I was being herded out of my house, into the safe house in the ‘courts’, I said to myself this must be what it means to be a man. That you can protect your community, and protect the children in your community. So you wanted to grow up quickly to do what they were doing, that was your model of masculinity, of manhood.

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During 1971, the time when I would have been a ‘mascot’ for the soldiers, there were three Scottish soldiers murdered in Legoniel [outside Belfast]. The soldiers had been drinking in a bar and three girls had invited them to a party. The only problem was that these girls were IRA and they drove the soldiers out to a ditch were they were murdered. They were from the Royal Highland Fusiliers. They had been from Girwood Barracks, but we had Fusiliers in Brown Square as well. After they were murdered I got permission to go to Scotland to attend the funerals. I travelled with another soldier who was the bugler. I was obsessed with their deaths, ‘Who did this, who was responsible for killing the three soldiers?’ Their murder had a traumatic and profound impact upon me. These were soldiers who were protecting my community. They had left their own homes and families to come over here to protect us and they were being murdered. There were policemen who were protecting my community and they were being murdered. People in my community were being murdered. At 11 and 12 years of age I was asking questions, who’s doing all this, who’s killing my people, and the people who are trying to protect them? ‘It’s the IRA’, ‘well who are the IRA’, they’re the ‘Fenians’ or the ‘Taigs’ [Catholics]. It was one community against the other community. Therefore I believed that anyone from the Catholic community would have been the enemy. I was a Protestant, the Catholics were killing us, they were Catholics, so Protestants would kill them in retaliation. When I was growing up we faced [Catholic] Unity Flats. Because I didn’t attend school I went out and threw stones and bricks, to bring the Catholics out. That would start a riot and then both sides would start shooting at each other, and I thought this was great. I did that a lot because it was exciting. You didn’t think about getting shot, that just never entered your head. You never thought that you might be the one who ends up getting shot. It was just part of life then. You had nothing to do so ‘let’s get a riot going’. I didn’t see it as breaking the law, they [Catholics] were the people who were breaking the law, destroying the country and murdering everybody. When I was growing up 14, 15, 16 I looked around and all my friends, every one of them, were joining paramilitary organisations, either the UDA or the UVF. When you joined the UDA you got a blue coat with a fur collar on it so I thought to myself, ‘I’ll have one of those’, so I joined the UDA. There were very strong links between my family and the paramilitaries. —— [a UDA commander] and —— [a prominent loyalist] they

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would have been in the extended family. It was already a personal thing, between me and Catholics, but then after the INLA (Irish National Liberation Army) murdered —— [an uncle] it became really personal, they’d started to kill my family. My brothers were heavily involved, everybody in that generation was involved. My joining was inevitable. It was a geographical thing. If you lived in a certain area you joined the UDA, in another area it was the UVF. But the bottom line was, if you were a young man in the Shankill, you joined a paramilitary organisation. The organisation was more than a gang or a peer group thing, it was your family. The organisation defined who you were, it gave you an identity, a purpose. You might call it tribal or territorial but that’s the way it was. I’ve actually thought a lot about this. I did an interview for the Observer magazine when I was 16 years of age. It was entitled ‘At home with the UDA’. —— [a UDA leader] told me, ‘Whatever you do don’t mention anything about guns or stuff like that.’ Basically I made the statement that ‘if any republicans came into the Shankill they’d be killed’. The interviewer asked, ‘Does that mean that the UDA have guns?’ I said, ‘I didn’t say that. I said that if any republicans are found in the Shankill they will be murdered.’ That was 20-odd years ago. From there I became involved in a UDA outfit, C1 we were called, about 30 of us. It gave you a sense of purpose an identity, people looked up to you. I hate to say it, but I’m being honest here, my ambition had been to kill a Catholic. That went back to when I was about nine or ten and the Scottish soldiers were killed. I wanted to kill members of the community that had killed them. To me innocent Protestants were being killed, and the soldiers had been innocent. They had been naive enough to trust Catholics, that’s why they died. They could never have thought that Catholic girls would lead them away to be slaughtered. As far as I was concerned all Catholics were the enemy, I wanted to kill them, they wanted to kill me. It was something that I needed to do, it was forced upon me. I hadn’t wanted any of those terrible things to happen, but they did, and I felt that I had to respond. When I was 17 I had been out drinking with some friends when I came across a group of men who were holding two Catholics. They had been found in the Shankill, but they weren’t carrying weapons. We reckoned they were doing intelligence work, and ‘sussing’ out a bar or whatever. One of them [the Protestant men] shouted over to me, ‘—– have you got a gun?’ I shouted back, ‘No, but I can get one, hold them there.’ Then one of the guys escaped, so I went over and led the other one away. —— went off to try to

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get a gun. I waited for a while but no gun arrived so I killed him with a breeze block. I hit him on the head with it and knocked him down, then I finished him off. I was pulled into UDA HQ next morning and they asked me why I did it. What happened? I just said, ‘Well at the end of the day we are fighting Catholics and the Catholic community, we’re fighting against the IRA and that guy was a Catholic so what are you worried about?’ There was a whole big debate about it, some people were appalled, they didn’t like it. It wasn’t so much that a Catholic had been killed, it was more about how it happened, in that he had been beaten to death by a breeze block. Eventually they just told me to go on, to forget about it. I had thought in my mind that these were Catholics, these were the people who were murdering us. I knew that if I’d been caught in the [Catholic] Falls Road, or the [Catholic] Ardoyne, I would have been murdered, and I just accepted that. That’s why I joined the paramilitaries, I wanted to do it, I wanted revenge. I didn’t join the UDA to become involved in Catholics’ welfare, I joined to kill them, just like they had killed us. That’s just the way it was in those days. The only thing that I was annoyed about was that the other one [the other captured Catholic] had got away. I lived my whole life for the organisation [the UDA], I was there to do whatever they wanted me to do. Hijacking cars, robbing banks, anything that they wanted me to do. I was very heavily involved with the UDA leadership at that time. I remember one particular incident. When I was 16 —— gave me my first gun, and that has quite an impact upon you at that age, it gave you power, you were ‘somebody’. I was on my way to becoming a UFF gunman, and that was fine with me, that’s why I’d joined in the first instance. I was convicted of one murder, and I can’t comment upon anything else. Because I was a young prisoner I couldn’t be sentenced, so I was detained at the ‘Secretary of State’s Pleasure’. During my remand time in the ‘Crum’ [Crumlin Road Prison, Belfast] we would have been mixed, they didn’t segregate us [as loyalists] from the republicans. I was in A wing. One day you were locked up and the next day you were allowed out for ‘association’ [free association with other prisoners]. One day the loyalists got out, the next day it was the republicans turn. One day you got exercise, the next day you didn’t. It was de facto segregation. Basically your day consisted of lying in bed listening to the radio. When we got into the yard we would have played football. We

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weren’t allowed a football so we made a ball out of socks. If someone hit it a high kick it would stick on the barbed wire and we had to get more socks to make another one. I was sentenced in 1982 and moved down to the H Blocks, H Block 3 YPs [young prisoners]. I didn’t want to be there, I wanted to be with the men from my community [who were sentenced prisoners]. At that time there was a lot of fighting between loyalist and republican prisoners with fire bombs going off in the cells. I went to the governor and asked to be transferred [to be with the adult sentenced prisoners]. He said no, that I was too young. I told him that if I didn’t get transferred I’d have the wing wrecked. At that time I was in charge of the young UDA men. He said, ‘You can’t do that.’ I said, ‘Just you watch.’ So he put me down as disruptive, and moved me in with the men, so I got my way. When I went into the wing I found that we shared it with some top republicans, ——, ——, people like that. The loyalists were outnumbered by about three to one. As I was the only life sentence prisoner there, people looked to me to take charge. We pulled —— and —— [two republican leaders] into a cell and told them that if any loyalists were attacked we’d kill them and that they would be the first two killed. They [the republican prisoners] didn’t allow us into the dining hall for about six weeks after that, so we had no hot food for six weeks. That was when we wrecked our cells protesting for segregation. After 18 months we eventually got it. We were locked up 23 hours a day. I spent a lot of my time ‘on the boards’ [punishment cells], and that could be rough. There were a lot of beatings and things. Now a lot of people mightn’t like to hear this but during that time some of the republican prisoners [i.e. those who weren’t on protest and hence got access to the prison ‘tuck shop’] gave me fruit and tobacco and things. That was like a culture shock to me, at first I thought they might have been poisoned, so I waited. I saw other loyalists eating it, and they were OK so I knew it was OK. When we were on protest the republicans would have slipped us a couple of cigarettes under the door, or a wee bit of tobacco, and that meant a lot to us, because you had nothing. And they taught us Irish as well so as you could talk to them and the screws wouldn’t have known what you were talking about. We collaborated in a sense, ‘Watch out there’s a screw on the landing’, that sort of thing. Turning away from sectarianism happened for me in 1980, when I was sent to the YOC [Young Offenders Centre – outside Belfast].

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I was in Hydebank [the YOC] from 1980 until 1981. It was for a robbery. It wasn’t for myself [i.e. criminal], self-gain, it was under the instruction of the UDA, and it was for money to buy guns. At that time I was caught and sentenced to a year. With 50 per cent remission as it was then, that meant I had to do six months and then I was out. So I lost my six months remission for not conforming [to the requirements of criminalisation policy, calling prison officers ‘Sir’, doing prison work] and I got another two months for fighting with prison officers. I just hated authority. During that time I was on ‘lock up’ [kept in a cell for 23 hours a day] for four months. I remember —— and some of the other UDA leaders came up to visit me. The governors were panicking, ‘Why are these UDA men coming up to Hydebank?’ [A significant number of prison officers would have lived in areas controlled by the UDA and they would have been extremely vulnerable.] They assured —— that I was OK that I hadn’t been touched. At that time prison officers were being beaten up and shot in the community, we were approaching the height of the prison conflict, before the hunger strikes of 1980/81. The prison officers were worried in case I sent out a bad report. After that visit, after four months on the ‘boards’ [punishment cells] they decided to put me back on the ‘committal wing’ again. But they were putting me into a cell with a Roman Catholic. Not only that but this was a guy I had fought on numerous occasions, during the rioting in Unity Flats and the lower Shankill. I remember walking into the cell, and he said, ‘Right big lad, what are you going to do?’ I said, ‘Well there’s one thing, I won’t be staying here with you.’ There were ‘bed packs’ in the cells, you had to fold your bed pack up like in the army. I said to him, ‘I’ll not be making any bed pack in here.’ He said, ‘But ——, they’ll just throw you back on the boards.’ He said, ‘Look big lad we can work together here.’ I said, ‘What do you mean we can work together?’ He replied, ‘We can get a racket going, get tobacco in and sell it to the other prisoners. We can look after each other.’ As a gesture of good will he made my ‘bed pack’ in the cell. So we struck up a friendship, we became friends. I came out of Hydebank in 1981, and within three weeks this guy [this Catholic friend] came looking for me. Now I had got reinvolved in the UDA. Within one hour of being released I had reported in to HQ volunteering for a mission. Anyway I went and met with him and we went into the King Arthur in the town centre and had a few pints and smoked a few joints. Then we went back to my flat in the

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middle of the Shankill estate. About two o’clock in the morning there was a knock on the door, so I went down. When I opened the door there were two hooded men with handguns ‘ready to do the business’. I said, What do you want?’ They said, ‘We’re here to shoot ——.’ I said, ‘Look I brought him in and I’ll be taking him out again.’ They said, ‘We’ve been sent by the CO to shoot him.’ I said, ‘Nobody is shooting anybody here. I’ll see the CO first thing in the morning and get it sorted out.’ So the next morning I took him [the Catholic friend] to the CO’s mother’s house and left him there while I went to see the CO. I said, ‘Look I brought a Taig [Catholic] into the estate last night. He’s not a republican he’s just an ordinary Catholic, he was in Hydebank for robbing a bank, but it was criminal, not political. He wanted the money for himself.’ I said, ‘If you want him killed, I’ll kill him, but he’s just an ordinary Catholic.’ After some time the CO said to me, ‘Because of who you are, and because of what you’ve done, I’m going to let it go this time. Don’t let it happen again.’ So I went to the CO’s mother’s house and got —— out of that estate as fast as I could. I would probably have killed him if I’d been ordered to do so. I didn’t want to but I probably would have. But it would have been quick, one [shot] to the back of the head. He wouldn’t have known a thing about it. But the reason I’m sharing this with you is to let you know that for the first time in my life I had stood up for a Catholic. Make no mistake I had put myself on the line for him. The two of us could have been killed, him for being a Catholic in the Shankill and me for protecting him. This was a very, very crucial period in my life, my perceptions were changing. My understanding of things was challenged. For the first time I had realised that not all Catholics were in the IRA. I knew I thought that because I had said it, but it wasn’t until I said it that I realised it was true. That’s what created the dilemma for me over the next months. I had been bought up in a sectarian world in which all Catholics were IRA men. I didn’t only believe that, I preached that gospel in the full conviction that it was right and now this had happened. It was actually traumatic, it caused me a crisis of confidence. For us, Catholics were so linked to the IRA the two were inseparable. At that particular time I was a UDA man. There were expectations of me, that I would kick a door in and shoot someone [a Catholic]. Now I had no problem with that, if it was an IRA man, but now I did have a problem if he was just an ordinary Catholic. Now that was a dilemma for me and it caused me serious

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mental problems. I was actually on the verge of a nervous breakdown. I would be out drinking in the loyalist clubs, I was the ‘big lad’, ‘big reputation’, but they all expected me to kill Catholics. I thought that I was going to crack up. It’s easy to go and do something when you think that it’s right, but if something happens to suggest that maybe it isn’t right, that’s traumatic. That ‘does you head in’ [creates mental instability]. It was like suddenly I was in a different world to everyone else. I had always believed that all Catholics were my enemy, the enemy of my people, and that it was them or us. It was like a revelation, they’re not all in the IRA, they’re not all bad. It was frightening, all the certainty in my life had gone. I never had any conscience about all that had gone on before but now it was different. That guy [the Catholic] who had been killed, I was never convicted for that, but my three mates had been the year before. When he was killed I was the only one present. Every one of them named me, but there were no witnesses and I didn’t make a statement so there was nothing that they [the police] could do about it. There was this police inspector Anne ——, she was always on my back. I was standing at the back of this house kissing a girl when the house was raided. It was Anne ——. Afterwards she came over and asked if I wanted a lift home. I told her to fuck off, that people would think that I was a ‘tout’ [informer]. A week later I was in Paisley Park drinking with my friends and a thought came to me. If you see Anne ——, stop the car. I walked along the West Circular Road and on to the Ballygomartin Road and there was a car coming up. It was Anne —— and another detective. I got into the car and then confessed and Anne knew that I would. Anne —— didn’t judge me, it was as if she understood. All she said was, ‘We live in very bad times and very bad things happen.’ We were driving down the Shankill and Anne turned around and looked at me, and she knew, she asked compassionately, as if she knew the emotional turmoil I was in. ‘—— what about the murder?’ I confessed there and then. I was taken to Castlereagh [interrogation centre] and charged. I felt I’d let everyone down, my comrades, the organisation, my community. I’d been in Castlereagh over 20 times and I’d never made a statement. It was about the dilemma I was in about killing more people. I don’t think I could have killed anyone else without knowing who they were and all about them [i.e. if they were IRA], and that wasn’t possible. So I couldn’t have lived in my community and lived up to the expectations that people had of me in that community. I was so confused, I didn’t know what was going on. The rules of

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combat as I had known them had changed, now there was a different reality. I confessed, I was convicted of murder, and I served 121⁄2 years in prison. Now I didn’t have to do that, they couldn’t have touched me without a confession. That was the price of my dilemma. I still believe that the loyalists were right to fight the IRA, they had no choice. But the IRA shouldn’t have killed ordinary Protestants, and the loyalists shouldn’t have killed ordinary Catholics. But by its very nature the innocent do get killed, that’s the reality of war. War itself is the enemy, men think they control war, but war controls men, it consumes them. I know because I was one of them, and I still don’t understand it. We do things when we are at war that we would just never, ever do, in normal circumstances. It’s like a contagion or an infection that takes over your identity and blinds you. You become a different person, and you are a different person. I’ve been clinically depressed and suicidal and sometimes I felt that I just couldn’t go on. I spend all my time now working with young people, trying to make sure that they don’t go down the same road as me. Because that’s the road to hell. ‘BILLY’ ‘Billy’ (now in his 40s) is a slightly built man who has retained an almost boyish aspect of his personality. He has a ready sense of humour and is very engaging in conversation. As a young man he was imprisoned for ‘fundraising’, that is robbing banks for the UDA. This was during the period of criminalisation policy, a brutal and dehumanising prison regime predicated upon the need to criminalise political prisoners in Northern Ireland (1976–90). Like a majority of the loyalist prisoners who fought against criminalisation, Billy had never talked about his experiences of degradation and torture at the hands of the prison service. The interviews with Billy were both emotional and traumatic, in exchanges which were of mutual significance. Early childhood. I lived in —— on the Shankill Road. My grandma lived in ——. My paternal grandfather lived in ——. Mostly I would have gone up to my paternal grandfather. My grandmother died early on. Most of my early memories would have been of the family. My father worked in the zoo then. Every Sunday my father would have taken me out and we went to one of the uncles’ houses or the grandparents. Or we would have gone for a walk. We would have gone to the zoo quite a lot because he was a zoo keeper, and we got in free.

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Or we would have gone up around Hazelwood [a local park] for walks, things like that. In the summer my mother would have taken us to Hazelbank. We were well looked after as children. We got taken out all the time. It was a big close family. My father worked all week but every Saturday morning we would have gone out with my mother and we visited her side of the family. We would have been left in one of our aunt’s houses and all the cousins would play together while they went shopping. My father got up early on a Sunday morning and made us all a big breakfast, a big fry-up. I hated school when I first started. The first day I went to primary school my mother was in hospital, with [giving birth to] one of the other sons, it must have been Sam. She was in having him, and there was only my father and me in the house. When it was time for school my father took me before he went to work. I went to the Riddel Memorial in Malvern Street. He took me up and dropped me at the gates and said more or less, ‘Will you be alright?’, I said yes, I’d be fine and he left. As soon as he left I started backing away. I wasn’t having any of it. This teacher came out. The teacher was actually a Pakistani, you know an Asian, and I’d never seen a coloured woman. That made it even more traumatic for me. She grabbed me by the hand and tried to pull me in and I kicked her in the shins, and tried to do a runner. I ran up Malvern Street, and on to my grandda’s house. I told him about it, and said, ‘You want to see the people that are trying to drag me in. They’re not even white people’, and all this business. My grandfather took me back down, and carried me into the class, and set me down. He’d had a word with me and told me not to worry. When I got into the class I must have settled down fairly quickly, because I was alright after that. During the first couple of months I was a bit rebellious but after that I settled down and I was alright with it. I got to like the teacher, once I got to know her. I was in the Riddel until P4 and after that I got moved up to Highfield [Primary School]. We were moved out into the Highfield [a larger housing estate on the outskirts of Belfast]. I thought that we had actually moved to the country. We had a garden and all, our own garden, and coming from the Shankill [inner Belfast] it was like moving to the country to me. My mother had a very rough time even getting me home to bed because I was up the back, up in the fields and up to the mountain. There were dams up there where you could find sticklebacks. To me these were like newts, or baby crocodiles. I was into everything, I didn’t know anything about the countryside coming from the Shankill. I got all the boys who were

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already there to show me about the place. When I went to school I found an orchard at the side of it. I’d never seen an apple tree before. They couldn’t get me out of it. There was a wee farm beside it, and your man had chickens and all. I used to bring bread and feed the chickens. The only problem they had with me in Highfield [school] was getting me in, because if I wasn’t up the apple trees I was feeding the chickens. I thought this was tremendous. I made a lot of friends, friends I’ve had all my life from primary school. I couldn’t wait to get out of the class into the fields. I became very interested in nature study, learning about insects and animals and how they ‘operated’. I had a terrible thirst for knowledge about these things. Nature study, I was right into it, and I’m still into it, in a big way. Some of the boys would have kept me going, they’d call me ‘trout mouth’ because I’m never done talking about fish and things. I remember one time we were ‘doing’ [stealing apples from] an orchard when the ‘boy’ [owner] of the house came out. We all did a runner but one of the boys slipped and slid all the way down the tree. He dislocated his shoulder. We had to take him to the doctors, and we told him [the doctor] that he had slid down a bank. We were scared in case the Peelers [police] would be after us. I went back and told my father the story and he fell about laughing. He said, ‘That’s a “wheeker one” [good one] now what were you really doing?’ He told me that no one would be bothered to chase us because of that. I was four when my younger brother was born, ‘Eric’. I felt a great resentment about his being born to be honest with you. Looking back now I don’t know why. I suppose before he came along I had my parents all to myself. Then he came along and he seemed to be taking over the love and affection that I had been getting. I had a terrible dislike for him for a while. Actually it got to such an extent that when I was about eight, just before we moved to Highfield, I took him up to the waterworks. He was about four at the time. I took him up and we were walking by the side of the waterworks dam and I pushed him in. There were people around and I knew he’d be rescued, but I wanted him to know what it was like to get pushed out. Two bigger lads came along and pulled him out, and I just said that he’d slipped. I said, ‘He won’t listen to me he runs away’, and one thing and another. In the early years I had a lot of resentment for him. But then the others [brothers and sisters] came along and it wasn’t so bad. After all I couldn’t fight with all of them. Time went by and I sort of discovered my niche. I realised that I could do things that they couldn’t. I got interested in pigeons. My father built me a

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pigeon loft and we used to go down to the pigeon market every Friday night in Smithfield, at six o’clock. Anybody who had pigeons to sell went down there rather than go to a pet shop, to cut the ‘middle man’ out. We used to go down and trade in pigeons, there were all fancy pigeons, ‘fan tails’, ‘feather foots’, things like that. My father never had pigeons when he was young so he got into it along with me, so the two of us were into pigeons. Because he and I had that interest together I lost the resentment which I had towards the rest of them [younger brothers and sister]. When I went to secondary school it was Ballygomartin Secondary School, and I loved it because there were new people to meet, people from the Shankill and Woodvale and all over. I just loved it. In the first year they put us all together in ‘Victor’ I think it was called, 1V, 1I, 1C, 1R. They put me in one of the ‘clever’ classes but all my mates were in the ‘bottom’ class. I went to the form teacher and told him that I wanted to be moved down to be with my mates. He said no, so I ‘mitched’ [truanted] and got into trouble so then they moved me down. One of the guys in my old class shouted over to me before I moved, ‘Plasticiner’. I said, ‘What the fuck’s a “plasticiner”’? He said, ‘That’s what they are where you’re going. They’re all so fucking thick all they can do is sit around and play with plasticine all day.’ Then in the second year you got mixed about a bit, where the ‘go getters’ were in the top class V1C then the middle one’s in the TO. And then the people who were going to be binmen and that were in the O and R classes. That was in second year, in third year that became more prominent. 3G, 3H – boys who were heading for GCE Geography, GCE History, and then you had 3V or something, they were the ones going for CSE, then you had 3V1. They just went and did what they wanted, they weren’t even trying to teach them. They just didn’t care, or didn’t want to go to school, or they were as ‘thick as champ’. In third form I was in 3H [History] heading for a GCE and it was alright because I had a few of my mates with me. When I got into fourth year, two of my mates had turned 15 and had left school, and there was only me and another friend left. The rest of the people in the class were all middle class. There was a private estate which bordered the estate I belonged to. They were all ‘bought’ [privately owned] houses. The rest of the class was made up of people from there. To me they were all snobs, ‘shirtlifters’ [homosexuals], I took nothing to do with them. When Easter came my only friend in the class, John, left to go to work in the shipyard. That left me in the class on my own, without any of the friends who

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I’d knocked about with. I asked the teacher if I could get moved down [to a lower class to be with his friends]. They moved me down to another GCE class, but I wanted to move down further to where my mates were [i.e. in the lowest performing class]. The teacher refused saying, ‘You’re throwing your education away here.’ This was as I say the ‘plasticine class’. The school had an outdoor pursuits centre. Canoes and all of that. All these boys did was make sails for the canoes, make canoes, repair canoes, go down to this centre and paint it, and go out canoeing. I wasn’t going to sit doing maths while the boys were out canoeing. I told the teacher I wanted to move down with my mates. I told him that I wasn’t going to do PE with those ‘shirtlifters’. To me they [his classmates] were all snobs and homosexual types. They weren’t my type of people at all, they were all ‘mummy’s boys’. I mitched off school for two weeks and then I went to the form teacher and said, ‘Look I’ve been mitching for the past two weeks and if I don’t get moved down [to the bottom class] I’m going to mitch for the rest of the year.’ So I got six of the best, and moved down with 4Y. That was the class that nobody [teachers] cared about. About that particular time the UDA was being formed. I was involved in the vigilantes in a loose way, running messages and that. The area I came from was surrounded on all sides by republican areas. There was a siege mentality in the area at that time. As far as people were concerned the republicans were about to march in and burn us out of our homes. A lot of men in the area ‘threw up’ [erected] barricades. One of the barricades was directly facing my house. Being the age I was this was like a big adventure. I was out scouting around and listening to the gunfire. It was like a John Wayne movie was happening just outside the estate. At that particular time we [loyalists] had no guns. There were a few guns about, old shotguns, legally held shotguns, but they were specifically held at the barricades. To the best of my knowledge there was no offensive fire from the area I came from. The shotguns were no match for the rifles and automatic weapons the republicans had. The shotguns had no range. I was only 14 or 15. What happened was my father was with the vigilantes. My father would have been one of the ‘leading lights’ [commanders] in the area. I would have been out delivering messages, taking cups of tea to the barricades, things like that, taking cigarettes. Then the UDA formed. That was in my last year at school. Me and most of my mates joined the junior

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UDA. Most of the people in my class would all have been members of the Highfield Unit of the junior UDA. That [UDA membership] was all over the school. I loved it. The boys I knew were in sort of a gang. We would get together on a Saturday and go into Belfast and hang around the town. We would buy clothes and records and would go into Woolworths to buy our dinner [lunch]. We would meet boys from other areas, Tartan gangs. I was involved in a gang called the Ulster Boot Boys. We would meet boys from other areas, the Shankill Tartan, the Young Newtown, Woodstock Tartan, the Rathcoole. We would all go down to the ‘loyalist stand’ in Royal Avenue. Then there were Catholic gangs, the Nerks from the New Lodge [a Catholic area]. We would have a fight with the Nerks or the Divis Tartan [an ironically named Catholic gang] which was another nationalist gang. It was just a big adventure really, there wasn’t anything serious in it really. It was all sectarian, on both sides, but we enjoyed it. That’s who we were, Protestants and Catholics. This particular Saturday we were going down into town when we heard that there had been a bomb on the Shankill Road. On the way down we stopped off at the Balmoral showroom, which was a furniture shop off the Shankill Road, where the Shankill Leisure Centre is now. We stopped there and saw people digging in the rubble, looking for bodies. It was very confusing. There were men crying, men and women standing crying. There were men shouting and running about ranting and raving. Men digging, and men shouting, ‘We’ll kill the bastards’, ‘Kill the bastards.’ I remember they brought out the first body. It was the body of a child just a wee thing, I found out later it had been 18 months old. It was wrapped in a blanket. I remember when they brought it out I couldn’t help it the tears just welled up in my eyes. They carried the next body out, it was a three year old child. I felt this isn’t a game here any more, these people [the IRA] are out to slaughter us. They’re going to kill us all, we’re going to have to do something about this. From that day on things just weren’t the same any more. The UDA had only been formed a couple of weeks prior to this. I’d heard about it because of my connections with the vigilantes, and the boys on the estate. We are very tight knit were I come from, if anything goes down everybody knows about it. This UDA thing was a good thing in the area at the time. We discussed it among ourselves and we felt that this [the formation of the UDA] was going to be good. The boys just wanted to get trained [in combat] and one thing led to another.

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Up until then it had been a bit of an adventure, just like cowboys and indians, but from that day on [after the Shankill bomb, 1972] it was no adventure. We knew that the UDA held their meetings on a Sunday night, Sunday teatime, in the area. About 12 of us went and offered our services. The UDA said yes, that they would form a junior wing, and they would accept us into it. The entire membership of the Ulster Boot Boys in the area went and joined the UDA. I think there were 73 of us who all joined together. This would have been about 1972. As far as we were concerned we were going to start fighting back. Before that when the republicans had been shooting into the area, it was like a big game to me, from then on it was no longer a game, these people [the IRA] were out to kill us. They weren’t going to be happy until they’d slaughtered every last one of us. So we had to do something. From then on every shot fired into that area, or every Protestant attacked, to me it became a personal thing. It was as if it was an attack on me personally, and I had to do something about it. That’s the way I felt. I put my name up for active service in the UDA. Gradually I got more and more involved from then on. At the start it was like cowboys and indians but then it got serious. In the early days [1972] the Highfield [Estate] was under fire from [republican] rifles and automatic fire. I remember the film crews would come around, and the foreign film crews in particular. They had been so indoctrinated by the republican propaganda machine that they refused to believe that we as Protestants were coming under fire. They had assumed it was only the Catholics under attack. We had to take them around and show them the bullet holes in the houses. A number of Protestants had been shot and killed just going about their business. There was one camera crew in particular, I think it was French. They didn’t believe that we were under fire [from republicans] and all of that. So I got up on a ladder to point out a heavy-calibre bullet hole. There was a ‘ping’ on the wall and they all hit the ground. The republicans had tried to shoot me when I was up the ladder, even though there was a camera crew there. They [the IRA] slipped up that time. In those days the UDA held [controlled] the bottom half of the Highfield and the [British] army the top. By this time we had got a few rifles. This day there was a very heavy exchange of fire and we felt we were going to lose it. These Paras [Paratroopers] came down behind a wall in our section of the estate and began to return fire. There was a big green field separating Highfield and the Catholic

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estates, and we could see this IRA man working his way down with a machine gun. That could have flattened [killed] us. The IRA man clearly didn’t know that the Paras were there. He must have thought it was just us with our .22 rifles and shotguns. When they shouted ‘Drop your weapon’ in an English accent he ran like fuck, but the sergeant quietly said ‘Drop him’ and that was the end of that. The next thing we knew a priest ran down to the IRA man who had been shot, and seemed to be giving him the last rights or whatever they [Catholics] call it. The next thing you know the priest grabbed the gun and began to run back to the Catholic lines. The sergeant shouted out, ‘Father drop the weapon, please drop the weapon’, but he ran on. The sergeant turned to a soldier behind him and said ‘Drop him.’ The priest was shot. By this stage I was really getting to like that sergeant. But what that really proved to us was that the British could have mopped the whole thing up any bloody time they wanted. The IRA were no match for the Paras. That one patrol could have probably taken out all the gunmen in the Catholic estates. They just moved in quietly, did the business, and moved out. That was the end of the gun battle, the Paras had saved our bacon. As the sergeant left he turned around and looked at me, I’ll never forget it, I felt proud of him, this soldier I’d never met. I was only a young fella, but he nodded over to me as if we were friends, and then wheeled around and ran after his patrol. I never saw him again. They’d no interest in taking our guns, they knew the score. They knew that if they hadn’t come down, we would have been dead. That machine gun would have cleaned [killed] us. If it wasn’t obvious before that it was bloody obvious after it, we needed guns. That’s how I found my forte. It wouldn’t have been in our nature to kill people but at least we could rob banks. Unlike the republicans we had no guns, and we had no friends to give us guns. We had to buy guns, but we had no money. What do you do, you rob banks. I became a bank robber for the UDA, so as they could buy guns and as it turned out I was good at it. I robbed banks and post offices all over Northern Ireland. There was this one week when I robbed a bank and a post office. Nobody ever got hurt. You could say that I commanded a certain respect as a bank robber. We worked in a tight cell. We all decided where to ‘hit’ in the morning so no one could know in advance. If any of us had a bad feeling about a particular hit, it didn’t get done, we moved on somewhere else. We were making thousands of pounds for the organisation, to buy guns. We were getting the guns alright but certain people seemed to be

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getting rich in the process. None of us approved of that. We risked getting shot or jailed and they were getting rich! We got caught eventually. It was a bank in ——. After we robbed the safe I was first out the door, but on the way out I saw that the town was full of police and army. They were over the cars and Land-Rovers with handguns, rifles and sub-machine guns. It was like a scene out of Bonnie and Clyde. I never actually got out through the door, I went straight in behind it. I signalled to the boys that we were surrounded. The next thing I saw was gun barrels coming through the door. That was that, we were arrested. I don’t know what sort of people live in —— but we felt like Negroes in Alabama being taken out by the police. They were all shouting, ‘Shoot the bastards, hang them, robbing our bank you bastards, our money, hanging is too good for them, hand them over to us.’ The whole town was out, it was a lynch mob. We were really glad the police and army were there by that stage. If the good people of —— had got us, they would have killed us. We were remanded in the Crumlin Road prison [Belfast]. Although we were in prison I wouldn’t have had it any other way. You were in with other good loyalists and we’d been caught fighting our war. We felt good about it, like we were serving our country, and now we were in prison for serving our country. There was no segregation [between Protestants and Catholics] in those days and you would have had two loyalists in a cell, and then two republicans in the next cell. There was a lot of fighting. So we felt as if we were still fighting the war even though we were in prison. We’d go for them [republicans] at every opportunity. The other thing was, and it was quite funny, we were obsessed with escaping. We would eventually loosen the bars in the cells, so that we could pull the bars out and jump. The screws would catch on and move us to a different cell. The thing was if we had removed the bars and jumped out, it would have been a 30 ft drop into an exercise yard. We didn’t know where the fuck we would have gone from there, it was all high walls and wire. The only thing we did know was that if we’d had the opportunity to do it we would have. Eventually we were sentenced and transferred to the H Blocks. Because we were classified as ‘young prisoners’ we were sent to H Block ——. The Crumlin Road hadn’t been to bad. It was an adult prison and you were treated like adults. The screws knew not to push it, at least not with the paramilitary prisoners, although the criminal prisoners could get knocked about.

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H Block —— was different altogether. It was a borstal system they ran there. I don’t know where they got the screws from for there, I’d never seen screws like them. We’d been taken to reception for our uniforms, trousers which were three sizes too big, shirts that you could smell were dirty, jackets too big or too small, and shoes that were too small and cramped your feet, or so big so that you clomped around in them. The screws in reception had made us use the showers, we were in full view of them, and they had laughed at us. They had taken our clothes, so we had to wear the uniform. When we complained and asked for our clothes back they said, ‘Ask the officers in H Block —— , they’re nice fellas, they’ll fix you up.’ We felt stupid in those uniforms, and we looked stupid. We looked laughable, but this was no joke. I felt desperate, like I was suddenly loosing my identity. I turned round and looked at ‘Tom’, and saw just how much the uniform changed him. He was just like some old fucking criminal prisoner in that uniform. ‘Tom’ was usually the life and soul of the party but here he was, sullen and scared. There was something about the attitude of the officers, ‘You boys enjoy your stay with us now’, ‘You’re really in for it this time’, ‘You wee shits are going to learn your lesson the hard way now.’ By the time we got into the van for H Block —— we were shitting ourselves. We’d no idea of what to expect. We were pulled out of the van and instructed to run into the H Block. We went in through the first grille which faced the second grille. The prison officer pushed us up to the grille and banged our heads on the grille from behind. ‘You’ll know your driver in here you wee shits.’ We were pushed into the ‘circle’. The principal officer [PO] was there with two class officers. ‘Do you boys not know how to enter a room? I can see you’ll have to be taught some respect around here. Stand to attention, still, rigid. What’s your name?’ ‘Billy,’ welt [slap] on the face, ‘Billy ——, sir’, welt. Yes sir, principal officer, sir. You get hit in the back and winded by the class officer standing behind you. ‘Did I not tell you to stand to attention!’ Welt, and so on. I saw one young fella, just a wee lad going through that once, and he wet himself. The principal officer shouted, ‘Oh look, —— has pissed himself.’ He went to each of the four wings and shouted down, ‘Watch out for ——, he wets himself and he’ll piss all over you.’ He came back to the young fella and welt across the face. ‘You dirty, dirty, wee fucker. After you lick that mess up from my fucking floor, you can go to the punishment block for three days. You can piss all over the floor and lick it up all you like over there.’ I was heart sorry

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for him, he was shaking like a leaf and crying. I was scared in case he would shit himself. Anyway, after our ‘reception’ we were taken to the wing where our cells were. There were officers lined up all the way down the wing outside the cells with batons at the ready. They were all shouting and jeering. I looked at my mate, and he looked scared. I was scared, how hard were you going to be hit? Would you ‘go down’, and if you went down would they keep beating at you? We were UDA prisoners, but nobody had told us what to expect. Half the problem here was it had taken us by surprise. If we’d known what to expect it wouldn’t have been so bad. The officers behind us pushed us into the wing and they began to beat us. They hit us with the batons, and with the baton straps which were like whips, they kicked us, punched us and tramped on us. It was really sore, really painful, we were beaten black and blue and we hadn’t done a fucking thing to deserve it. We were moaning and limping about the cell, standing in whatever way caused least pain, and I said to ‘Tom’, ‘What the fuck would these bastards do to you if you actually did something wrong?’ They just couldn’t have treated us any worse, like I say it was a borstal system. We were in prison during the time of criminalisation policy. The IRA were ‘on the blanket’ protesting for political status. [The IRA prisoners refused to accept a prison uniform and instead draped themselves with blankets from their bedding.] We heard that they were getting it rough, getting their shit kicked in. The next thing we heard was that loyalists were on the blanket, including UDA men. I talked to the other UDA YPs [young prisoners] and said, ‘Listen, why don’t we go on the blanket for “status” as well. We’re getting our shit kicked in anyway, why the fuck don’t we go on protest.’ Some of the boys didn’t want to be seen to be doing what the IRA were doing [i.e. protesting]. Some of us, the hardliners, decided to go on the blanket. The next thing I knew I was called in by the principal officer. He accused me of conspiring in a mutiny. I was sent to the ‘boards’ [punishment block] and I was beaten twice a day. I spent three days and nights on the boards and then they took me back to the [H] Block. The PO interviewed me again. ‘Do you know why you were sent to the punishment block?’ ‘Yes sir.’ ‘In the circumstances do you think that was a fair punishment? ‘Oh yes sir.’ ‘Were you mistreated in any way during your stay in the punishment block?’ ‘No sir.’ ‘Were you well treated during your detention in the punishment block?’ ‘Yes sir very well treated.’ I knew fucking rightly that if I complained,

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I’d end up back in the punishment block for another three days. But the next bit threw me. He said, ‘Are you willing to sign a statement to that effect?’ I said yes, but I didn’t know what their game was. As it turned out my Da [father] had got wind of what was going on, and he’d arranged for a special visit to see me the next day, Friday. My Da was big in the UDA, and the screws in the compounds [political prison section of the prison] were very wary of the UDA and they had put pressure on for my Da to be allowed to visit. I went out for my visit with the PO. When my Da saw me he nearly went mad. I was still black and blue with cuts and half closed eyes. He asked me what had happened, and I told him the truth, that the screws had beat me over and over. The PO said, ‘But Mr —— that’s not the way of it at all. Look I even have this signed letter from “Billy” assuring me that no prison officers were responsible, he’s just had some hassle with some Fenian [Catholic] prisoners, now isn’t that the way of it “Billy”?’ My Da says, ‘Don’t give me that shite, he’s been systematically worked over, and more than once. Look at his face, he can hardly walk.’ My Da said that ‘any understandings between the UDA and the prison service were over’. He warned the PO that I wasn’t to be touched ever again. They must have left me in peace for all of two weeks. Shortly after that screws’ cars were being vandalised and burnt out in loyalist areas. Then a screw was shot. The PO called me into his office. There was only him so I knew something was up. He said, ‘I know all about you. You’re the leader of the fucking UDA in here.’ I said I knew nothing about the UDA. Then he produced a bullet from his drawer and put it pointing upwards on the table. ‘You see the next time a prison officer gets shot, you wee fucker, I’m going to put that in your fucking head.’ Then he hit me so hard I fell. I had absolutely no doubt that he meant it. I went back to my cell and said to ‘Tom’, ‘Send the word out, shoot more fucking screws. Tell them that we’re getting fucking tortured in here.’ The word came back a few days later that it wasn’t organisation policy [to shoot prison officers]. We were getting tortured and they [the UDA] didn’t give a fuck. That’s when we decided to go on the blanket. There were about ten of us. The PO came down to the cell, and you could see the anger come over him like a wave. His neck got red and then his face, nearly purple. You could see the veins in his neck. ‘Put that fucking uniform on, immediately.’ I just said, ‘My name is “Billy” ——, UDA, political prisoner on protest for political status.’ That was it we all got a digging [beaten up] and got sent to the boards. The screws would come in and

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beat us up twice a day. They would start in the first cell and work their way up. They used the batons and the baton straps. They would hit you all over, but especially on the back, where it was most painful, and where it didn’t show. The hardest bit was listening to the screaming of your mates. Some of the boys cried for mercy but they never got it. These screws had been hand picked, they didn’t know what mercy was. Some of the ordinary screws who were assigned to the punishment blocks didn’t like it. They would say, ‘Don’t worry boys a few more days and you’ll be back in the Block.’ They didn’t understand that it was nearly as bad in the Block. One old screw even brought us ham from the kitchen. We were on punishment rations, so we were starving. Ham never tasted so good. The funny thing was those two prison officers were Catholics. They could have lost their jobs for what they did, for giving us decent food when we were meant to be on a number one diet. They were the first Catholics I’d ever met. I was very confused by that. These were Catholics but they were the good guys. It was our own kind, loyalist prison officers, who were being bastards to us, I learned from that that there were good and bad on both sides. Then before you knew it we were getting ‘beat’ again. We could only take it for so long and then we’d go off the blanket to recover, but then we’d go back on it again. Things got so bad I used to dream about shooting screws, we all did. You know the BBC building in Belfast, with the satellite dish. I used to have daydreams about getting up there with an AK47 and shooting screws as they marched by on the 12th [12 July Orange Parade]. Half of the fucking screws were in the ‘Orange’. I used to dream about ‘opening up’ and scattering them, and then picking them off, one by one. I’d blow this one’s head off, and shoot that one in the back of the spine. Shoot this one’s legs off, and shoot this one’s son. Talking to you now like this seems crazy, but it wasn’t crazy to me then. That’s what kept me going. I would send the word out again, stop them torturing us, shoot more screws. Our boys [UDA] weren’t shooting screws, but the Provos were. Every time I heard about one getting shot I wanted to shout, ‘Yes, yes.’ The UDA leadership had let us down, and let us down badly. We knew that there was corruption in the organisation, criminal elements. Some people had been creaming off funds and getting rich. It wasn’t on. They didn’t support us as political prisoners, because they didn’t understand what political prisoners were. We weren’t having it any more. When we [the political prisoners] got out we started to take over. We put our people in positions of power and

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influence and then eventually we took over and cleaned up our act. Certain people were ‘removed’. We didn’t shoot them or anything, they knew who we were, and they knew that we were taking over. They knew better than to go up against us. We weren’t in the business of racketeering or intimidating Protestant businessmen. Our business was taking on the IRA. The UFF increasingly became the cutting edge of the UDA and we were going for the ‘right ones’. Provo activists were getting shot and shot dead and they didn’t like it. People like Johnny Adair were frightening the fuck out of them. He had a simple message for them [the Provos], ‘You’re going to get killed.’ They tried to assassinate him seven times. One time two of them [Provos] opened up on his car with AK47s, Adair had managed to crawl up under the steering wheel. He walked away with a cut on his back. That scared them. They sent their top men, two of them were six feet away from Adair with the AKs and still he walked away. All the while Provos were being killed. You know that old picture house in town, the one beside the Grand Opera House? They used to have bingo there. My wife and her friends would go down, and there would be these Catholics there, from the New Lodge or somewhere. Anyway, this day one of the Catholic mothers couldn’t control her wee lad. He was running up and down the aisle, up to the front, throwing paper cups. The mother shouted at him, ‘Stop it, come here and I’ll give you a sweet, stop it now or I’ll give you a welt.’ The wee lad didn’t take a blind bit of notice. Then she said, ‘Come here quick there’s Johnny Adair in a black taxi.’ The wee lad quick as you like ran and crouched at the mother’s feet. When I heard that I knew we were on top, we’d put the fear into them [Catholics]. It was only a matter of time until they [the IRA] would call it off. The UFF’s campaign was the single biggest factor in the Provos calling their ceasefire. It would be true to say some of our lads were disappointed. We’d gone so far but some of them wanted to go the whole way, to finish it for good. As it is, we’ll just wait and see. JOHN WHITE John White (now in his 50s) is approximately 5’10”, well built and balding. He presents as a sombre person, one who has been bowed down by years of pressure. As a self-educated man John was the spokesperson for the UDA for many years, mediating between the paramilitary and political wings of the organisation. White bore the scars of having served

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a life sentence in prison for murder, becoming very guarded in relationships and suspicious of those outside his immediate acquaintance. I had a reputation as a bit of a hard man when I was younger, so I was expected to join the paramilitaries. In reality I was always very quiet but I could handle myself if it came to it. I would never normally have looked for trouble. I joined the UDA because I lived in a UDA district. Nearly all the young men of my age were in the UDA, but as far as I was concerned nobody was doing anything. The IRA was murdering Protestants, Catholics, members of the security forces, children. Bars and town centres were being bombed. You saw it on television, people’s dismembered bodies just lying on the street like so much charred meat. The loyalist paramilitaries were letting it happen as far as we could see, they just weren’t hitting them [IRA/Catholics] back. As I saw it then the IRA and Catholics were one in the same, because if the Catholic community hadn’t sheltered and supported the IRA, the IRA couldn’t have operated as they did. That is what we all thought in those days. That’s what we were told and that’s what we believed. Because I was regarded as a hard man I went up in rank in the UDA very quickly. Everybody was asking, ‘When are we going to hit back, when are we going to even the score?’ By that stage I was a company commander in the UFF. The men in my unit were good, they were politically motivated, dedicated loyalists. In 1972/73 the British wanted out [of Northern Ireland]. The IRA were committing sickening atrocities to prove that the law had broken down under British rule, and that the continuing British administration was untenable. We were at a state of war. There was no mistaking that, the Shankill Road where I lived was a war zone by any criteria. That was the funny thing about the Northern Ireland conflict, it was localised. The Malone Road just a couple of miles away could have been south London. But there was no mistaking that the Shankill was at war, and that we had our war dead. The men in my [UFF] unit were enraged by everything that was happening. I was angry, I was angry almost beyond control. The IRA were killing our people and ruining the entire country, and nobody was doing anything. The men were pressing me to get things done. I went to the leadership to get some action, but they spent most of their time in meetings, talking about doing something. The men increasingly looked to me, ‘What are we going to do?’ Everything was going in one direction. Everybody expected me to give the lead, I was the commander. I wanted to give

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the IRA some of their own medicine, I wanted to sicken them for a change. Then in June 1973 six Protestant old age pensioners were murdered in Railway Street, Portadown. Republicans had been responsible. I still remember their names and ages. Dinah Campbell was 62, Elizabeth Craigmile 76, Elizabeth Palmer 60, Robert Scott 72, Francis Campbell 70 and Nan Davis 60. I remember reading their names over and over again in the Belfast Telegraph. Those old people were killed by republicans because they were Protestant. I can remember shaking with rage and shouting at the paper. It was almost as if I had some sort of emotional connection with those people, and I memorised their names and ages in the knowledge that I was going to do something about it. I just couldn’t walk away from that, I felt a deep obligation to act. If my sense of attachment to my people had been more ambivalent, or if I’d been indifferent, I wouldn’t have joined the paramilitaries in the first place. I became involved because of the victims. I wanted to let the IRA know that if they gave us victims, then we in turn would give them victims. As I saw it, if they suffered as we suffered, they’d stop, because normal human beings can’t tolerate that. I thought that they’ll want to bring an end to it when it’s their own people getting killed. Those murders touched something inside me. Who were they going to go for next, the old people of the Shankill, my parents? It wasn’t just the war any more, it was my war. I knew that I’d have to hit back, it was personal now. The men in my unit all felt the same way, we had had enough. Somebody was going to pay a terrible price for the IRA’s actions. I knew that my life had changed and that I was going to kill someone because of what the IRA had done to innocent people in my community. There was no disincentive for the IRA, they were bombing their way into a united Ireland. The British had to understand that if they pulled out of Northern Ireland, they would be leaving a war behind them. It was up to the loyalist paramilitaries to demonstrate that. We wanted to kill IRA men and republicans, but of course none of us knew who they were. As for sectarian murder, the IRA had given us the lead in that, so if innocent Protestants were murdered, innocent Catholics were fair game. Those were the rules and that was the nature of the war in Northern Ireland. The IRA had written the rules, and they viewed everyone as a potential target. Car bombs don’t discriminate, they killed innocent Catholics and Protestants. The IRA was so fanatic they had no hesitation in killing their own [Catholics]. That’s what we were up against. Determined, ruthless terrorism without compassion and

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humanity. To fight that effectively you have to become as ruthless as the enemy, you have to put the fear into them. You have to demonstrate your capacity for violence is equal to or even greater than theirs. The loyalists felt betrayed and abandoned by the British security forces who were almost completely ineffective in fighting the IRA. We knew from our own sources that the army had been told not to take on the IRA. They had been given the role of containment, ‘pending political resolution’. We took that to mean containment pending a British withdrawal. It was obvious that the IRA were winning the war against the British, and we calculated that the next stage of the war would be between Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland. From where we were sitting that war had already started. Then on 21 June 1973 a mentally subnormal Protestant boy, David Walker [16], was abducted from his place of employment in Belfast and murdered by the IRA. I was totally sickened by that, they’d started to murder subnormal children because they were Protestant. Men in my unit telephoned me totally incensed. What were we going to do about it? When I walked down the road people looked at me expecting me to do something because of who I was and the position I held. I felt as if I was letting my own people down, because I hadn’t taken action. We hadn’t hit back. We were the hard men of the UDA, the IRA were killing Protestants all around us, and everybody expected us to act. When you are surrounded by those sets of expectations, when people are willing you on like that it becomes like an irresistible force, and you almost feel compelled to act. You want to do it, and everyone in your social world expects you to, so you do it. All of that pressure was mounting so I decided to do something big. The IRA had terrorised the Protestant community and I was determined to terrorise the Catholic community. That was the mission that I set myself, and that became the most important thing in my life. The adrenaline rush took over. The only thing that mattered, the only thing I could think about was the mission. I was on course to kill, it was only a question of who. Obviously I would have liked to kill an IRA man, but if it couldn’t be that it was going to be a Catholic, and the more prominent he was the better. I wanted people to notice this one. As I saw it then I was a loyalist paramilitary with an obligation to attack and kill a Catholic. Catholics had countenanced the IRA’s murder of my people, and now I was going to make one or more of them pay the price. And I intended to keep on doing that until I was caught or killed. We had people out looking for a suitable target. Eventually I got word. Paddy Wilson, a Catholic

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SDLP politician, had been located in Belfast. The minute I received that telephone call Paddy Wilson was dead. It was my intention to go for a ‘spectacular’, I wanted to strike fear into the Catholic community and the IRA. With all the killing and murder of Protestants I had lost it, I was angry beyond my control. We had all been sickened by IRA atrocities and murders, now I took it upon myself to sicken the Catholic community. And that was down to me and people like me because there was nobody else. The police and the army had proved themselves useless. As far as we were concerned they weren’t defending Ulster any more, they were only getting in our way. Every loyalist they arrested and put in prison was worth ten of them, because we were the ones willing to do the fighting. Even in those days police infiltration and informers were rampant. If a UDA man left his house with a weapon he was almost bound to get caught. Everybody knew everybody’s business and that meant that the police knew. A lot of people took the view that the loyalists and the police were on the same side, but the fact is that they were giving us [the UDA] real problems. So I decided not to take a gun for the mission, because the police were arresting our men carrying guns all over the place. The police had good intelligence on the loyalist community and it seemed that every time a gun was moved one of us would be arrested and charged with possession. That’s three years in prison, if you were lucky. So, I took a carving knife instead. We located Senator Wilson and his lady friend and I killed them. I stabbed Wilson 32 times and his lady friend 19 times. I was detached from all of that, like I was on automatic pilot. I had programmed myself to kill, and to commit an atrocity and that’s what I did. I’d felt at the time that that would help to stop it, if Catholics and the IRA knew the terrible price which would have to be paid for their violence. In a statement issued after the murders ‘Captain Black’ of the UFF claimed that it had been responsible stating: ‘Tonight we got Senator Paddy Wilson and a lady friend. Their bodies are lying on the Hightown Road [Belfast], after the IRA murdered a retarded boy. We are not going to stand by after what they [the IRA] have done to us over the past four years. There will be more deaths in reprisal.’ We meant every word of that, if the IRA were going to kill Protestants, then we were going to kill Catholics. Everyone in my community understood that and I was regarded as something of a folk hero, particularly by the paramilitary people. We all accepted that we were at war, and in a war situation a soldier’s job is to kill the enemy or his host community, just as they

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were killing ours. I would have been a driving force in paramilitary loyalism, and if anything I couldn’t understand why people were so complacent. I’d no remorse for what I did. I was a soldier and I accepted the consequences. But I did regret killing that Protestant woman. Because of who she was with I assumed she was a Catholic. By the mid-1970s I was becoming disillusioned because so few of us [paramilitary loyalists] were really active. I must have been one of the most frequently arrested loyalists in Northern Ireland, once, twice, sometimes three times a week. I was beaten up and badly beaten up very often, but I never complained and I never made a statement. Everything was going downhill in those days, we weren’t winning, we were loosing. The Shankill was like a war zone and a lot of people had been killed. Nearly all the young men were involved [in the loyalist paramilitaries] but there was no leadership and no strategy. Protestants were being bombed and murdered and nobody was doing anything about it. But as far as I was concerned they were my people who were being killed, and for me that was personal. That’s why I memorised all the names of those old age pensioners, because they all meant something to me. They weren’t just statistics that you could forget about. I remember that John McLaughlin [of the Peace People] said at my trial that I had been misled by community leaders, but he was wrong. I did what I did because my people were being murdered. They [the IRA] had their soldiers and we [the loyalists] had ours, and when the killing starts the whole thing just escalates. If Catholics start killing Protestants, Protestants will kill Catholics. When the killing starts it takes on a momentum of its own, and there are always those ‘ready to do the business’ on behalf of their community. Our biggest problem was the police and the army, they had virtually closed us down. The IRA were better organised and equipped. The year I went to prison [1978] the IRA killed 62 people, the UDA had retaliated by killing two. We had completely lost the plot. A lot of that was down to the police and special branch. They had amassed a frightening amount of intelligence on us, closing down nearly all of our operations. Men, and good men, were getting arrested left, right and centre for possession of arms, or as they were going on a mission. You couldn’t move a gun on the Shankill without getting caught. It was apparent to us that the police and the army were concentrating on the loyalists, while the IRA could do whatever they wanted. Half the young men in the Shankill were in Long Kesh. Every day bus loads of young women were being driven down the Shankill to

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see their men in the Kesh. Eventually you became affected by the sadness of it all. The Shankill Road was wrecked and run down, everybody lived in fear, and everywhere you looked you saw people’s lives ruined. That’s what the IRA did for my community. When I was arrested for the murder of Paddy Wilson the police had changed tactics. This time they were using psychology. I was interviewed consistently from early morning well into the night for three solid days. If anything the beatings were better because you were mentally alert and you could use your hatred for the police to defy them. But when the police were being friendly toward you they had you in a double bind. That was confusing, they were the enemy, but they were giving you cups of tea and enquiring about your family. After three days and nights of that I was so disorientated I’d probably have confessed to anything. I served my sentence in the UDA compounds in Long Kesh. That was just like going home. I knew most of the people there, some of them I hadn’t seen for years. They were mostly ordinary, decent, good men, who would go out of their way to do you a good turn. Most of those men would never have seen the inside of a prison, if the IRA hadn’t started the war. Thousands of lives ruined and for what? I spent my time in the compounds getting an education, and graduated with a BA with Honours and an Advanced Diploma in Criminology. Getting an education gave me a different perspective on life, and I became very interested in psychology, and in understanding why people do what they do. I started to read about history and politics and came to realise that there would have to be a political resolution of the conflict. The war had got us nowhere, that was basically an exercise in about how much one community could damage the other. I made a statement when I was released from Long Kesh in which I said ‘Most of those who have passed through Ulster’s jails would have not found themselves inside but for the political environment.’ That is a fact. The motivation which led to my actions did not dissipate in prison. It has been a matter of redirecting that motivation, through democratic politics. I went on to become chairman of the Ulster Democratic Party and worked very closely with the leadership, Gary McMichael and Davy Adams. We were heavily involved in the talks process following the Belfast Agreement, as a pro-agreement party. We canvassed for seats in the Northern Ireland Assembly but to our great surprise we didn’t gain a single seat. We were basically a pro-agreement party with an increasingly disillusioned unionist, anti-agreement electorate.

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That meant that the UDP, and by inference the UDA, were without a political voice, or political influence. That placed the UDP in a very strained position with the UDA, as we could no longer represent them politically. Given the importance of the role of the UDA/UFF in a political resolution of the conflict we expected to be given an ‘executive’ involvement in the Assembly, that would at least have kept the UDA on board in what was meant to be an all inclusive process. The UDP as a political party was disbanded last year, as it had lost all credibility. Former members of the UDP have now regrouped under the name of the Ulster Political Research Group, which has a larger military [UDA/UFF] representation. Without political representation the danger is that the UDA/UFF will drift back to exclusively military control and that could see an increase in military activity. The UDA–UVF loyalist feud in 2001 was in part a symptom of precisely that. As things stand the UDA is a loose cannon, and that’s dangerous. But that’s being allowed to continue.

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Phase Two: The 1980s UDA/UFF – from Infiltration to Reorganisation

‘TERRY’ ‘Terry’ (now in his 40s) is smallish in stature, about 5’7” tall with a receding hairline. A sullen and defensive façade gave way to a ready sense of humour as we became better acquainted. An unexceptional person, Terry is immensely proud of his loyalist working-class heritage. He claims that there are thousands of young loyalists just like him, who given the chance would do exactly as he did. As a child I had two older brothers and I can remember playing with them. Later on when I went to school it wasn’t so bad because they were already there and they looked out for me. My mother was always a very kind person, and she still is. She couldn’t see a dog go hungry. But I suppose I had a special relationship with my father. He worked but when he wasn’t at work he spent all the time he could with us. Mum used to complain about ‘all the boys together’. I think she felt a bit out of it at times because she was the only female in an all-male household. Dad used to play football with us in the street, or we’d go up to Woodvale Park and play up there. I was just a wee lad without a worry or a care in the world, but all of that changed. I was about seven or eight when it happened. The police raided our house looking for a gun. I’d never seen anything like it before. Armed policemen wrecked the house looking for a gun. My mother was hysterical and she was hitting out at police officers who eventually restrained her, but she still struggled and screamed her head off. Neighbours came into the house and tried to stop the police from searching. More police arrived and arrested them for riotous behaviour. It was all just chaos, men tried to stop the searching. I can remember this big police officer saying to one of the men, ‘Just mind your own fucking business’, then he hit him in the stomach, and the man bent over in two. Another police officer kicked him to the floor and then dragged him out by the feet. Suddenly a police officer shouted, ‘I’ve got it’, and he held this revolver up. It had been 97

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wrapped in an old kitchen towel, and I knew that was one of our towels. The room just went quiet. After all the commotion, just this eerie silence, with the flashing blue lights of the police Land-Rovers shining through the front window. I was scared before but now I was really frightened, I knew that this was something serious, although I didn’t understand why. My father was arrested, they charged him with possession of firearms. While he was being handcuffed I could see the tears in his eyes and I knew that he didn’t want to look at me. Mum was very angry and shouted at him over and over again, ‘How could you do this to us, how could you do it?’ My Da just kept his head down as he was taken out of the house. The men were saying, ‘All the best Joey’, ‘Good luck Joey’, ‘We’ll be up to see you.’ All of that was very traumatic. My world fell apart that night. Nothing was going to be the same again. Suddenly Da was gone, just like that. I would have been about eight years of age. I can remember crying myself to sleep when nobody could hear me. I was nervous all the time, there was a mixture of anger and nervousness that I’d never known before. I became angry every time I saw a policeman, but at the same time I was scared of them. I didn’t want them coming for me. Those were all big emotions for a wee lad. Our mum took it bad. She spent a lot of time by herself. We [‘Terry’ and his brothers] were angry at her because of the way she had screamed at him [their father]. We were angry because he had been taken away, but she was there so she ‘got it’. I suppose we started playing up and she just let us away with it. I lost interest in school and began to ‘mitch’ [truant]. We didn’t know it at the time but Mum had been pregnant and we got a baby sister. After some time a friend of my Da’s took us up to prison, one son at a time, once a month. That was exciting and I looked forward to it, getting away from the estate and into the countryside. I looked forward to seeing my Da again, but the visits made it worse in a way, because I hated walking away from him and leaving him in that place [Long Kesh]. By that stage there was another man on the scene, and we moved house from the Woodvale to the Ballysillan. I had to change primary school, and I hated the new school. My two eldest brothers were moved in with our grandparents, they each took one brother. That was another trauma for me because I had been close to my brothers. I started rebelling in school, taking time off, and I took no interest in learning. I started getting into trouble all the time and getting punished. They called me ‘disruptive’. If you didn’t show an interest

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in school then teachers just let you get on with it, so I spent most of my time in primary school staring out the window, thinking about all the things that had happened. I hated my stepfather at that time. I resented the fact that he was trying to take my Da’s place. If he went to give me a clip on the ear for something I did I would shout, ‘Who do you think you are, you’re not my Da’, and things like that. As soon as I found out what annoyed him, that’s what I would do. Looking back at it now I know he wasn’t a bad man, and he was doing his best. There weren’t many men who would have taken on the responsibility for kids like he did. When I was eleven or twelve I started to learn about politics, and I always thought back to Da. A labour government had got into power and there was a lot of talk about a united Ireland. ‘Protestants were going to loose their identity, the Protestant culture would be wiped out, Protestants would have to leave their houses and their country for Scotland and the mainland.’ I was just a kid and that was scary stuff. All my family were loyalist, my school was loyalist, my estate was loyalist, the road I lived on was loyalist. Where I had lived, in the Woodvale, we had come under fire from IRA gunmen in the Ardoyne nearly every night. There was a great hatred of Catholics because of what the IRA was doing. It was all ‘Brits out’ with them, but we were British, and we weren’t going anywhere. Now that I understood the situation I realised what my Da ‘was about’, and I felt proud to be his son. All I knew about republicans and the IRA was that they were killing my people [Protestants], coming into my area and shooting them, or blowing them up in car bombs in Belfast. Around that time a friend of my father’s, Bucky McCullough, was shot dead by the INLA. I’d known Bucky because of my Da, and I’d really liked him. I felt very sad about that and I thought of his wife left alone to bring up the children. Around that time [circa 1981] I made up my mind to join the loyalist paramilitaries, at the earliest opportunity. I had my mind made up I was going to get one of those bastards [IRA men]. I went to the Boys’ Model Secondary School [Belfast] and I loved it. I was good at sports, and they really encouraged sport there. They had teams for everything. I was in the football team, and I was a runner, high jumper and sprinter. I wasn’t that big but I was light and fast. The teachers took an interest in you there and there was no favouritism, everyone was encouraged to learn. I ended up with a City and Guilds in three subjects when I left school at 16. I went straight into a YTP [government-sponsored Youth Training

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Programme] in motor maintenance. I don’t know why I picked that because I had no real interest in cars then. I can remember during my time at the YTP they organised us into a football team. A match was arranged between us and a YTP team from the [Catholic] Falls Road. Fighting broke out, it was just a freefor-all really. One of the fellas in the Falls Road team shouted at one of our lads, ‘Come on you Orange bastard.’ The guy in our team shouted back, ‘I’m not an Orange bastard, I’m a Fenian [Catholic] bastard.’ That stopped him in his tracks and then our guy smacked him in the face. I was on my knees laughing. They had assumed that we were all Prods. They couldn’t understand how we could have Catholics in our team. After that it was just casual employment. I got involved in a lot of sectarian rioting and ended up in Hydebank [Young Offenders Centre]. The first week I was in E1, the reception wing. That was a short, sharp shock. There were brown and white tiles on the floor, and you weren’t allowed to put your foot on a brown tile. If you did that you were sent to the cells for punishment. But after that it was easy for me, because they had a gym and plenty of sport. The loyalists in Hydebank really bonded together and we didn’t take any nonsense from the republican prisoners. I’d started going out with girls and drinking from about the age of twelve. I rebelled a lot I suppose and I really hated the police. I was sent back to Hydebank for assaulting police after they tried to arrest me during a riot. Eventually I got employment in a community resource centre and I really loved that. I enjoyed contact with the people, especially the old people, and I got on well with everyone. I had really good workmates there, Protestant and Catholic. I’d nothing against ordinary Catholics, we worked well together and we played football together. I wasn’t one of those loyalists who thought if the IRA killed one of ours [a British/Protestant person], right, let’s get one of theirs [a Catholic]. I wasn’t sectarian in that sense. My quarrel was with republicans and the IRA. They were the ones who posed a threat to my people, not ordinary Catholics. I started living with my wife from about the age of 18. She had our first child around that time. She’d always wanted a child. Money was really tight in those days and she had it rough enough. ‘Sandra’ would have been a loyalist, but she wouldn’t have supported the paramilitaries. She caught on to the fact that I was ‘involved’ because there were always men calling to the door, for this or that. It became

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a source of tension between us. But I was proud to be in the UDA, I have always been proud of that. Yes, I knew there were problems [corruption] but most of the men were good men who were in the organisation for all the right reasons. During the 1980s the UDA’s military capacity was virtually redundant but at my age then I couldn’t understand it. We were the largest paramilitary organisation in Northern Ireland but we didn’t have a military capability? It was obvious to us that some of the leaders were doing very nicely out of it. The big cars, continental holidays, the lifestyle, but nobody talked about that because these were powerful men. People who spoke out were ‘seen to’ [disciplined, knee-capped, etc.]. So nobody said anything about that side of it. We’d grown up with that. All of that was just normal to us, that’s just the way things were. I was in the —— Belfast UDA. I asked my CO why we couldn’t be more active, do more ‘hits’. He told me that the brigadier had said, ‘If we have one good hit a year, I’m quite satisfied with that.’ We were fighting a war, and all he wanted was one good hit a year! To me that guy should have been removed, because all he did was get in the way of the younger men who wanted to take the war to the IRA. That sort of leadership is dangerous, not only in its own right, but because it sets the tone for the battalion. If you have a burnt out and apathetic leadership, that infects the volunteers. The men will always take their lead from the guys in charge. They are the role models if you like. I’ve been in meetings where missions were being discussed, and 25 year olds, who should have been at the peak of their [military] efficiency, were saying, ‘Oh give that to the younger ones, it’s a young man’s game.’ [There was actually an ‘age convention’ within the ranks of the UDA [and paramilitaries more generally] in that the younger men undertook the riskier missions. The reason for this was, quite simply, that if you were given a life sentence, effectively 20 years at the age of 20, you could get out of prison at the age of 40, with a reasonable portion of your life left to live [hopefully], whereas a man of 50 might well spend the rest of his entire life in prison, possibly dying behind bars. However, ‘Terry’ is quite right, 25 year olds fall well outside the application of the age convention.] They were 25 year old ‘armchair generals’ who’d never seen action, and all they wanted to do was to direct younger men into offensive operations that they themselves had no experience of. And that was on the very odd occasion when operations [against the IRA] were

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discussed at all. There was one [UFF] company in the Shankill [Road in Belfast] doing ten times as much as our entire battalion. That would have been around 1990. There was something badly wrong with all of that. But somehow those things never got discussed. I had wanted to be part of a counter-terrorist organisation that would take on republicans and the IRA, but the UDA had become more like a social club. I couldn’t make any sense of it. In spite of all of that I still had a total loyalty to the UDA, and to the other young volunteers like myself, in particular. As it turned out my two brothers went on to join the UVF. The man who asked me to join the UDA in the first instance was a well respected man in our area. I was very flattered and proud that he went out of his way to ask me to join. I was keen to volunteer for anything that was going. At first I drove from A to B transporting things, guns, ammunition. I took people I didn’t know to safe houses, and then I collected people from safe houses or other locations and brought them back to [UDA] headquarters, or just back into the area. Sometimes the men in question were ‘hot’, either on the run or having completed a mission. There was a lot of trouble during the 1980s when the loyalist prisoners were protesting for segregation. The prisoners were being beaten and abused by prison officers because of their protest. The screws were giving our men [UDA prisoners] a hard time, so we gave them a hard time. Prison officers’ houses were petrol bombed and shot at. We wanted them out of our areas because of what they were doing to our prisoners. Things hotted up around the time of the Anglo-Irish Agreement. Politically it didn’t mean anything to me, it didn’t change anything as far as I was concerned. There was really serious rioting in all loyalist areas, hot and heavy, day in, day out. It wasn’t just a paramilitary thing, everybody was on the streets. The commander at that time had everyone out [who were members of the UDA] and because the ordinary people respected him, they came out as well. Everyone had something to do, even the old people had a job. It could have been surveillance, robberies, offensive operations, or you could have been a ‘runner’ taking messages. He [the commander] made sure that everyone had their part to play and that made you feel useful. In the middle of all that there was a change in the command structure, new people took over. The military side of the [UDA] operation nearly lapsed altogether largely because the new commanders had little or no interest in that. Our battalion went out almost completely on its own, we weren’t

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taking orders from the main UDA command any more. The new CO ruled through fear. We knew that he was anti-republican and there were rumours about who he had and hadn’t killed. But it was widely accepted that he had killed quite a few [republicans/Catholics]. A lot of people in the area hated him but I found him OK. Once he helped me out and gave me money to pay a fine. If you were ever really hard up and you went to him he would ‘see you right’. But there were a lot of people who thought that he was out of control and eventually the UDA gave orders to have him shot. Shortly after that our battalion rejoined the mainstream UDA. Before long I volunteered to ‘go for the lot’ [to become a gunman for the UDA]. We would go up to the forest at the old glen. There was lots of dense tree cover. We more or less trained ourselves with .9 mil pistols, and stirling sub-machine guns, which weren’t great. There were 28 rounds in a magazine and it would only take seconds to fire them, but compared to an AK they were obsolete. The noise would have scared you more than anything else if you weren’t used to them. There was one time we were firing and an army helicopter was hovering directly over us. We just kept on firing because they couldn’t see us with the tree cover, and we knew that they couldn’t hear us, not even with the stirlings. There was this time I went to a [UDA] meeting and the CO said to me, ‘Look we’ve got a bike and a driver, we need a gunman.’ Soldiers had been killed the week before and we wanted to ‘return the serve’. It was to be a ‘drive by’ in the [republican] Ardoyne. We knew that any young guy in that area would be IRA, Sinn Fein, or at least an IRA supporter. The idea was you would do a drive by, select a target and shoot him. The CO asked me, ‘Are you up to it?’ I just said, ‘No problem.’ I was in a new unit and we were anxious to prove ourselves. It was a super bike, really beautiful, 500 cc or something. We went into the Ardoyne and cruised the area. The problem was there was a Gaelic football match on the TV that night so nobody was on the streets, they were all at home watching TV. They all watched RTE [Irish television]. The only young fella we came across was this guy standing outside his front door nursing a baby. The kid was squealing its head off. The driver slowed down approaching him but I took my hand off his shoulder and pointed my finger forward twice to drive on. That guy will probably never know that his kid saved his life. I was really frustrated, I was ‘keyed up’ to do the business, pumping with adrenalin but we couldn’t hang around the Ardoyne any more, it was becoming too obvious. On the way out of the Ardoyne we

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stopped beside a police Land-Rover at traffic lights. I was about to pump a couple of shots at the police, but then I thought that the driver might have thought it was the police shooting at us, and he’d put his hands up or something. That wouldn’t have been anything to do with the UDA, that would have been personal between me and the police. Everybody was waiting for us when we got back. They knew from our faces that the mission hadn’t been successful, so they just went back into the club. We were worried that they would think that we’d chickened out. It seemed incredible that we couldn’t find anyone in the Ardoyne, but that’s what happened. I think that’s partly why I wanted to shoot at the police, to prove that we were willing to do the business. We hid the [stolen] bike so as we could repeat the operation but the police found it. The next Sunday I went to a [UDA] meeting. The CO said, There’s a hit on tonight, are you game?’ I was still anxious to prove myself, particularly after the last time. So I looked him straight in the eyes and said, ‘Definitely, no problem.’ We were acting on good intelligence. The INLA had shot a young Protestant in a video shop on the Crumlin Road. UFF intelligence had located him. That was good enough for me. He had killed on of ‘ours’, so I’d no problem with killing him. He was living in a [religiously] mixed area in the country in an isolated house [intelligence sources withheld] and he was identified by ——. It was a wide open, fairly isolated location, near Lisburn. I was over the moon about it because this was an INLA gunman. If I’d killed someone in the Ardoyne I would have been fairly sure that he would have been connected [to the republican paramilitaries] but I couldn’t have been sure. I’d no wish to kill ordinary Catholics, so if I’d shot someone and it turned out that he was an innocent Catholic, despite the odds, I don’t know how I’d have felt about that. I suppose I could have said that I was acting under orders. Some people show remorse after they kill, especially if it was an innocent man, so I don’t know how that would have gone. I would normally show compassion, but I always wanted a target, I wanted to get one of them for everything that they had done to us. And now I had my chance, and it wasn’t random. This was in identified republican target and I just wanted him dead. The team, three of us, went to the safe house. Another team had taken over a house and held the family hostage. They took the family car and drove it to where we were at the safe house. The driver got

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out leaving the keys in the ignition for us. He had parked just a couple of houses away, and we gave him time to leave the scene. It had been agreed that neither team should see who was in the other team in case someone was forced into talking during interrogation. Another team brought the ‘gear’ [guns, ammunition, clothes and boiler suits]. They came in through the back entry and left the gear in the outside toilet. The bin was knocked onto its side to let us know that they had delivered. We changed all our clothes and quickly checked the guns. We could see that the bullets were in place so it was go, the mission was on. We drove through Belfast and out to the target’s home. There was a ‘For Sale’ sign outside which suggested that he knew we were on to him. We parked the car in a nearby lane and made our way to the house. We could see that there were security locks on the windows, so we knew that the doors would have been secured as well. Either the guy was well trained or he expected trouble. We decided to lie in wait outside for 45 minutes to allow him to come out, if he didn’t we would force entry. The difficulty with that was we knew he was probably armed, so that would mean a gun fight, and he knew the house, we didn’t. UFF intelligence should have provided us with some idea of the layout, but they didn’t, there probably hadn’t been time. After about ten minutes he came out from his front door where the car was parked. That’s where we were waiting for him. We grabbed him and pushed him up against the front wall of the house, and then stood back with our guns trained on him. We simultaneously tried to open up with the pistol and the stirling. I waited for the loud cracks from the stirling but there was just a series of clicks. I pulled back on the gun several times clearing it for fire but just the clicks. The revolver was the same, ‘Sammy’ was standing there clicking away with the gun pointed straight at the target’s head. The guy [the INLA man] had been shouting, ‘Please don’t shoot me, please don’t shoot me’, but then he caught on that our guns wouldn’t fire. He took to his heels and ran out of there, I shouted after him, ‘You’re one gifted bastard, you should be dead.’ The driver had been told to come for us when he heard the shooting. He had been waiting for so long he was actually watching what had been happening, so almost as soon as the target ran the car came flying into the gravel driveway. We just jumped into the car. The driver put his foot flat down and we screeched out into the middle of the road. He did a handbrake turn and we were on the road out of there at high speed. I knew that we were travelling down

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a country lane at very high speed but I had already begun to examine the stirling to find out why it hadn’t fired. The next thing I knew we were skidding hard on gravel. There was a great bump and we were thrown about the car like puppets, then we crashed into the tree. I was a bit stunned and I looked at the other two. ‘Sammy’ had injured his neck and he was obviously in pain. I told him, ‘Run like fuck, get the fuck out of here.’ The driver was slouched in his seat with his head on the horn. I thought that I was going to have to carry him out of there. Unfortunately he was middle aged and quite big. I grabbed his hair and pulled his head back. His body was limp, his head rolled back as if his neck was broken and I just assumed he was dead. I ran after ‘Sammy’ and it didn’t take long to catch up with him. Every time he took a step forward the pain shot through him. I took his good arm and pushed him forward. He said, ‘No it’s too sore.’ I said, ‘Look we’ve got to get the fuck out of here, do you want to spend the next 15 years in prison?’ We came across a deserted farm house. We assumed it would be occupied so I left ‘Sammy’ sitting on a ditch while I went in to take the family hostage if necessary. I knew the gun wouldn’t fire, but they weren’t to know that. I knocked on the front door hard and stood for a full minute. There was no answer. I went around the back and looked in the kitchen window, there was no sign of life. There was a pantry off the kitchen with a small window. I smashed that in completely with the butt of the stirling and climbed through. I walked through the house checking there was no one there but it was deserted. I opened the front door, taking it off the latch, and went out to help ‘Sammy’ back in. I got him in and up to the main bedroom and ran back down the stairs to board up the broken window and sweep up the glass. With the car not far away I knew the police and the army would be searching for us. Sure enough about 20 minutes later we could hear sirens in the distance heading toward us. Before long two police Land-Rovers swept into the driveway. We heard all the doors open and close and the sound of the police officers’ boots as they jumped onto the gravel. They knocked on the door three or four times, and then they began checking all the doors and windows. I had only just got the window boarded up in time, that would have been a dead giveaway. Only minutes after that an army helicopter arrived circling overhead. It must have been directly above the bedroom we were in because the noise was deafening, then it moved off. We heard more vehicles arriving, Land-Rovers or trucks, and we could hear the English accents of soldiers shouting orders. We were completely surrounded by the

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police and army, we had guns that wouldn’t fire, and we had a fucking helicopter flying about six feet above our heads. I looked over at ‘Sammy’ and shook my head as if to say ‘We’ve had it.’ ‘Sammy’ nodded in agreement. Then there was a commotion, more doors opening and closing and incredibly they started to leave. We could hear vehicle after vehicle drive off. We couldn’t believe our luck. After about half an hour I crawled over to the window and used a hand mirror to look out because I was convinced that it was a trap and they were lying waiting for us to show ourselves or break cover. Everything appeared clear. I used the mirror to look through all the upstairs windows. Then I looked out directly. There was no one there. The operation was being shadowed by a back-up UDA team who were in the area. But that was very long-arm stuff. If the mission went wrong, or we were apprehended, it was their job to report back. So we knew that by then the UDA would know what was happening. There was a telephone in the house so I rang headquarters to make sure the hostages were released, and that the men got away before they identified the house through the car registration. I was told that the team holding the family hostage had escaped just in time. They were being driven away as the police cars came flying down the street. We were still full of adrenalin. We found clothes in the house that fitted us so we burnt all the clothes that we wore during the mission. They had one of those big Aga ranges in the kitchen so everything went into that with sticks and firelighters. That was to get rid of the forensic evidence. We told the UDA boys at headquarters where we were. We used a secure number. They told us that they had two cars in the area awaiting instruction. There was just one driver in each car to avoid undue attention. But the army had the entire area cordoned off. Eventually the police and the army called off the search and we were picked up. It was a Transit painter’s van filled with cans of paint, brushes and ladders. We were given paint-splattered white coats to wear. We splattered paint onto our clothes and shoes not covered by the coats. Then we put paint on our hands, faces and hair. The driver looked at us and laughed, ‘Do you think you’d fool 14 Int. [14th Intelligence] like that? Wet paint all over you and dry paint on your coats!’ We splattered the coats as well. That had been well thought out, I would have fooled myself. The driver took us straight to the safe house. When we walked in much to my surprise our own driver was already there. He was just knocked out and when he came round he flagged a car down. ‘John’ had been covered in blood from the gash

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in his forehead. He told the wee girl in the car that he was walking down the road when a motorbike hit him. She obviously took pity on him and went right out of her way to drive him into Belfast. She dropped him off at the top of the street where the safe house was. Shortly after that the CO came into the house and debriefed us. By that time we had examined the guns. They had been seriously doctored. All the bullets had several ‘strike marks’ and the barrels were jammed. Those guns had been fixed so as they’d never fire. As it turned out the police had been lying in wait for us further down the road. That was in the middle of quiet country but a UDA man monitoring the operation had seen a joint army/police barricade further down the road we would have had to drive down. They were heavily armed with weapons drawn, obviously waiting for someone, and believe me in that part of the country we [the UDA active service unit] were the only thing that was happening. Then the UDA man noticed an army helicopter sitting in lowland two fields away. It was obvious that whoever they wanted, and that would have been us, had no mission of escaping from that lot. An SAS patrol couldn’t have got past them. The police had obviously known in advance about the operation and they had set the trap. The fact that they hadn’t apprehended us on the way to the hit meant that they had wanted us to kill the INLA man before they arrested us. It seemed that one branch of the security forces had wanted him dead, but another didn’t, and they made sure the guns were doctored. Alternatively the guns may have been doctored before they knew who they were to be used on. There was something very scary about the whole thing. We were being used like pawns in some game. It was a set-up from the start, they knew all about every move that we made. A short time after that the brigadier sent for me. I thought that there was going to be a full-scale UDA investigation over everything that had gone wrong – why had not just one gun, but both guns not fired? Had they been doctored by UDA men, UDA men who were agents for the security forces, or the security forces themselves? How had the police and the army known about the ‘op’ [operation]? Did they want the INLA man killed as well? All those things were racing through my mind but I was well ahead of myself. The brigadier’s mind was on other things. I had undertaken that mission because I was a loyalist and a UDA man. I had risked getting shot, killed in a car accident, interrogation and life imprisonment. I had burned all my clothes, and they were my good clothes as I wanted to look respectable, not to draw

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attention to myself. Shoes, socks, underwear, trousers, shirt, jacket, about £150 worth. I met the brigadier in a local bar. He was surrounded by the usual ‘heavies’. Then he said, ‘I suppose you’ll be looking to get paid for what you did?’ In all honesty payment had never entered my head. You simply wouldn’t have done that for money. I was so taken aback I didn’t say anything for a minute. He glared at me angrily. They he pulled a £20 note out of his shirt pocket and placed it on the table between us. ‘There’s twenty quid,’ he said, then he reached over and took the money back. He put the money back in his shirt pocket and said, ‘I’ll just hang on to that in the meantime.’ ‘That will cover your “dues”’ [UDA membership payments]. He got up and left and I just sat there, probably with my mouth open. I couldn’t believe any of that. A short time after that I was arrested and taken to Castlereagh [interrogation centre]. My father rang the brigadier to let him know. I was a UDA man under his command so my father thought that that was the right thing to do. He said, ‘I thought you’d want to know that “Terry” was arrested this morning.’ The brigadier didn’t let him finish the sentence. He shouted down the phone, ‘I don’t care what the fuck he’s done this time, we’re not paying him’ [UDA prisoners’ benefits]. Money was the last thing on my Da’s mind. He thought that the brigadier might just have been concerned that one of his men had been arrested. But all the brigadier was worried about was that he might have to pay me out of the funds which he collected, which were specifically intended to meet the costs of prisoners’ welfare. I just hope that fucking bastard reads this. Maybe then he’ll realise just what a cunt he was. About a year after that I was taken to Castlereagh barracks. They didn’t know where I was living, because I was sharing a house with my girlfriend in the university area. They went to my mother’s house, and to my brothers and my grandparents, but nobody told them where I was. I went to the CO and told him that the police wanted to interview me. He told me to turn myself in because it was only a matter of time before they got me and that would ‘go down better’. I was interviewed by two RUC officers in Castlereagh, they were casually dressed in jeans and sweaters. This one policeman stared at me, he said, ‘You don’t fit.’ I said, ‘Thanks very much.’ He said, ‘No that worries me.’ They had obviously some image in their heads about what a UDA man looked like and apparently I didn’t match it. But as far as I was concerned I was exactly the same as the other UDA men that I knew. They wanted me to turn informer and offered me £500.

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They told me about a dog that had come in at 100–1 that day and that they could provide me with a bookie’s docket that I could show my friends to account for how I got the money. When they realised that I wasn’t playing ball, they said, ‘Thank fuck, you’re saving us money. We’ve got all the touts [informers] we need in the UDA, you boys can’t make a move that we don’t know about. We just let you off the lead every now and again but as you know we make sure you don’t do any harm.’ I didn’t change my expression but I just thought, ‘Jesus Christ who’s running us, the UDA or the RUC?’ The one thing that really threw me was when they told me this. About a year before I was involved in an incident. RUC Land-Rovers had moved into our area and went into a derelict house apparently to search it. There were uniformed officers, and two guys in boiler suits. They all went into the house and came back about an hour later, minus the guys in the boiler suits. We reckoned it was an RUC surveillance and monitoring operation of our area. Later that night I went out with a stirling and fired a couple of bursts at the house. That was just to let them know that we [the UFF] knew where they were. That was in —— Street. It was pitch black, I was on a solo mission, no one knew I was there. The two RUC men said, ‘“Terry”, do you remember that night in —— Street about a year ago? You came that close to having your head blown clean off.’ Now that fucking freaked me out. Nobody knew about that. I hadn’t been charged with that, and yet the police knew all about it. Those guys could tell you the last time you shit. It was like a big rigged game, and they [the security forces] were running it. That totally freaked me out. And that was before they told me about some of the other things I’d been involved in. It was obvious that the RUC knew more about the UDA than the UDA did. You wouldn’t have trusted your own dog after that. I still stayed with the organisation after that but I didn’t volunteer to become active again, not after that. You could say that I became a bit paranoid, but who wouldn’t have been after that. I couldn’t believe the extent of the infiltration, none of us could. That was the problem, we couldn’t believe it because we didn’t want to believe that our own people were setting us up. I became more involved in prisoners’ welfare, and that was very disillusioning as well. It would have been around the late 1980s. The UDA had always promised the men ‘If you get caught and go to prison we’ll take care of you and your family.’ But the men and their families were getting to feel worthless, that they were just a liability to the organisation. The men

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would ask for a pair of trainers or for some money for their families at Christmas, but it just wasn’t there, nobody gave a shit. Just as long as the leadership got their money, nothing else mattered. If the prisoners got anything at all it was pathetic. And these were men who were willing to ‘do the business’ for the UDA and the loyalist people. One young prisoner was terminally ill. His mother was looking after her terminally ill husband, and another son who was also terminally ill, at home, and they got fuck all. I went to my brigadier about that and I said, ‘Look, either that young fella and his family get some help today, or I’ll call to see you tomorrow, and I’ll kick your fucking head in.’ Now I had risked getting myself shot by doing that, but I felt I’d no choice. Despite all the protests from the grassroots volunteers the brigadier refused to pay the prisoners or help their families. Eventually it was west Belfast [UDA] who picked up the bill and paid the prisoners and their families, even though they weren’t from west Belfast. There would be [UDA] meetings around that time and the young guys would be talking about [military] operations. Everybody would be half asleep and then someone mentioned money, and suddenly ears pricked up and they [the leadership] would have been all for that. They didn’t care about military operations, it was all self-gain. It would have been around 1990 that the new leadership emerged in west Belfast. That didn’t begin to affect north Belfast [UDA] until about 1996. All the self-gain and criminality within the old leaderships started to get removed. Suddenly the money that had been due to the west Belfast prisoners and their families was paid. Then west Belfast [UDA] started to pay for other prisoners who weren’t being looked after [by other UDA regional commands]. But the fact that the prisoners hadn’t been looked after for so long meant that we lost a lot of our best men. When they got out they had no loyalty to the organisation. The UDA had deserted them, so they deserted the UDA. But now it was like suddenly prisoners were number one, the top priority. The prisoners’ [and families’] weekly allowance was doubled. If one prisoner got new clothes all [UDA] prisoners got new clothes. All of that made a tremendous difference to the prisoners. They felt wanted, and they felt a part of the organisation again. The morale lifted completely. If the prisoners had asked for money or clothes before that they were made to feel like charity cases. But now they felt respected and valued because of what they had done for the UDA. That’s why the UDP [the UDA’s political wing] did so badly

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during the elections. So many of the men and their families felt deserted by the UDA, because the UDA had abandoned them in their hour of need [during imprisonment]. The UVF had looked after their prisoners properly and that’s why the PUP [the UVF’s political wing] got the electoral support that took them into the Assembly. The men had willingly given the UDA their loyalty, and volunteered to give their all, but when they got caught the UDA walked away. All of that changed under the new leadership [in the late 1980s], and that change started in west Belfast. ‘JACKIE’ ‘Jackie’ (now in his 40s) is a small but physically fit man, who is very quick in everything he does. A cup of tea would be produced from nowhere, or a lit cigarette lighter would be offered as I fumbled for the packet. I grew to like Jackie in a short space of time and it was reciprocal. He clearly felt that he had me ‘sussed’, assuring me that he knew ‘where I was coming from’ on several occasions. If there was anything I needed in the UDA H Block, ‘Jackie’ made sure I got it. I really can’t remember any problems growing up at home. There were five of us, Mum, Dad, and I had an older brother and sister and there was me. I would have looked up to my big brother, we were always pretty close. Those were good happy times. I had a strong sense of belonging to my family and they looked after me, we all cared about each other. I went to a primary school in the Shankill area and I suppose my main memory would be playing football. Me and my mates, we never stopped playing football. We couldn’t wait to get out of class to get at the ball. I made good friends in primary school, we were all local. Some of them are good friends even to this day. The teachers in those days would have taken an interest in you, they tried to get you involved in things. I got to be good at painting and drawing and I was a fairly good reader. I transferred to the Cairnmartin [secondary school] when I was about eleven. At first I just lost interest. All these hundreds of boys walking about the place. I just felt lost. I ‘mitched’ [truanted] for most of the first year so I suppose I blew it. I attended during the second and third year, but during the last two years [fourth and fifth form] I just didn’t bother. The teachers just let you go your own way, if you didn’t want to attend or work for exams that was fine by them. I knew that I had a good brain but I just didn’t use it. I regret that now

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of course. A lot of my friends would have been the same. They were fairly bright guys but they ended up working in shops or factories because they had no qualifications. You never do get a second chance, do you? I left school at 16 and got a job, apprentice bricklaying and I enjoyed that, working out of doors. I held that job for five years right up to the time of my conviction. I was arrested in 1994 and charged on two counts of attempted murder. I can remember [1981] standing with my friends near waste ground off North Howard Street. That’s where the army dumped burning or burnt out cars and buses which had been set alight by Catholic rioters. I can remember that that was exciting but I didn’t really understand. I just thought that those Catholics are really fucking mad about something. Later on I can remember rioting between the people on the [Protestant] Shankill and the [Catholic] Falls Roads. I would have been about ten or eleven. I was standing behind big lads who were throwing stones. I can remember trying to make sense of it all. I knew that there was something wrong on ‘the other side’ but I hadn’t a clue what is was. But I knew not to get caught ‘over there’ [on the Catholic side], because if they caught you, you weren’t walking home! Although it hadn’t affected me directly I’d always been aware of the troubles, that was ‘my inheritance’, my ‘normality’. The army in the town [Belfast], barricades closing off the centre, the searches going in and out, and the bombs. The town had a worrying atmosphere. The IRA wanted to bomb us [Protestants] out of Northern Ireland. They were bombing and killing all over the place, and the authorities let them get away with it. There was a lot of anger in my [loyalist] community. Nobody was safe and nobody could live in peace with those bastards [the IRA] destroying the country, and they were getting away with it. I can remember a lot of really terrible atrocities and I couldn’t understand the mentality of people who could do that. After all it was their country too. From an early age I wanted to do something, I wanted to fight back. Me and a few friends decided to form a ‘wee click’ [a group] of junior UDA. We were very young, only 14 or 15 so they let us join. Looking back at it now I think they only let us join so as they [older UDA men] could keep an eye on us. We were involved in some rioting but we were kept under tight control. The UDA didn’t have a good reputation in those days. We were seen as idiots or ‘stick men’ [because the UDA walked down the

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Shankill carrying sticks in the early 1970s]. We just weren’t held in high regard, and we had very little influence in the area. The UVF at that time was better armed and organised. It was a territorial thing I suppose, if you lived in one area you joined the UVF, and then the next street up would have been UDA. Most of my friends were UDA men, and I didn’t know anybody in the UVF, so I joined the UDA. —— would have been in control of the UDA west Belfast in those days [late 1970s, early 1980s], ‘Jimmy’ was second in command. He was a classic hard man, a criminal. He ruled the organisation by physical force and everybody was scared of him. He had a nice house and all the clothes and the jewellery. The UDA held collections all over Northern Ireland, both to buy guns and to look after the prisoners. ‘Jimmy’ didn’t give a fuck about the prisoners or the guns, his only concern was with his bank balance. There was a big meeting one time, and UDA commanders came to Belfast from Derry, Portadown, Newry, all over the place. Local UDA men put them up [gave them overnight accommodation]. ‘Jimmy’ appointed a Belfast commander to attend the meeting, and he made a big deal about giving him a fiver. He said, ‘Take those boys out for a drink tonight and make sure they have a good time.’ That was £5 to entertain about 50 senior UDA men. ‘Jimmy’ was a fucking joke. Because of the corruption the UDA really didn’t have any guns at that stage [early 1980s], just some rifles, shotguns and handguns. I remember one night I was up in my room, I would have been about 15, and a friend whistled up to me. He was wearing a long coat and the next thing I knew he produced what looked like a very powerful rifle. I ran down the stairs and we went into my hut at the back of the house. I used that hut as my den. My Da had fixed it up for me. I had my own TV out there, table, chairs and home brew. ‘Alec’ and I went into the hut and he showed me the gun. It was an AK47, absolutely beautiful, in mint condition. I was only UDA so I’d never seen one of those. ‘Alec’s’ brother was in the UVF and he had the gun in the house and ‘Alec’ had smuggled it out. I ran out and got some of my other UDA mates and we all gathered around the table with the AK. We dismantled it and reassembled it so as we’d know how to use it if we ever got the chance to use it. The next thing I knew was ‘Alec’s’ brother shouted from the back entry, ‘Have you seen “Alec”?’ I shouted back, ‘No, I haven’t seen him in days.’ We waited until he was well away and ‘Alec’ bolted [ran] back to his house with the gun under his coat. I heard that his [‘Alec’s’] brother

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gave him a slap for that but that’s as far as it went. The UVF knew nothing about it. ‘Jimmy’ was the sort of guy that, if you knew he was walking down the street you’d go in the opposite direction, he was an evil fucker, none of us young ones liked him one iota. At that time the UDA was virtually inactive on the military front. There was corruption and there were informers all over the place. The informers would have been paid by the police or the army. As soon as someone was given a gun, they’d be arrested. A car could drive out on a mission, and before they’d even got out of the Shankill the police and army were all over them. There was no shortage of dead keen, good, purely politically motivated loyalist volunteers, dying to take on the republicans, but they were held back and betrayed by their own leadership. By that stage I’d had enough and I just left the UDA. But as it turns out ‘Jimmy’ got what was coming to him [he was shot dead by the UDA]. The Stevens Enquiry was probably the biggest revelation of all. Stevens was an investigation into alleged collusion between the security forces and the loyalist paramilitaries. There was collusion alright, the supreme commander of the UFF [the military wing of the UDA] was working for British Army intelligence. British intelligence had effectively been in control of the UFF all that time. So it was no wonder the UDA weren’t going anywhere [conducting a military campaign], in that presumably anything we did was sanctioned by the bloody British Army. We should have had a regimental status. In the event that was the best thing that ever happened to the UDA. There was a top to bottom root and branch reorganisation. All the criminal elements, and men who were not 100 per cent were removed, and a new leadership was formed. These were guys who had a political and military vision. It wasn’t about Prods and Taigs [Catholics] this time. These guys [the UDA/UFF leadership] were out to get known republicans and IRA men. The mission statement was ‘Take the war to the enemy’, and the enemy was the IRA/Sinn Fein. The first time I was in the UDA I was involved in one mission. This was before the new leadership took over, and this will give you an idea of what we were up against. I was walking up the street when these guys came over, they were senior UDA. They told me they wanted me to rejoin to undertake a specific mission. By this stage the UDA were a laughing stock, all they were doing was knee-capping their own [Protestants], so I was

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reluctant to become reinvolved. I had my job and I was earning good money and things generally were going well. Also my family were respectable people with no paramilitary links. The last thing they would have wanted was a son or brother in the UDA. That hadn’t concerned me when I was 14 or 15 but it did now that I was older. I said to the most senior UDA officer, ‘What’s wrong, is “Jimmy” running short of cash?’ I’d half expected a thump on the head, but he just looked kind of embarrassed. He said, ‘Look there is a war going on. We’re UDA but we’re purely political, we want to kill republicans and we want your help.’ He told me that they had good intelligence about an INLA man [republican terrorist] living in a predominantly Protestant part of Belfast. The INLA man was living with a Protestant girl who was unaware of his paramilitary connections. The UDA men said that they had actually read hard evidence given to them by the UVF that this guy was an active member of the INLA, and that he was using the girl as cover to live in that area and gather intelligence. There was one very obvious question I never thought to ask at that time. If the UVF had the hard evidence, why didn’t they act upon it? At that time the UVF was much better armed and trained than the UDA. Alarm bells should have been ringing by that stage, but I suppose the prospect of actually getting an INLA man was all I could think about. This was a real mission, a chance to actually get one of these bastards. He said that the INLA man was a ‘Jack the Lad’, who fancied himself, and took virtually no security precautions. The UVF had apparently been watching him for weeks. At that time I’d really had it with the UDA, and the corrupt leadership who sat around and took money from kids. But this was different, this was the real thing, this was an opportunity to do what I’d joined the organisation to do in the first instance. But typically I hadn’t been trained in guns, and I told them that. As it turned out they wanted me as the driver so I agreed. I walked out of that bar with my heart thumping in my mouth, this was it, and there was no going back. The organisation [UDA] located a safe house close to where the INLA man lived, just two streets away. We were going to ‘hit him’ at tea time because we knew that he was always in the house then. We had watched him and we knew that he didn’t take any security precautions, he never looked around to see if he was being watched or followed, and he never even checked under his car for possible bombs. The night of the hit we had someone watching the house from a car, and he was to flash his lights, once for ‘He’s in’, or three

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times for ‘He’s not there, the hit’s off.’ We had undertaken practice runs to the house, but with other people. The night of the hit there was to be three of us meeting at the safe house. There was me, the driver, the gunman and a back-up gunman. The organisation [the UDA] obviously wanted this guy dead. The guns were to be there for collection. I was the first to arrive at the house at 5.00 p.m. exactly, the next man arrived at 5.05 p.m. and the next at 5.10 p.m. We’d never met before. The senior guy was older and he was an experienced operator, but the other guy like me hadn’t been ‘blooded’ [involved in a killing]. We were dying to go and do the business [kill the INLA man] but the older guy sensed something wrong. There was a corner shop at the end of the street, a silver Ford Granada was parked outside with these two big guys in the front seat. ‘Sam’ [the older man] said, ‘Wait, I want to check this out.’ I just wanted to go, and I thought he was paranoid. I said, ‘For fuck’s sake they probably just went in to get a paper or cigarettes.’ ‘Sam’ just said, ‘Look I’m in charge here, if you end up dead, or serving life [for attempted murder], it’s down to me, so you do what the fuck I tell you.’ The men in the Ford had visual sight of the front of the house. I’d parked the car just on down the street so if we moved they’d see us. I still thought that it was a coincidence, that they were just two ordinary guys. Time passed as if it was suspended, I just wanted the car to drive off so as we could get the job done. ‘Jackie’ the other young man was the same. After an hour the two men in the white Granada were still there but I wanted to carry on with the mission anyway. ‘Jackie’ and I just wanted to go for it. The next thing ‘Sam’ says, ‘Abort the mission, we’re out of here. Leave the guns, the car everything. You two get out the back now, I’ll follow you out, just lose yourselves.’ Knowing what I know now, I realise that ‘Sam’ could have saved my life, or that at least he saved me from serving life imprisonment at that time. That was obviously a set-up, those guys in the Granada were Special Branch, army or army intelligence. They would have had three units [cars] involved and they would have taken us out going in for the hit or after we’d killed him [the INLA man]. It just depended on whether they had wanted him dead or not. I just can’t believe how naive I was; why did the UVF give us, with our reputation, the intelligence? The UDA and the UVF were deadly rivals at the time. Did they know it was a set-up, and did they set us up? Or could it have been someone in our own organisation. It could have gone right to the top, but we didn’t realise that until after the

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Stevens Enquiry. When I started to put two and two together it scared the fuck out of me. What the hell’s going on here? It was probably only sheer luck that there was an experienced man on that mission, and it was his experience that saved us. That was it, that was me out of the UDA. What chance did you have [as the UDA volunteer]? The organisation was corrupt at one level with the criminal activity, but even if you got as far as taking a mission [to kill republican terrorists] you were stitched up by informers or police and army agents. The only loyalist organisation operating half effectively at that time [early 1980s] was the UVF. At that time the UDA had lost its way completely. There were highly motivated political volunteers, no shortage of them, but they were betrayed by a criminal and corrupt leadership. I was sickened by the whole thing. In 1990 there was a big recruitment drive within the UDA. They started to recruit young people, 16–18 year olds. But they also wanted older people who had disassociated themselves back in. Some of these people were forced back in reluctantly, because they were good men who didn’t want to know about the corruption or criminality. At first we thought that the UDA was ‘going military’ again and they were marshalling the troops, but it was the same old leadership. All they wanted to do was make the men attend weekly meetings so as they could collect [membership] dues from them. That was money that should have been used to buy guns, and to look after prisoners and their families, but the leaders used it for personal gain. A big meeting [of UDA members] was convened in west Belfast around late 1990, if I’m right. The generals were busy dividing up the funds, deciding who got what. But there was something going on, there was a lot of whispering in the teams among the younger men. Then two hooded men came into the room, with .9 mil automatics. They went over to the generals and told them to sit down. They motioned for chairs to be placed in a line. Some of the younger men positioned the chairs and the hooded guys moved in closer to the generals pointing the guns close to their heads until they had sat down. At first the generals had appeared bemused, as if they thought it was a joke, but by now they knew it was serious. One of the generals was still trying to assert his authority and said, ‘Now look here I’m the UDA commander of ——.’ One of the hooded gunmen went up to him, pointed the gun at his face and then discharged three shots in quick succession straight over his head. Then the gunman said, ‘Your presence is no longer welcome. If you don’t leave

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voluntarily, you won’t leave the building.’ More shots were fired over their heads. By this stage all they wanted to do was to leave that meeting alive. They agreed to stand down, they knew it was over for them. The so called ‘generals’ had been nothing more than corrupt and self-seeking criminals. They had all but destroyed the military capability of the UDA, and they had betrayed hundreds of young politically motivated volunteers who had genuinely joined the organisation [the UDA] to fight republicans and the IRA. I wondered how many of our men were in prison, informed on or stitched up by those bastards. Those guys [the generals] would have sold their own grannies for a price. Casings had fallen to the floor during the shooting, so we picked them all up and gave them to this guy to dispose of. If someone had heard the shooting and telephoned the police there could have been a raid, and the casings could have been used to identify the gun, and to provide evidence. Another guy took the guns away to a safe house. That was all pre-arranged, within minutes of the shooting the building was clean. The guys who did the shooting called us to order. They said that they were making way for a new, young leadership, with political and military vision. There was going to be a new military strategy. Then one of the guys who was still hooded came right up close to the assembled crowd and said, ‘We’ve got a new mission statement.’ The room fell quiet. ‘From now on this is going to determine everything we do.’ ‘Take the war to the IRA.’ The place erupted, men cheered and clapped and then everybody stamped on the floor, it was deafening. It was what everybody had been waiting for, a new military command who would take over. It felt good to be a part of that but I was still dubious about getting directly involved. I was still spooked because of what had happened before. Within the next few months the organisation was transformed. There were weekly meetings in social clubs and discos. We were all informed about work that was going on [UDA military activity]. All the money that was collected in dues and by the [UDA] clubs was being spent on operations, guns and prisoners. We knew what was happening because we saw the guns coming in, and we knew that money was going to prisoners and their families. The police still had good intelligence, they knew that we were getting the stuff [guns] so they raided the clubs more often, but they could never find anything. Planning and organisation went into everything right down to the last detail. After all those years in

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the wilderness the UDA was becoming a professional military operation. Operations were expensive, a hit [killing] could cost £3,000 to £4,000 to set up. You had to buy a car, guns and clothes. Some of the men were unemployed so they couldn’t afford to buy clothes every time. After a mission everything was destroyed, car, clothes, anything that could leave a trace of evidence. The leadership told us, ‘You sacrifice for us, we appreciate your sacrifice, and in return we’ll give you all the support that we can.’ The old leadership only wanted money, the new leadership wanted dedication. The whole feeling of the organisation changed by the week and you felt a part of something that was important. Being a UDA man wasn’t something you were ashamed of any more. Now it had meaning. Anyone directly involved had respect for each other. Even attitudes in the community changed towards us. We [the UDA/UFF] started to attract high-calibre volunteers again, purely politically motivated people who wanted to have a military involvement. UFF missions were being carried out almost on a weekly basis. There were highlevel operations going on that they [the leadership] couldn’t tell us [the volunteers] about, but we knew it was going on anyway. It was about a year and a half later that I got reinvolved. The AGMs started to get convened monthly because there was so much going on. I remember being at one of them when AK47s, SA80s and Armalites were produced. They [the leadership] said, ‘Pass them around, feel them, let everybody have a go – that’s where your money’s going.’ All of that made you feel more a part of it [the UFF]. What you did was valued, you were given respect, and you, everyone was included. Someone was holding an AK and he snapped a magazine into it. He’d obviously used one before. Someone shouted, ‘Let it rip’, then someone else shouted, ‘No, keep it for the Provos.’ Everyone cheered. The word got around about all of that and we were attracting more good young men. The sort of people [loyalists] who would have gone to the UVF before started coming to us. The whole ethos of the organisation had changed beyond recognition. A whole new infrastructure was being set up. At that time my involvement wasn’t mainstream. I would have transported things [guns, clothes, money] to safe houses, and given people lifts here and there. I progressed to carrying guns about the city [Belfast], handguns, stirling sub-machine guns and pistols, but not AKs. The AKs were still very valuable then and they would have been transported by older experienced volunteers for specific missions. We had guns ‘bedded in’ [kept safe] all over the place at

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strategic locations. They were ‘left sleeping’ until needed. You were never too far away from guns. Discipline became very important. Volunteers weren’t allowed to draw any attention to themselves. You weren’t allowed to become involved in fights, bar fights, domestics [domestic violence], or anything criminal that would involve the police. At the extreme you would be ‘stood down’ [ordered on leave]. But you would always have been told that it wasn’t personal, it was business and in the wider interest of the men [other volunteers] and the organisation. Sometimes those guys [the men disciplined] were your mates so you didn’t enjoy doing that. But if they kept their heads down for a period of time and proved themselves they were allowed back in. Around 1992 there was a recruitment drive within the UFF. They needed more men to go military. Individual teams met and those people who were willing to become further involved were asked to stay behind. If you stayed behind you were asked which category you wished to be considered for. There was ‘going for the lot’ [gunman], driver, intelligence, providing safe houses for guns or men on the run, a transporter [guns/bombs], etc. I volunteered to be a driver, category A. That meant I would transport gunmen on missions. In the light of my past experience I had two reservations: a) that I would only work through identified [UFF] members, who I trusted, and b) that I would go about my normal business and not openly associate with them [UDA/UFF men]. I was what was referred to as a ‘sleeper’, they knew I was ‘up for it’ [i.e. military action]. Everybody shook hands with me and I left. Within a short time after that I was called in for a briefing. The identified UFF members met with me personally and briefed me about the mission. I felt comfortable with it all. The target was to be a known republican/IRA man who got a lift to work with a friend in the middle of republican west Belfast. He had been spotted standing in the same place at the same time, waiting for his lift, by UFF intelligence people. He left himself wide open, standing at the same time at the same place every morning. We couldn’t believe our luck. It was arranged for the next morning. I was to pick up a car and drive it to a safe house where I would meet the gunman. I didn’t know who he was but I was assured that he was ‘good’. I was to do all of this and just go on to work for 8.00 a.m. as usual. I was to meet the gunman at the safe house at 7.00 a.m. and drive him to the target’s location for a hit at 7.30 a.m., dump the car and catch a bus

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to work. Everything was to look perfectly normal. I was there for 7.00 a.m., but by 7.30 a.m. the gunman hadn’t appeared so I aborted the mission and reported back [to the UFF] by phone and went on to work. The UFF called in the gunman. A member of his family had taken ill and was hospitalised through the night, so that was genuine enough. The mission was now to go ahead the next morning. The [UFF] leadership wanted this guy [the republican target] dead. It was the same arrangement, I would drive to the safe house at seven, pick up the gunman and go. When I got to the house two senior UFF men were there to supervise the operation. But once again the gunman failed to turn up. It may or may not have been the same man, I don’t know. The route had been already ‘scouted’ and it was clear, there was nothing to suggest a security force presence, and the target was moving into position, we knew all of that from UFF intelligence who were monitoring the operation. The UFF men ‘A’ and ‘B’ decided to undertake the ‘op’ themselves. The car had been bought, it was sitting clean, we had the intelligence and everything was in place, and this was a prime target. It was decided the mission was on. ‘A’ and ‘B’ started arguing about who would do it, ‘I’ll do it’, ‘No I’ll do it’, ‘You’re too valuable to the organisation’, ‘No, I’ve got more experience.’ I’d never seen anything like this before. Usually the senior man told the lower rank what to do and that was that. They started using strong language and finally ‘A’ said, ‘Look I’ll do this, you do the next.’ That’s what they agreed to. It was that argument that convinced me that I was with the right people. As it turned out though, ——, the first choice of gunman, turned up so we proceeded with the mission. That guy [the republican target] was the luckiest man in Belfast. We drove out fast to where he was standing and parked just a short distance from him. —— [the gunman] who was already hooded got out his revolver. He got out of the car and walked up to the target. The Provo must have thought that it was his own side [the IRA] playing a trick on him. He was actually standing there smiling. It probably never occurred to him that the loyalists [UDA/UFF] had the intelligence or the capacity to mount this type of operation in the middle of republican turf [territory]. —— pointed the gun directly at the target’s forehead. There was a deep thud, but no shot. The target had just frozen, the colour drained from his face. There was a whole series of deep thuds but no shots were fired. He raised the gun high over his head. At first I thought he was going to use it to batter the target to death, but then he just

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lowered it and pushed it into his trouser belt. He turned and walked back to the car. By this time a passing black taxi had become suspicious and tried to block the path of our car. —— leaned out of the window and pointed the gun directly at the taxi driver’s head. He just sped off like hell. We all went back to the safe house, changed and burnt the clothes we had been wearing. We checked the gun. Someone had stored it somewhere damp, or it had got wet somehow. The rounds were stuck in the chamber. Each cartridge had been struck twice. OK we failed to kill the target on that occasion, but as the leader said, ‘That scared the shit clean out of him. I wanted him to take that back to his brigade. He has the scent of death on him, and that’s what we want those bastards to smell. They’ll look at each other and wonder, who’s next? The operation was fully consistent with our mission statement, therefore the operation was successful.’ That was the trick, even when you failed it was a success, you were made to feel that you couldn’t go wrong. And we couldn’t go wrong. That was just the start of it. This one night I got a call. It was from the UFF, ‘There’s a mission on tonight, can you come in?’ I knew the people concerned and I didn’t want to let them down so I said ‘Yes.’ Actually it didn’t suit me at all so I asked, ‘How long will it take?’ The contact said, ‘One hour max.’ I was taking my wife to a christening party that night so if it was just going to be an hour that meant I could take her to the venue, and then go back to her after ‘the business’. They called to my house very quickly after that. I said, ‘Listen, give me five minutes to leave my wife off at a party and I’ll be back and ready to go.’ There was a lot of consternation about that in that it broke with procedures. The mission is considered as having commenced the minute the team meet. I said, ‘Come on lads, three minutes, I’m taking her to a christening party a couple of streets away.’ They reluctantly agreed. I went into the wife and told her that I’d drop her off and then join her in about an hour. She was well put out. ‘Why do you always have to ruin everything? What’s the excuse this time?’ I told her that an old friend from school was in a bit of trouble and that he’d asked to see me. I said, ‘Look if I was in trouble he’d do it for me.’ She stamped out of the kitchen past the front room where the two UFF guys were. I saw them laughing, they were married as well. I tried to pacify her driving her round to the party but she wasn’t having any of it. I was in for a couple of days of the silent treatment. The car we were using had been lifted [stolen] from an old pensioner we knew. He kept the car at the back of his house and he

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hardly ever used it. He hardly ever ventured out at all. We [the UFF] had used that car on two previous occasions. Even if the police traced the car they couldn’t get him for anything. He was well past anything like that. The car was an old banger with scratches and dents. It was perfect for the area we were going into [republican west Belfast]. Even if we had to leave it parked somewhere no self-respecting joy-rider would touch it. It was to be a grenade attack on the home of a very prominent republican. He lived in Norfolk Drive which was a cul de sac facing Andersonstown police station. It was a very big police station anyway. There would have been remote control TV and constant surveillance from the station because they came under [republican/IRA] attack so often. This guy [the prominent republican] was all ‘Ban the RUC’ but he made bloody sure that he lived close to a police station for his own protection. That complicated things for us: number one it was a police station, number two it was a ‘hot’ station. The police would have been in a constant state of high alert and police cars could have been scrambled within minutes, even less. We were using South African grenades. They were very reliable and much better than the Russian grenades we’d used previously. You could select the timing of grenades to suit the job: 3, 5, 7, 9 or 11 seconds. We chose 7 seconds. We went in to ‘scout’ the area. It was late on in a summer evening but there was no one about. We parked the car around the corner from the target’s house. There was a large hedge blocking off both exits of the drive. We drove in and parked around the corner from the house to be attacked. ‘A’ got out of the car, without the grenade, to make sure everything was clear before he went in to attack. He came back and got into the car. He reached for the grenade in the glove compartment and I said, ‘The mission’s off.’ ‘A’ said, ‘Look I’ve just checked it, it’s clear, I’m going in.’ I turned the driver’s mirror towards him to let him see the house directly behind us. ‘You see that house directly facing this road?’ ‘A’ twisted the mirror round. ‘Landing window. Do you see a woman’s silhouette?’ ‘Well, that house has got the best strategic vantage point for ——’s [the target’s] house. I’ll bet you a pound to a penny that she’s one of these vigilante bastards who would let it be known that there was suspicious activity in the area.’ ‘A’ looked again, ‘You’re right definitely, she’s right up at the window looking directly at us. Let’s get the fuck out of here.’ I drove very slowly from where we were parked, just nice and easy, nice and relaxed so as not to draw attention to ourselves. When we got back to headquarters the air was

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heavy with disappointment. Nobody said anything because they understood, it just hadn’t worked out. They had all been outside waiting to hear the explosion, but when nothing happened they knew that the mission hadn’t ‘gone down’. There was disappointment because we had good intelligence and he was a prime target. We wanted to go for the brigade staff of the IRA, and their families, just as they had gone for our leadership and their families. It was the strategy of ‘taking the war to them’ [the IRA]. The next night we went in again only this time we parked facing the [suspected] IRA woman’s house, and I was carrying an AK47 on my knees. If she had appeared at any stage of the mission she would have been taken out, no problem. Same again, ‘A’ got out of the car and walked past the target’s house. It was all clear, just some old fella out clipping away at his hedge. ‘A’ came back, took the grenade and went down and threw it at the target’s house. As he came running around the corner there was this huge explosion. This guy came lurching around the corner with a half full pint of Harp in his hand. He was stumbling toward us gathering speed when he fell on to our bonnet. I looked down to see where he had come from, I could see a gap in the hedge. There must have been a bar or a club behind it, so it made sense. Now that was all actually very important. It fitted and it made sense. An alternative scenario may have been that this was an IRA man acting drunk who had got us to stop in an area where we were completely vulnerable to gun attack or capture. We weren’t carrying enough arms that we could have fought our way out, not with just one grenade and an AK. Every time I think of the two young soldiers who were mobbed and killed by the IRA at Milltown cemetery I think back to that incident. We were unarmed and on active service in republican west Belfast, bandit country, and it was bloody dangerous. In a split second I had to decide whether that guy was genuinely drunk, or whether he was IRA. As far as I was concerned there was an IRA gunwoman behind us anyway. The pint glass had the sort of handle you only get in bars, and the hole in the hedge, those two things assured me that it was normal. When that guy had first staggered around the corner, my initial instinct said ‘trap’. I came that close to just putting my foot down and driving the car over him, because had that been an IRA trap we’d have been dead. The other thing at the back of my mind was that we [UFF] had used that ploy before too. Someone would play the drunk during a mission to avoid undue attention. In Belfast everybody just dismisses a drunk, you

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actually lower your defences and laugh. So when I first saw that guy I didn’t think, ‘drunk’, I thought, ‘IRA’. —— [the target] wrote in his autobiography that the loyalists had attacked him that night using a Vauxhall Cavalier. That was factually incorrect. We had used a small four-door car, dark in colour. The next day —— was on the news. He was rattled, you could see it in his face and you could hear it in his voice. He said that a ‘loyalist death squad’ had mounted a ‘sectarian attack’ on his home. How many sectarian murders had been sanctioned by him? How many people, men, women and children, had been killed by IRA bombs on his orders? The bottom line was we were giving them some of their own medicine. We didn’t expect them to like it, any more than we liked it. If we hadn’t made them accountable, made them suffer as we had suffered, their war would have gone on for another 30 years. Because quite simply they were allowed to get away with it. It took the loyalists 20 years to get off their knees and start hitting back. That’s where we discovered that we were actually better at it [terrorism/counter-terrorism] than they [the IRA] were.

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Phase Three: The Mid-1980s UDA/UFF – Travelling Gunmen and the Selective Strategy

‘GARY’ ‘Gary’ (now in his 50s) is approximately 5’10”, well built with a physical presence and an aloof air of authority. He was one to dispense with the niceties in order to concentrate on business. ‘Gary’ studied me perhaps more than I studied him, clearly making up his own mind as to my motivations. As a countryman he had the sort of genuineness which often alludes city dwellers, a basic belief in the goodness in life which invariably leads to disappointment. Yes, I come from a country area, a country town, a village really. We were all very close knit. There were only —— houses in our estate, everybody was related. My own family, mother, father, brother, sister, we were all very, very close. I was the eldest child in my family. It was a good family, we were never in any sort of trouble. I would have been very secure as a child. I have one sister who is just a year younger and a brother who is seven years younger so he was the baby, but we got on very well. Just the usual ups and downs of family life but no real problems whatsoever. I remember primary school right from the very start. I went to the old school as it was then, it closed down maybe after a year. We attended it and then we were moved to what was termed ‘the new school’. Primary school was great. I can remember being caned, that’s one of the things that always stands out about primary school. I remember getting the stick, in those days they took the stick to you but having said that I don’t remember what I did but I probably deserved it. Nothing stands out as being overly bad or worrying about primary school, except Miss Brown – the one that caned me. I met her in later years and there was no problem, I had no animosity towards her whatever. It was just one of those things, it was the done thing then. 127

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It was a small country area, everybody knew everybody and everybody seemed to get on very well. There was a sense of belonging, of being a part of a community. I went to a local secondary school here in —— and that was OK. That was until the later years when I was maybe 15. At that time everyone was mitching school and I was no different. I was taking time off school and I can’t really put it down to any particular reason. It was just the done thing at that time, everybody just sort of hung out and didn’t go. As a result of that I had to leave school without proper qualifications, and that is something I regret now but it’s just one of those things. I never became involved [in the loyalist paramilitaries], well at least not at first. I was a member of the security forces – UDR. I joined the UDR [the Ulster Defence Regiment was one of the largest regiments in the British Army]. When I left school I went into a factory as an apprentice sheet metal worker and did two years of an apprenticeship, then I joined the UDR in 1979 part time. I was part time for six months before I gave up my apprenticeship and joined the UDR full time. I joined in 1979 and came out of it in late 1986. It wasn’t until some time after that that I became involved in the paramilitaries. When I first joined the UDR locally here, everybody knew everybody. It was very close knit. It was more like a club than an actual army outfit as such. I then transferred to full time and I was based in Antrim and it was quiet, not a lot happened. You weren’t really involved in the troubles. The highlight would have been maybe a robbery where you were sent out in response. There weren’t a lot of people being shot at or injured or killed or anything else. We decided at that time to transfer, and there were 30 of us who applied for a block transfer to Armagh. Almost the whole platoon went to Armagh. We realised that there was a big battalion of UDR men based in Antrim/Lisburn but really that wasn’t where the trouble was. There was a lot of trouble in County Armagh, Armagh City running right into south Armagh. The troops [UDR] weren’t on the ground but it was up to us to back up the regular army and police. You were given the option whether to go, or not to go, but nearly our whole platoon decided to move. Most of us wanted to be involved. We wanted to be where the trouble was, to be able to react to the violence. We just weren’t seeing any action in Lisburn/Antrim. We weren’t doing what we were trained to do in Antrim and Lisburn, it wasn’t happening. Yes, there

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were people killed in Antrim and Lisburn but those were isolated incidents. It wasn’t happening on a daily or even on a weekly basis, but in Armagh it was, and that was the main motivation. I remember one particular fella he was a guy called —— and he opted not to go to Armagh. He got himself a cushy wee job in Ballykinler in the army and he actually turned ‘good living’. He was a very, very close friend and he got this cushy wee job and we never saw him again for a couple of years. He had met a girl and he married her and they were secure and happy. We were all in the thick of the troubles as we thought and he was in this cushy wee job. He bought a house in — — in Dunmurry. As it ended up he was followed home by the Provos. They had spotted him coming out of Ballykinler [a British Army base]. He could have been anybody, he could have been a cleaner coming out of the camp. They followed the car, targeted the car and saw where he lived. The next night they knocked on the door and his wife answered. By that time both of them had turned ‘good living’. Not long married and, ‘Is the boss in?’ —— he was lying with his slippers on. He had a gun in the house but he didn’t even take the gun to the door. He went to the door and they just shot him dead. That brought it home to us. There we were sort of in at the deep end in Armagh and here’s this guy who had actually got a cushy number, supposedly secure and safe, and he was dead. That had a profound impact on me because he was a close personal friend. In Armagh we had seen quite a few serious incidents and were involved in incidents and maybe that was the start of it, maybe that was the start of the road I was to go down. You know the feeling that something isn’t right. Here was a guy who had a safe secure job. He didn’t even wear a uniform most of the time, but he was dead and we were alive. We enjoyed the work far better in Armagh, because you had to be careful, you were in the middle of it and there were incidents happening on a daily basis. Somebody getting shot, somebody being wounded. I can remember a particular incident where a UDR patrol was blown up in Blackwatertown. I wasn’t on it but I had friends who were. What happened was two Provisional IRA men lay, seemingly for days, and watched for a UDR patrol driving by. As they drove by the Provos let off their landmine and blew one of the Land-Rovers up. The UDR men were very seriously injured but I don’t remember anyone being killed. What sticks out about it is how they made their escape. There was a police patrol in the area and they had seen them [two IRA men] coming down around the hill. The police opened fire on them and they thought they had shot

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both of them dead. The two Provos were lying dead as far as the police were concerned. The UDR men had been blown up, they didn’t know what was going on. The police thought they had been attacked because they thought the bomb had gone off early, before they had driven into it. When they heard the explosion they jumped out of their Land-Rovers and here’s these two guys coming running down the hill with balaclavas, and in fact I think they had crash helmets on as well. The police, they opened up and supposedly shot the two of them. The farmers and the locals started to come out and the next thing one of the IRA men stood up and said, ‘I haven’t been hit.’ There wasn’t anything the police could do about it because everybody was there. He [the policeman] was taken to court and he was found guilty of attempted murder. That convinced me that conventional ‘soft’ policing hadn’t a mission against hard, ruthless terrorism. Well, it was all building up, the more and more that I saw up there [Armagh]. I remember another guy being shot dead, a guy called — —. We weren’t in Armagh long and he was a major or a captain in the UDR and he was shot dead. The impression I had was increasingly people were being shot or bombed, on a daily or weekly basis. They were being shot, blown up and mutilated and the security forces knew the people who were doing it. They knew them all by name, and they knew where they lived. We just went through the same thing where houses were hit [searched] after the incident, they [the suspects] were arrested for their seven days and then they were released. That’s what was affecting me, we knew, everybody knew what was going on, everybody knew who they were but there was nothing we could do. The only one success that I can think of was when the police actually shot one of them dead. Even when that went to court there was talk that he [the police officer] was going to get done [charged] for attempted murder, because there was no proof that it was the accused man who actually set the bomb off. He was admitting that he was there, but he claimed that it wasn’t him who did it. He blamed his mate who was dead. As it ended up he [the IRA man] was found guilty. I remember another very very serious incident and it was probably to be the changing point in my life. On New Year’s Eve 1985 the police and army were patrolling Armagh city itself. The police went out for one hour and the UDR went out for the other hour. This was to go on for the whole night. The UDR had been out on the streets, patrolling and they had returned to the station. They were out from 11 o’clock to 12 o’clock and I was there on this one. The police patrol

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went out into the street that the UDR had just come in from when an explosion went off. The next thing we knew shots were being fired all over the place. At that stage we would have thought it was the IRA as part of their attack. We reacted right away and went out into the street. We met a policeman coming towards us and as it turned out it was him firing the shots into the air. Two of his colleagues had been blown to pieces, one was dead and one was very seriously injured. Minutes earlier we had walked past that bomb. The bomb was in a litter bin and it could just as easily have been us. But on that particular occasion the IRA didn’t want to kill UDR men, they wanted to kill policemen. That’s the only explanation for it, the police were regarded as a better target. At that stage the army had better equipment to block remote control signals [used to detonate bombs]. Some of us thought that might have been what saved the UDR patrol. The Provos may have thought that we had the better blocking equipment as well. When we got there there was one policeman dead, obviously dead, and another one very seriously injured, lying blown to pieces. The third police officer had lost control and had just opened up and was firing shots everywhere. There was no sign of who had set the bomb off. It had been detonated 200–300 yards up the street and they [the IRA] had disappeared, they were well away. It was New Year’s Eve and I can remember we were there the whole night. I can remember the ambulance arriving and the second policeman dying on the way to hospital. So there were two policemen blown to pieces. I can remember being there the whole night. I can remember the policeman’s wife. The policeman who died on the scene was from Portadown. I can remember his wife arriving on the scene and her wanting to go to hold him. She was hysterical, pleading with us, and hitting us trying to get to him. I remember one of the men, big Sam, coming over to me and saying, ‘For fuck’s sake, how fucking much of this are we meant to take?’ Sam was a big man, one of the toughest men I had ever known, and there he was in the middle of the street with tears rolling down his cheeks, half choking. We couldn’t let her go in case his body was booby-trapped. He was lying just maybe 100 yards from her and I remember standing and saying to myself, ‘You know we’re wasting our time here, what’s the point, what is the point in all this? The politicians are wrong. We [the UDR and army] know who they are. Why can’t we go in and take the war to them? Take them out.’ Because the security forces at that stage had the resources to stop it if they [the politicians] had wanted. If we had been allowed

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to do it. We knew who they were, we had the intelligence and they were simply no match for us in a straight fight. There was absolutely no doubt about that, but our hands were tied at every turn. The IRA were winning because they were being allowed to win. I mean that was the whole thing of it, you were a walking target. I was sorry for those young English soldiers from Birmingham or Manchester, or God knows where. They were used as cannon fodder. Walking around hard-line Provo areas waiting for a bullet in the back. At least we were grown men, and in the last analysis it was our war. The army wanted to help us but they couldn’t, they weren’t allowed to. My personal view is that if the cuffs had been taken off the security forces earlier there would have been no need for me and people like me to become involved in the [loyalist] paramilitaries. If the security forces had been given a chance, I gave the security forces a chance. That was my way, that was my upbringing, a law and order upbringing. We did abide by law and order and I joined the security forces. A lot of my family had been in the security forces and that was our way of doing it. But I found out after seven years in the security forces that it just wasn’t working. I mean you were a walking target, you were out there and you were walking about waiting for the attack happening in the hope that you would be able to react to that attack. But what I saw happening over and over again was you weren’t being given the opportunity. The attacks were mounted from long range. You weren’t being given the opportunity to return fire or to retaliate in any way whatsoever, and it just wasn’t working. With the intelligence at that time, we [the UDR] had the names of those who set the bomb off, we knew who made the bombs, they [the army] knew who made the bombs, they knew where they came from. It was after that that I decided that enough was enough and a year later I resigned, cut my contract with them [the UDR] and came out of it. The only thing the UDR did effectively was to provide uniformed targets for the IRA. It was just too easy for them. If they [the IRA] had the guts to wear uniforms we would have wiped them out in an afternoon. They preferred to hide behind walls and shoot some poor bastard from a mile away. What chance does he have? The IRA could kill at will and that’s precisely what they were doing. I know that from a security forces’ point of view, from deep inside the security forces. You know the intelligence is there, the information was there, up-to-date information, I’m not saying they knew everything but they knew quite a lot. At that particular time I concluded it [the violence] was acceptable [to the government], it

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was allowed to happen. At times you were told there is going to be an attack in the next week, and you can guarantee that attack took place within the next week, but there was nothing you could do about it, you had to sit back and take it. There were maybe twelve main players [IRA men] within Armagh city, they were the people who were controlling everything, they where the people who were doing everything, they were the operators. We knew everything about them but the simple fact was you just weren’t allowed to react. I know of people [UDR/army] getting in trouble for even stopping them in the street. They would be accused of verbal abuse. I was reprimanded myself just for stopping and searching people, known IRA men. It seemed to be at that stage it was the security forces who were coming under more and more pressure not to do this, not to do that. I went to Armagh in 1983 and left in 1986. In the years that I was there, you know seeing so many people killed, that hurt me, that seriously hurt me. Going to funerals. When I was in Lisburn/Antrim I had never been to a military funeral. In Armagh it was going to funerals, being part of funerals, that’s all we seemed to do, it just ended up as a waste of time. Why? What was the point in going about there with a uniform on, with a gun, and not being able to use it? Not being allowed to retaliate in any way to anything that was happening. The information was there. I reached the conclusion that it was just a complete and utter waste of time being a member of the security forces, because it just simply wasn’t working, there were just too many restrictions placed upon us and that’s when I got out. In that area they [the IRA] were very successful. There were very few people getting caught at that stage, with the exception of that one incident in Blackwatertown where the police shot an IRA man, and that was pot luck, pure luck. I can’t remember anything we did that was successful, nobody was being caught, it simply just wasn’t happening. We had been emasculated as men never mind as soldiers. I can remember an incident when there was a search carried out in Callenbridge estate and the UDR at that stage were responsible for the cordon. The army search team was coming to do the search. We were told before we went out which flat the stuff [guns, ammunition or explosives] was in. We were told that it was a rifle and that there would be hand grenades. As a sort of a cover they started searching other flats, there were four flats searched. The stuff was found in the right flat. It was all wrapped up in a carpet but the flat belonged to a 70 year old woman. So then the question was, who put it there? We knew who put it there. It was a 13 year old boy. So

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you had a case where they couldn’t charge a 70 year old woman because she was old and she didn’t know it was there and you had another case where you couldn’t charge a 13 year old boy because he was too young. The Provos were brilliant, they had it worked out to a T. They were running rings round us. The stuff was there, the security forces were able to get it, but still nobody was charged. In 1985 around the time the Anglo-Irish Agreement was signed there were a lot of things happening in the country. The security forces, certainly the unit that we belonged to, were very disillusioned with everything that had happened. I mean here you had the AngloIrish Agreement being signed and Ulster’s sovereignty being signed away, but people were still being killed and the bastards who were responsible were getting away scot free. The IRA were getting everything they wanted. They were being rewarded for killing people. A number of good friends of mine resigned there and then. They felt that it was the start of a sell out, in fact they thought it was a sell out at that time. It was over and some people walked away from it, right away, they resigned there and then. In my own head I had a lot to think about. In the UDR you had security, the money was coming in for your family. For me it wasn’t so much the Anglo-Irish Agreement, it was what was happening. It was seeing people getting killed, it was seeing the attacks happening, knowing that they would happen, and not doing a thing about it. They were getting away with it and to me that was wrong. Why should I walk about as a target, why should I do it? It just wasn’t worth doing. If we could have reacted to incidents it could have been stopped, but it wasn’t. The political masters had decided that it should be allowed to continue. We were to leave them alone. All that was happening was acceptable. Murder and bombings were acceptable. This wouldn’t have been tolerated for one minute in any other part of the United Kingdom. The SAS and the Paras would have cleaned out the whole [IRA] operation overnight, if this had been happening on the mainland. But this was Northern Ireland, so it was acceptable. There was no will to do it, definitely not, we were under orders to leave them [the IRA] alone. The UDR and the army were dying to get stuck in but we all just grew weary of the situation. After that I got out off the security forces and then I became involved with the UDA. With the UDA my military background was a benefit, there was no doubt about that. I had the expertise, I had the training and a lot of intelligence [i.e. about the IRA]. I put it to use and quite quickly became involved with the military wing of the UDA.

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You join the UDA, you don’t swear into the UFF. You join the UDA to become military, once you become military you are automatically UFF, if you know what I mean. It’s the military wing and you progress up through it. It might work slightly different in other parts of the country but that’s the way it certainly works here. You never take an oath to join the UFF once you became military because you were automatically UFF and really that’s the group I wanted to be with. I became active [in targeting IRA and Sinn Fein members] and I worked for quite a while with the Lisburn group who were a very good group, they were very very active. Not just in Lisburn but all over the country, working in different parts of the country, especially in rural areas like County Down and County Armagh. I was involved for quite a while at different levels [within the UFF] and then in December 1989 we were caught in a rural area of County Down. As it ended up I got 14 years and on appeal got it reduced to ten years. One of my co-accused had quite a few charges at that time and he got three life sentences, he is serving three life sentences. He is still not out, but he should get out very very soon as part of this early release scheme. He served his time in Magheraberry. He was disowned by the paramilitaries because he implicated other people. He named everybody and everything that he was supposed to be involved in. That’s why he got the big sentences. He told the police where he was going that night and what he was going to do. The police didn’t know, they obviously knew that there was an operation going down in the area but didn’t know exactly the name of the person or anything else. Then our trial was run together with another very famous trial which was the murder of ——. There were a number of people, again from the Lisburn area. There was a UDR man and another guy who had admitted supplying information to the UDA, linking —— with the IRA. They were arrested in September, our group wasn’t arrested until December. The reason why the two trials came together was that you had the people who were arrested in September admitting giving information, although they didn’t name who they gave the information to. But they admitted giving the information to the UDA which led to —— being killed. They were supplying the intelligence to the UDA who were actually going out and doing the operations and that’s the argument they tried to use or did use during the trial. At that particular time from about 1985 up until we were arrested in December 1989 it was very, very strictly selected targets, known IRA men. An example of it was when we were arrested in Dromara

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Mountains half way between Dromara and Castlewellan. Now if it had been a strategy of bringing fear to Catholics or just killing Catholics you could go into the chapel in Lisburn any Saturday night, there are hundreds of Catholics there. Why travel 30 miles away from your home town? You know, at that particular time, it was my view, and the view of everybody involved then, that it had to be very, very strictly properly selected [IRA] targets. That’s what was happening all over the country by the UDA/UFF. There were selected targets being attacked. Between 1989 and the ceasefire the UFF took out 26 Sinn Fein/IRA men. It was selective and it was proactive. We had the IRA on the run. It became very frustrating at times when it came on the news that another ‘innocent Catholic’ had been killed because in many cases we had good intelligence which convinced us that the person was a suspected member of the IRA or an associate. There was always something that linked him directly to the organisation but yet it didn’t matter how high the profile was, how high the person was, when it came out on the news at teatime this man was innocent. And it annoyed me to a certain extent because I had seen it with my own eyes when I was in the UDR. Part of the whole thing then and even in later times was to put the loyalists down as gangsters. To give the impression that they just go out and shoot anybody. When people in the past have asked me about that I have always asked, why? Why was I almost 20 miles from my own house? There are Catholics living in the estate that I live in. If it was just a fact of killing or hurting or damaging Catholics, why would I leave my own estate or my own area? Why were people caught 20 miles away from home, what’s the point? What would be the point in it? From a security forces and government point of view it was better and easier to say it’s an innocent Catholic and that we’re thugs. You know it was just a whole thing of putting down loyalist paramilitaries to give them no credit for what they were, and what they were trying to do. And that was to neutralise the IRA. To hit them so hard, the key players, that they’d stop their violence. They didn’t call a ceasefire out of the goodness of their hearts. The IRA has no heart. They called a ceasefire to avoid getting killed. My point of view is if the security forces had been doing their job then there would have been no need for people like me to become involved, or lots and lots of other people who also joined the loyalist paramilitaries for the same reason. A lot of media stuff has come out where innocent Protestants were directly labelled as UDA/UFF or UVF. A very recent example of it was

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practically this time last year [1999] when —— was killed, and that was during the ceasefire. That night on TV he was described as the UFF commander in the area. He was just an ordinary fellow. So you can be in the UDA and be one of thousands or whatever in the UDA, so being in the UDA doesn’t mean any sort of military involvement. A lot of people who joined the UDA joined a legal organisation. I mean it was a legal organisation they swore into. It wasn’t until 1992 that it was outlawed, so prior to that the people that were joining were joining a legal organisation. Again unlike the IRA, I mean if you join the IRA you become a soldier. The UDA is much more a community-based thing. The UDA are very big in numbers but work at very different levels. People could be involved with the UDA, and maybe in some cases not even sworn in as a UDA man but involved with the UDA working at community level, who would never be involved with any military side of things. The military side of it was a very select group of people from each area, you know you could have been in the UDA for 15 or 20 years but never have seen a gun. —— was well known in the community. He was in the Orange Order, he ran the shop, he knew everybody. He was a Rangers fanatic, he spent a lot of time in Scotland you know. To label him as a UFF commander was total nonsense. Another good example of press misrepresentation was when the UVF went into a bar in Cappagh and shot three IRA men dead. It was reported that they were totally innocent Catholics. They had done absolutely nothing, they were there having a quiet pint. MidUlster UVF said no, it was an IRA meeting. What was interesting about that was six months later when the war memorial went up from the IRA they were honoured as members. They were on the role of honour as volunteers who died in the ‘fight for freedom’, yet at the time the IRA didn’t admit who they were. They said nothing at the time, but the media claimed that they were innocent Catholics, and that these thugs from a loyalist group had come in and killed them just as they were enjoying a pint in a country bar. The fact of the matter is it was an IRA meeting. [The Cappagh ‘massacre’ actually does provide us with an important example of how the loyalists’ paramilitary campaign was stage managed, both by the Provisional IRA and the British media. In what was referred to as a ‘military strike’ a UVF unit attacked Boyle’s pub in Cappagh village, County Tyrone (March 1991) killing four men. The UVF claimed that the attack ‘was not sectarian and

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had been targeted at the command structure of the IRA’. The British press almost universally claimed that the UVF had attacked ‘innocent Catholics’ enjoying a ‘quiet drink’ in a country pub. The IRA did not claim any of the victims as its members, and most significantly none of the men were subsequently given a military funeral. (A military (IRA) funeral is the traditional means by which the IRA honours its dead, and this carries enormous importance in the mythology and ritual of republicanism.) This served to reinforce the public perception that the men killed at Cappagh had indeed been innocent Catholics. However, one report in the Irish Times on the morning of the funerals claimed that three of those killed at Cappagh were IRA members. On that, a survivor of the scene commented: ‘Media reports said it was about IRA membership, that that’s why they shot at us – it’s a joke – how do you think that makes me feel – I’m not in the IRA.’ The UVF were roundly condemned for committing ‘yet another random sectarian “massacre”’. Interestingly, days before the time of writing a colleague had used the Cappagh incident as ‘evidence’ of the loyalists’ ‘mindless sectarian murder campaign, killing four innocent Catholics just out having a drink in a country bar’. As it transpired almost a year later the IRA acknowledged that three of those killed – John Quinn, Malcolm Nugent and Dwayne O’Donnell – were in fact its members. (The fourth man killed, Thomas Armstrong, was a civilian caught in crossfire.) The active IRA volunteers in question had obviously been deliberately denied a military funeral in the cause of depriving the loyalist paramilitaries any claim to having a military legitimacy. However, the claim, coming as it did almost a year later, was old news, and went largely unnoticed as almost an academic point. (The fact that the men were ever claimed at all may have had more to do with family and local IRA pressure than ‘operational strategy’.) The Provos’ strategy had served its purpose in the meantime, in conspiring to maintain the caricature of the loyalist paramilitaries as ‘mindless sectarian murderers’. This leaves a real question mark as to how many IRA men were actually killed, and not claimed, to instrumentally serve ‘the movement’ even in death. All of this creates something of a further credibility gap, as to whom the IRA may wish, or may not wish, to claim as its own.] In 1990 when we were imprisoned there was a big push for segregation [between loyalists and republicans] inside the Crumlin Road Prison. There was a lot of fighting between the two groups,

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between the republican and loyalist groups. It started off very basic and simple stuff like fighting and punching and throwing cups of hot tea or water round each other. It then gradually got worse and worse and then a very serious incident happened. A driver of a republican visitors’ bus on its way to the Maze was attacked. Within a week or two weeks of that the IRA smuggled a bomb into the Crumlin Road Prison. They had placed it behind a radiator on our wing and blew us up. I was part of that. I was in charge of UDA/UFF prisoners in C Wing at that time. It was as well there weren’t more of us on the wing or there would have been more killed. As it was, two men were killed, one UVF guy —— and one UDA ——. They were killed outright; a third man looked as if his throat had been cut. In actual fact the metal had gone right into him and he died on the Thursday after it. The prison service hadn’t a clue, they didn’t know how it happened. They weren’t geared up for that type of thing, that’s something that shouldn’t have happened. Nobody should be able to get a bomb into a prison, but they [the IRA] had done it and the bomb went off and the prison staff didn’t know how to cope. Eventually they allowed the medical services in. We did what we could to help each other. I was lucky I wasn’t injured, a slight ear injury but shock more than anything else, but I was OK. We helped each other as best we could. There was a big group of republican prisoners on the wing at the time. When the news came on at ten o’clock that night they said that one loyalist prisoner had been killed. The place erupted, they all cheered, every single one of them had been involved in it. Every one of them was part of the conspiracy to murder loyalist prisoners. They all knew that the bomb had been planted. They had actually called a meeting to plant the bomb, and stood round the radiator while their spokesman gave a talk. The staff saw this happening but it was a cover to plant the bomb in behind the radiator. So everybody, every republican at that meeting, everybody on C Wing knew what was happening and where the bomb was placed. Just as we got into the dining hall the bomb went off. —— was sitting watching TV just facing the radiator, he was killed outright. Up until then the most sort of serious thing that happened as part of that campaign [for segregation] was, as I say, hot water being thrown over somebody, which was serious enough in itself. But with the bomb going off you know it was absolutely unbelievable. Nobody could take it in, even after it had happened. Yes, we had been preaching for a long time that something serious was going to

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happen, the signs were there; in fact I wrote to Jim Molyneaux and Paisley. Ian Paisley didn’t even answer my letter. Molyneaux’s office did, they acknowledged it and said they would do what they could to try to ensure that safety was brought into the jail, this was maybe six months before the bomb went off. What angered me a wee bit after it, when Paisley was on the news he said he had been contacted by a prisoner warning that this was going to happen six months before. What annoyed me so much about that was I thought at the very least he should have answered the letter or contacted us when we were making the claim that it was going to happen, but when it did happen he used it as part of the publicity that came in the aftermath after the bomb. It wasn’t very long after that the loyalist prisoners boycotted the Free Presbyterian church in the Maze and that was a part of it. Last month, November, was the anniversary of the bomb and I read out a service to honour the dead. I still have those words written down in a book from prison. A memorial service was held, with prisoners from both UDA and UVF, in the Crumlin Road after the bomb went off. It was the Sunday following the bomb. It is almost as painful remembering the service as the actual night of the bomb because of what happened. The night after the bomb republicans were removed from the wing, forensically tested and questioned by the police, but by mid-week they were moved back. On the day of the actual service in C Wing yard we lined up in ranks. It was an orderly sort of service and one of the guys read out a sort of passage. As he started to read it they [IRA prisoners] threw cups of tea round us from the cell windows. They threw piss, and they threw shit and the men just stood and took it and carried on with the service. But to me that was sick. You couldn’t even have your service, your memorial service. They had been successful in their attack. They had won on that occasion but they weren’t prepared to let the loyalist prisoners have their say or have a wee bit of dignity and that hurt, that still hurts. I’ll give you a copy of what was actually read out on that day and it is the exact words which were read on that day. I can’t remember exactly who wrote it, it was maybe —— who wrote it, I’m not sure. The funny thing was, a week later there were still no visits. We had no contact with our families. Within a short time the visits started again. The visits were to be mixed with the republicans and loyalists all going to the same visiting area. The staff were told that there was just no way the loyalists could sit down again with republicans in the visiting area and it wasn’t going to work. I was one of the first brought down on a visit and I knew that it was a

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tester to see what way we would react. I went down to visit my mother and my wife and thankfully they had the sense not to bring my children. As soon as I came in I told them I was OK; it was the first contact I had had since the bomb. There was a lot of media hype and I said, ‘Look I’m sorry about this but if a republican comes in through that door there is going to be trouble. If trouble starts, whatever you do get into the corner and stay out of it.’ Within a couple of minutes another loyalist prisoner came in; thankfully he was a big brute of a guy so I said, ‘That’s OK, at least there are two of us.’ The next thing they brought a republican prisoner down and he sat down and the two of us just attacked him. We beat him all over the place, within seconds the riot squad was in and they battoned us but the republican guy was quite badly hurt. We were taken to the punishment cells and the doctor came in. He asked why we did it and I said I couldn’t even remember doing it. We weren’t even charged with it because they put it down to the effect of the bomb going off. We just weren’t responsible for what was going on. They kept that up for the whole day and the same incident kept repeating itself. Every time two groups came into contact there was a fight, a serious fight. Then the visiting arrangements were changed and there were separate visiting areas so something good came out of it. But there were a lot of people hurt to achieve that. The loyalists made serious attempts to retaliate within the prison. I can’t go into the details of it except to say that I know of at least three different attempts to kill republican prisoners within the jail. That was before the UVF actually fired a rocket into the dining hall being used by the republican prisoners. It was an attempt to get revenge for the bomb attack on behalf of both the loyalist paramilitary groups. Shortly after that I moved to the Maze prison [originally named Long Kesh]. I was over two and half years on remand before I was moved. I ended up in the Maze where segregation was in operation anyway so I was happy enough. On a very rare occasion you’d see republicans when they were in the yard. There were very few occasions when we actually bumped into each other. The conditions in the Crumlin Road were so bad, and the protests continued and it resulted in the wings just being completely wrecked. The UVF and UDA completely destroyed the place and the remand prisoners ended up down at the Maze and so the Crumlin Road was closed. So yes it ended up as complete segregation, but it was conceded too late because everybody was transferred to the Maze. The protests within the Crumlin Road go right back to way early on but they go through

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phases, there are maybe three years of serious disorder then maybe a year when it settles down and then maybe another three years. The period that we were involved was from sort of the beginning of 1990 up to 1993, 1994. It ended up the whole place [Crumlin Road Prison] was just completely destroyed to a point were nobody could live in it. Remand prisoners, republican and loyalist, ended up being sent to the Maze where they had segregation anyway. The people who were controlling the UFF had done their homework. If the information wasn’t good or if they deemed it not to be good it just wasn’t acted upon, it was just rubbished. To me, from where I was sitting, this was happening throughout the country, even in Tyrone and Armagh. There were UFF units operating there. There were IRA/Sinn Fein councillors being killed, there were people operating from Londonderry going into the south. There was a Sinn Fein councillor shot in the Republic. What was happening as time went on was that people [Catholics] weren’t getting shot unless they were high profile. And I mean really high profile, actually linked to Sinn Fein and the IRA. The media was still coming out with an ‘innocent Catholic victim’ but I know that it was strictly selective targets, and we were taking out IRA men one by one. The UFF had gone proactive, they had gone all-out. What they were saying was we’ll match the IRA, everything they can do we can do. The IRA couldn’t handle it because they were being terrorised for a change. They had always advocated terrorism, when they were the only ones who could use it. When the same tactics were turned against them they couldn’t handle it. It’s the same with any bully, if you stand up to him and give him a taste of his own medicine he’ll run away or at least he’ll never touch you again. Some people say that we were winning but how do you determine winning? Certainly it had been proved over and over again that the UFF had the resources, they had the manpower, people who were willing to go out and carry out the attacks, and those people had the ability and the determination to carry out the attacks successfully. I wouldn’t go as far as to say winning because I don’t think anybody really wins at the end of the day, I don’t think there can be any winners in this type of war. The really sad thing is that the Official IRA knew that nearly 30 years ago, in 1971 when they announced their ceasefire and called for talks. But the Provisionals, they had tasted blood and the bastards liked it, it gave them power and made them feel like big men. It’s all a delusion. Sinn Fein have been given power and ‘respect’ to stop them killing. They are actually treated

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like children with a mental defect and indulged, in order to save lives. The sick part is they don’t see it, they actually don’t see it. People like that will never be accepted by any decent society. But I think they’ve got the message: if they go back to killing loyalists, and the British more generally, this time the loyalists will take them out. In any normal society that would be a job for the security forces, but in Northern Ireland they weren’t allowed to take them on. It didn’t matter what happened in Belfast, just don’t provoke bombs in London. That’s why the loyalists were forced to get involved. If it starts up again they [the IRA] will be surgically removed, like a cancer, and they know it, and that’s why I’m optimistic that there will be no return to open conflict. War doesn’t get anyone anywhere, in the last analysis any conflict has to be resolved politically, through dialogue not guns. MICHAEL STONE The circumstances of my first interview with Stone were somewhat unconventional. I was sitting talking to one of the men in a cell with my back to the door. Stone, approaching me from behind, put me into a wrestling neck lock. Realising it was Michael I had smiled instantly. My response was studied by the man facing me, as unknown to me I had passed a critical test. Had I acted with alarm, or resisted, my motivation and intentions could have been called into question carrying fairly obvious implications. Stone had learned from past experience to be mistrustful of everyone whom he hadn’t personally vetted. In the event the interview proceeded in an atmosphere of openness and trust. The outcome of that particular trial could have been very different. Michael Stone (now aged 40+) is a strikingly good-looking man who has a charismatic personality. He lays claim to having been one of the soldiers or travelling gunmen of the UDA/UFF, unwittingly providing a role model for Johnny Adair. Intensely aware of the corruption and security force infiltration which permeated the organisation during the 1980s Stone usually operated alone on highly select intelligence. He was intimately acquainted with some of the most dangerous loyalist paramilitaries in Northern Ireland, some of whom operated with apparent impunity. (For example see ‘Robin Jackson’, McKittrick et al., 2002.) Stone is now an accomplished artist and writer. As a child I was close to both my father and mother and they were both very good to me. When I was about eleven my mother showed

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me letters and correspondence belonging to my natural parents who separated when I was about five months old. I didn’t find being told about that traumatic or anything. In fact I felt lucky that I had the parents I had, and that my aunt had adopted me and was now my mother. Sometimes, when you’re lucky, fate works with you rather than against you, and fate was to play a large part in my life. I had four sisters and one brother and we all got on very well. We would have looked out for each other. It was a very secure childhood and I had a very strong sense of belonging to my family. When I was eleven I moved out of primary school and into Lisnashara Secondary School. That was in 1966, around the beginning of the troubles, but I must admit I’d no interest in politics. My main interest around that time was in girls and football. The first time I really became aware of the troubles was when an uncle was put out of his home in Farrington Gardens. Every single Protestant family in Farrington Gardens was intimidated out by republicans. A crowd of Catholic women had actually fought each other in the street to take illegal possession of his home and its contents, he was never the same man after that. I joined the army cadets at school. I became proficient in the use of [deactivated] Lee Enfield 303s, Bren guns and Webly .45 revolvers. Some of my Catholic friends wanted to join the cadet force as well but their parents wouldn’t let them. At the time I couldn’t understand that. We would go to Douglas in the Isle of Man with the cadet force, and that was an enjoyable experience, living like soldiers for two weeks. I enjoyed the ‘live-fire’ shooting practice on the shooting ranges. It was during this period that I experienced true camaraderie and literally felt proud to be British, proud to be wearing the Queen’s uniform. My parents were very involved with the church. We attended the Anglican Church of Ireland. I went to Sunday school every week and I attended church services. I was in the Boys’ Brigade and I was also a choir boy, with the robes, the regalia of innocence! I can remember attending the laborious confirmation classes and getting confirmed by the bishop. One way and another as a youth my life revolved around the church and its many functions within the Protestant community. Lisnashara was a Protestant school and there were no problems. I breezed through school, academic qualifications were secondary to hanging around with my mates and chatting up the girls. When I was 14 I formed the ‘hole in the wall gang’. We used to meet literally at a hole in a wall off the Lower Braniel Road. There would have been

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the odd fights or confrontations with rival gangs, but nothing too heavy. Those were good days, George Best and Woodstock, the swinging ’60s. My big sister was actually in the same class as George Best in Lisnashara. Most of my money would have gone on clothes such as DMs [Doctor Martin kicking boots] and blue Levi jeans and jackets. [Doc Martin boots and Levi jeans were worn by all street gangs, a uniform of sorts.] I left school when I was around 161⁄2. I became a ‘hammer boy’ in the local shipyard [Harland & Wolf]. By that time I was aware of republican violence, the murders and the nowarning car bombs in Belfast. By that stage I would have regarded myself as a loyalist, and I was working with other loyalists at the blacksmith’s shop. I stayed there for about a year but I spent about six months of that time in prison on a firearms related offence. I knew that it was a dead end job. When I was 171⁄2 I was accepted to the training school at the shipyard. I attended the tech [technical college] on day release and in the evenings training to be a steel worker and boiler maker. I did the first and second year of the City and Guilds in shipbuilding. My father had served his apprenticeship as a lad in the yard, he was a shop steward and it was expected that I follow in his footsteps. But it wasn’t for me; I found it, well, overrated. I began to rebel in 1974 because I didn’t like the work and I became pissed off. I became an apprentice plant fitter for several years. In those days if you didn’t have a trade, or a particular skill, you were a nobody. I eventually left home and got my own flat. By that time I was working as a hod carrier and brick layer, the money was much better and the hours more flexible than they were in the shipyard, besides I preferred the outside life. I became more and more aware of the troubles. You could hear the gun battles across the city, rifle fire, then automatic fire throughout the night. You’d turn the radio on the next day and it would confirm your worst fears of death and destruction that were always prefaced by ‘reports coming in’ on the news. Catholics began to move out of our [Protestant] areas, and Protestants out of theirs. There was a lot of intimidation on both sides. —— [a UDA leader in the early 1970s] moved into our area. —— kept alsatians, and I had an alsatian so we met and eventually became friends. One night — — called the local [loyalist] Braniel Tartan Gang together [these would have been young Protestant adolescents and men aged approximately between 14 and 22]. He was recruiting for the UDA, and the meeting was held in a local youth club. He said, ‘Right the war has started.

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You’ve seen it on TV, the bombs and the bodies. We want volunteers to join the UDA for the defence of this area.’ There were 50 of us there at the beginning. —— said, ‘You can leave anytime you want. We’re only interested in volunteers who want to join to fight for God and Ulster.’ From 50 the numbers went down to about 30, then to ten and eventually down to five who were prepared to kill or be killed in defence of Ulster. The uniformed UDA men walked in and the Ulster flag was draped over the table. We all stood to attention and one by one we were sworn into the UDA. I had a Browning pistol in my left hand, and a bible in my right as I swore allegiance to ‘God and Ulster and the UDA’. We started to do regular patrols of the area. Volunteers were armed with ‘shipyard specials’, .45s or .9 mils which had been made secretly by loyalist workers in the shipyard. The order came down from UDA HQ, ‘Procure weapons in preparation for an armed conflict.’ We decided to rob a blacksmith’s/gunsmith’s in Comber. I would have been about 161⁄2. We burgled it. We only got five shotguns, .22 rifles, Remmington pistols and 303 ammunition. We took it to a ‘hide’ on the outskirts of the Braniel. Shortly after that my accomplice on the shop raid decided to take a shotgun from the hide and parade around the estate in a stupid act of bravado. Inevitably the police picked him up and examined the gun. The serial number matched their list of stolen gun numbers and he was taken to Castlereagh [interrogation centre] for questioning. He was put under pressure and he informed on me, but there were no hard feelings, he would only have been about 16 too. I maintained in court that it wasn’t a political offence, and that it had nothing to do with any paramilitary organisation. I claimed to have been criminally motivated and that the guns were stolen for self-gain. Because it was treated as a criminal offence I ended up with a six-month sentence which I served on remand in Armagh and Long Kesh. My accomplice was given a small fine. If it had been proven to be a political offence I would have ended up doing between six and twelve years. The judge was known to be sympathetic to loyalists. In the case that was heard before mine this Catholic guy, who was just a wee lad, had accused these two strapping big loyalists of assaulting him. These guys [the loyalists] had just gone to court in jeans and T-shirts. The wee Catholic came in all polished up in his suit. The loyalists had tattoos all over their arms, UDA, UFF, so the judge turns round to the wee Catholic and said, ‘What did you do to provoke them? I can’t see that there’s a case to answer here. Case dismissed.’ And that was the

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end of that. So I’d a good idea that I was going to be OK. That was the difference. My father and I fell out after that. He would have been a loyalist with a small L, but he didn’t agree with what the loyalist paramilitaries were doing. By 1984 I had progressed into the UFF as an intelligence officer, I wasn’t in an established active service unit. I was under the control of the UDA/UFF, but I had a certain autonomy, and I could choose from the targets and missions that were put my way. I knew that the [loyalist] organisations had been infiltrated and that some of the leaders were colluding with the police. We were losing men we shouldn’t have lost. The police were getting high-grade intelligence tip-offs about loyalist volunteers. A lot of the operations were setups. The police would have known in advance about a particular mission or raid, and men were being apprehended en route, or even before they went out on missions. Generally I only accepted highprofile targets, or men who I knew to be active republicans. There was —— for example. We knew that he was a milkman who used his milk rounds to monitor security force patrols in west Belfast so that the IRA could kill them. —— was a political and a military target. I shot him as he was starting his milk round on the Boucher Road [Belfast]. He had a young assistant with him who we knew was a member of Provisional IRA youth wing and I had been ordered to take them both out. I looked at the kid but he was just too young. I couldn’t bring myself to shoot him, so I drove away and left him there, even though I was leaving a witness behind. Hitting IRA men was one thing but 16 year olds, that was something else. I had a detailed knowledge about forensic science. I’d attended a lot of the big trials and I saw how people were caught out by traces of cordite. After every mission I would take a bath and scrub myself, first with medical alcohol then soap and water. I used cotton wool to remove any traces of cordite residue from my nose and ears. On rural missions when on foot I used to wear about six pairs of socks and boots that were four sizes too big so that if the police found footprints at the scene they’d think it was the giant yeti with size 14 feet, or a very tall man. After I was sure that I was clinically clean I burned everything that I had been wearing, boots, socks, underwear, everything. Then I took a shower, shampooed my hair again and washed thoroughly with body lotion. I had shot —— with a shot to the body to immobilise him, and a fatal shot to the head to finish it. 14th Intelligence [a British Army special operations unit] also used that technique, 1 stun, 2 kill.

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One day I got a call from this ‘freelance loyalist’ in mid-Ulster. Like me, there were very few loyalist leaders he trusted. He said he had something that might interest me. He worked between the UDA and the UVF just doing what suited him. He was also connected with the ‘Ulster Resistance’. I knew a lot of men, some of the very hard men, who were shit scared of him. Even the security forces were wary of him, but he was always good to me. I travelled down to meet with him. He took me into this barn, and such a sight greeted me. He had all these munitions, guns, grenades and rocket launchers laid out on top of bails of hay. He just said take whatever you like Michael, I know you’ll put them to good use. My wife hadn’t a clue about what I was involved in in my secret life. Going out on a mission I would leave in the morning with a trailer and building material. After the mission I’d rub mud cement into my shoes, clothes and hands, this was to give her the impression that I was working on site. Once she said to me, ‘You’re the most boring man I know.’ Earlier that day I had been stalking —— [a well known republican] 70 miles away in Londonderry. The only reason he didn’t get shot dead was because he had a child with him when he came into the ‘killing zone’. He was driving a burnt orange VW Jetta. I couldn’t put a child through that. —— bought all his newspapers in the same shop every morning. And I mean all the papers, local, Irish and English. I had been watching him for days and just when I had him ‘set up’ an army foot patrol came along. It was back to surveillance, I knew that. His house faced the wall of the Brandywell football stadium. I was told that he slept in a front bedroom because he believed that the wall would prevent a frontal attack. So this night I walked right across the Brandywell football pitch with aluminium extension ladders. I was up the ladder peeping over the top of the wall directly into his house, waiting for him, nipping up and down that ladder for what seemed like an eternity but the bedroom light was never turned on. With no confirmation I had to abort the overall mission. Another time I went up to Enniskillen to sanction [assassinate] —— [a well known Sinn Fein/IRA member]. They [loyalists] weren’t organised up there and the IRA were ‘ethnically cleansing’ Protestants along the border. I had been up to Enniskillen and met with local UFF men. We had undertaken surveillance and intelligence work and everything was planned for a hit on 24 December. I was at home on the 22nd when I got word that John McMichael [the UDA/UFF leader], who I respected, had been assassinated by an IRA death

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squad. That was the third UDA/UVF leader who was to be killed by the IRA. McKeague and Bingham had all been assassinated by the IRA’s death squads. To say that this was getting personal was something of an understatement. I’d liked them, I’d respected them a lot. We’d shared the same vision of taking the war to the IRA, just as they’d brought the war to us. I rang the UFF unit in Enniskillen and told them what had happened. I told them that it was much more important now and that the mission had to be successful. For my own protection on active service I told them to have concrete blocks and cushion covers ready for me on the 24th. I was going to put the blocks in the boot of the car and sand-filled cushion covers at the back window to make the car as bullet proof as possible for my getaway. We used wooden blocks on the rear of the car to raise the suspension so as the car wouldn’t look back-heavy, to look level and perfectly normal. The police had their training HQ in Enniskillen, so my main concern was being shot at by some young police recruit who was off duty at the time. I was determined to get —— even if I had to drive the car over him. Anyway I decided to approach on foot and to use a double-barrel shotgun hidden under my coat for him, and a .45 to kill his minder or minders. I knew that one person approaching them would not attract suspicion, because people expect hit squads to have at least two people, one being a back-up. UFF high-grade intelligence sources had informed me that —— carried a .22 ‘star’ pistol which had been issued to him by the security forces. He had been furious about that, because he wanted a higher-calibre weapon, a .38 or a .45. Neither the RUC or the IRA know that we [the UFF] knew that. As I say, we had the intelligence. —— had been a [IRA] sniper and he knew all about guns. He knew that you could pump nine .22 bullets into an attacker’s chest, and that if he was determined he’d still get you. A .22 wouldn’t have stopped me, bruised me yes but I had my chest covered just in case [bullet-proof vest]. The chances were that —— was the only one carrying [a weapon] so he was going down. I also knew that when a gun is produced people freeze out of fear for a split second, and that would give me sufficient time to shoot two or even three of them. The chances were that the minders would panic and run after the shotgun blast anyway. I was very confident about the whole thing, and the only thing on my mind really was the fact that I wanted to retaliate for my deceased comrades. I wanted that so badly it wasn’t vengeance, it was justice I sought. I waited for —– in my car close to the Sinn Fein office. One guy in a car wasn’t going to arouse any

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suspicion. I was there for almost three hours when UFF men pulled up in a car beside me. They told me that —— had been arrested for possession of a firearm [AK47 rifle] that very morning. He was later released on bail and crossed the border to the comparative safety of the Republic. He was granted asylum, extradition back to Northern Ireland was refused by the Republic because he claimed that he was on Michael Stone’s death list. There’s no way that you can keep that kind of operation secret for long. Before long everyone in Enniskillen knew that loyalists had been up there to assassinate ——. He didn’t like that and he wanted to leave a bloody legacy behind him. That legacy was the Enniskillen Remembrance Day bomb. Before the assassination attempt —— had been a really high-profile republican, always on television and in the media. But nobody has heard about him since. I think that he got the message. The fact that I didn’t get —— was a particular disappointment to me. Assassinating —— in his own right was important, but then he was to be used as the bait in a much larger operation, Milltown. I’d got the idea from the IRA. Sometime before that the IRA had killed a police officer. His funeral was to be at Roselawn Cemetery. The IRA had planned a two-stage operation, firstly take out an RUC member then plant a large car bomb at the cemetery gates in an attempt to kill members in the cortege. The car bomb’s detonator and booster charge exploded but failed to ignite the 300 lb charge. Several mourners and security force members were injured. That was in my mind for a long time, and I just thought ‘Callous bastards.’ But it kept on coming back to me, despite all the other stuff that was going on day and daily. Then suddenly it came to me and I thought, why not carry out a similar operation to that which they had attempted at Roselawn? Where do you get large concentrations of IRA/Sinn Fein men? At republican funerals. It would be possible to take out a number of key players like —— and —— on one mission. Also a country funeral could open up other options. They [the IRA] would have to travel from Belfast and to do that they’d have to travel through our [loyalist areas] territory. They could be ambushed or bombed en route, or on the way back home. Or we could hit them at the funeral by planting bombs or attack them directly by taking up sniping positions. It opened up a whole range of possibilities, as it transpired a closequarters operation was my preferred course of action. I was contacted by the UFF in Londonderry the following February [1988]. They were planning a hit on a top republican IRA man. I listened to their plan and I told them to count me in. I travelled up

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to meet them at Gulladuff, a townland I knew near Derry. The IRA man was also a Sinn Fein councillor who travelled home for his dinner after work, regularly leaving for council meetings before 7.00 p.m. I chose one of the local UFF men who was to be ‘blooded’ to assist me on the operation. The plan was we would conceal ourselves in the bushes of his laneway around 6.30 p.m. It was an isolated rural area shrouded in darkness, it was good cover. The local UFF acquired a Ruger pistol for me at my request. I had six rounds in the chamber, and twelve further bullets on two ‘speed strips’, which allowed you to reload quickly. —— [the UFF accomplice] was armed with a Mark 5 Sterling sub-machine gun. The plan was for him to fire several bursts into the car with the sub-machine gun and immobilise the target then I’d go in to administer the coup de grâce with the revolver. We made our way there cross-country tracking several miles over fields. There was a lot of surveillance in the area both by the army, the police and the IRA. So we had to find a route which no one would expect. That was the night of the big storm when trees were uprooted in Kew Gardens, with electricity supplies disrupted all over the country. But for our purposes the bad weather provided for additional cover. We were wearing dark blue boiler suits and coats and we had blackened up our faces. Some time after we had cut his telephone line we saw the car coming up the lane, it was to be a basic ambush. We stepped out from a hedge and gate post and I waited for the machine gun to open up and catch him in the crossfire. When that didn’t happen I knew the gun had jammed. I put two rounds through the driver’s window, he was screaming as he rolled out of the car and into his fields. We pursued him, firing again but he got away into the darkness. We made our way back to the pick-up location and signalled for the getaway car and left the scene at very high speed. Some distance away this car was dumped and burnt, we transferred to another vehicle. (A year to the day after my attack, the target was killed by the UVF. He was in the same car, same lane. Better weaponry used. They left an AK47 at the scene.) We got back to the safe house and several days later I went back to Belfast. Later I learned that the target had reported the attack to the police that night, but they refused to go out to his home for fear that he was setting them up for the IRA. Until my arrest they didn’t believe he’d been attacked. For years everything had been building up. It started with La Mon [a hotel bombed by the IRA near Belfast in which twelve Protestants had died horrifically]. We had heard the explosion in the Braniel and

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had gone up to see if we could help. There were bodies lying there like lumps of meat, the smell of burning flesh, torsos lying there with no arms or legs, human heads with exposed skulls and teeth. We wanted to hit back and hit back hard but the leadership told us, ‘Don’t do anything, let the world condemn them for this!’ But the IRA had exposed my people to this and they were going to pay the price. Those people had been dog lovers on a night out. Then there was Bloody Friday and all the other litany of IRA atrocities against the British and the Ulster Protestants. I took it all personally. Then Enniskillen. The loyalists down there told me —— gave them ‘the finger’ [one finger gesture] after the bomb. Some members of the loyalist leadership told me, ‘Don’t do anything, it’s bad enough press for Sinn Fein, let the hare sit.’ But I had made my mind up, as far as I was concerned —— was a dead man. He was head of the IRA’s Northern Command and had given the order for the Enniskillen massacre to be carried out. Then there was Gibraltar. The SAS had shot dead three members of an IRA ASU [active service unit], fortuitous would be an understatement as they had unwittingly helped in a plan to assassinate Adams and McGuiness. I knew immediately that there would be a massive republican funeral, and that it would be held at the republican plot in Milltown Cemetery [Belfast]. I also knew that the entire republican leadership would be there to honour their war dead. Several days after the ‘Gib killings’ I informed a senior loyalist paramilitary figure of my unit’s intentions and was officially given the go-ahead. Days before the funeral we went up to reconnoitre Milltown just to get a feel for the place. We could have used boobytrap bombs which could have been detonated from a distance or trip-wires, pressure plates, there were a number of devices available. We undertook a surveillance of the whole area considering all the options. Originally I decided that three of us would be involved in the attack, then I thought that two of us would be less conspicuous. But the more I studied the logistics of the mission, the more dangerous it appeared. Eventually I decided to go alone. Methodically ‘tooling up’ in the garden shed on the morning of the funeral, I put the two guns and the seven grenades in place, with 40 extra rounds of ammunition in my coat pockets. Around 9.00 a.m. I kissed my wife goodbye, and I noticed the way she looked at me. It must have been women’s intuition, she seemed to sense something, but she just looked at me and said nothing. As I went to work each morning I wouldn’t normally have kissed her goodbye as

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I’m a bit of a grumpy swine first thing in the mornings. I caught a bus to the city hall. I had intended to get a black taxi up to Milltown, but there were queues of republicans from all over Belfast going to Milltown. The cemetery was only about a mile up the road so I decided to walk some before hailing a cab on route. The targets I wanted were standing close to the graves, ——, —— and ——. After much deliberation I lobbed two grenades over the heads of the crowd hoping that people would lie down in panic after the blasts, giving me clear shots at the Sinn Fein/IRA targets. In the event the grenades fell wide, and after the initial shock of the explosions part of the crowd started coming towards me. I shouted to —— and ——, ‘Come on and let’s be having you’, but by that stage they were cowering behind headstones. I thought that they would lead the charge on me. Irish patriots! Two paper tigers. I walked down towards the M1 where I was to rendezvous with my getaway car. I didn’t run from the crowd but withdrew lobbing grenades at them, and then a few random shots, they kept on coming but were unable to out-flank me. When I got to the motorway there was no sign of my car, and eventually the crowd caught up with me and I received a good beating, in all honesty they tried to kill me, but as luck would have it, it wasn’t my day to die. Well all’s fair in love and war and I’m not complaining. Eventually the police arrived and I was bundled into the back of a Land-Rover. I can remember that I was in bad shape, a few teeth had been kicked in and I could hardly see because my eyes were so badly swollen. The police kept slapping my face to stop me from losing consciousness. Then it came over the police radio, ‘two mourners have been killed at Milltown, many more injured’. One of the police officers administering the slaps shouted at me, ‘You’ve killed two people.’ I retorted sarcastically, ‘Brilliant …’ The conflict in Northern Ireland has been tragic, it should have ended in the 1970s when the social reforms were put in place. But just as long as the IRA were going for my people, I was going for them. It was down to me and a lot of other people like me. We did what we had to do.

7

Phase Four: The 1990s – the Selective Strategy and Retaliatory Sectarian Murder

‘TOMMY’ ‘Tommy’ (now in his 30s) is approximately 5’8” and lightly built. He is an instantly likeable young man, both polite and respectful in conversation. He had worked for one of the most exclusive men’s fashion outlets in Belfast, where he would not have been in the least out of place. ‘Tommy’ was one of the ‘new wave’ recruits who joined the UFF in 1989 largely due to the selective targeting (of Sinn Fein/IRA) policy which was by then being pursued by the organisation. As a member of Johnny Adair’s C Company he was dedicated to the leadership, and totally committed to the war with the IRA. ‘Tommy’s wife Karen had been completely unaware of his UFF involvement until she was arrested and questioned by police following his involvement in the Kennedy Way killings (Belfast, 1993). I was born in Wilton Street on the Shankill Road. I had three sisters and one brother, and I was born in the middle. I had an older brother and sister, and two younger sisters. My family moved to a larger house in Glencairn [Belfast] about a year after I was born. I’ve no real memories of early childhood. I can’t remember P1, P2 or P3 or who my teachers were, but I can remember P4, 5 and 6 [primary school classes]. My earliest memory would have been of a sports day at Argyle Primary School. The headmaster was called Bell. It was a lovely sunny day in early summer and I can just remember enjoying the sports and feeling really happy. I didn’t want that sports day to end. I was into every kind of sport but my favourite was football, I was football crazy. I was lucky to have so many friends in primary school, and we all grew up together. I had friends in primary school who are still my friends today. I enjoyed primary school, even the teachers were friendly, and they did their best to teach you all they could. I would have had good relationships with all my teachers. I

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was always about average in school, usually around the middle. My reports would have read ‘Doing well’, ‘Has more to learn’. Even then that one seemed a bit obvious, I mean it was primary school. When I was in P7 I was sent to America for a six-week holiday. It was some sort of cross-community scheme to promote mutual understanding, so I was sent to live with a Catholic family for six weeks. There was the mother and father and three sons, and they were good, kind people. It was Mr and Mrs Benway, and the boys were called Chris, Eric and George. They all went out of their way to make me feel at home, and anything I wanted, within reason, I got. I was only eleven but even at that age America was a real culture shock, after living in the Shankill [the Shankill Road, Belfast]. Everything seemed ten times bigger – the airport, the roads, the cars, the houses, the fields, the shops, everything. They lived in a beach house in Massachusetts, literally on the beach. A river ran past one side of the house where the fresh water ran into the sea. So you could swim in either the salt water or the fresh water. When it was really hot we’d swim in the fresh water, because it was cooler. It was harder to swim in the fresh water but that didn’t matter because you just wanted to get cooled down. Coming from Belfast I’d never known heat like that before. There was a tree by the river with overhanging branches and a rope tied to it. We would run to the edge of the river bank and jump onto the rope and splash into the river. For me at that age, that was just magic. I got on really well with all the kids and we all had a fantastic time that summer. Religion just didn’t come into it. There was just one time around the end of the second week, the family all went to chapel. They invited me in and told me that I would be very welcome, but something told me not to go in. They just accepted that, it was no problem. The father went in and did whatever he had to do and then he came out five minutes later to sit in the car with me. I thought that that was very decent of him. The house they lived in was a mansion. It was just single storey above ground but there was a huge basement with underground parking and a swimming pool. It would have been about five or six times the size of my house. Everyone there had speedboats, and all the houses had jetties running out to sea for their boats. I spent a lot of time out at sea in the boats and they were really fantastic, big powerful boats. We used to race each other and we’d try to soak each other with the wake from the boats. When there were big waves we’d surf, and that was fantastic. As I say I was a good footballer and I was fairly fit, so I got

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the hang of surfing very quickly. After a couple of weeks I was nearly as good as the sons, and they really encouraged me. When the sun was going down we’d have barbecues on the beach. The beach was called ‘the spit’ and it was really beautiful to watch the sun going down over the water. The barbecues were fantastic, even the smell was fantastic. There would have been fresh sweetcorn, ribs, steak and big pink prawns. I’d never tasted food like it. There were a few stray dogs on the beach, who only seemed to come out at night and even they got fed. But it wasn’t all just beach life. They took me out for runs in the car, and that was great too because the car was air-conditioned and you were dead cool in the car while the outside temperature would have been in the 90s. They took me to Boston a couple of times to show me around and I enjoyed that too. If you wanted a drink or an ice cream or a burger, it was never a problem. As I say they couldn’t have been nicer to me. After six weeks I’d really got used to all of that, and that lifestyle, but then it was back home to Belfast, and I can tell you I really didn’t want to leave. But I was just eleven, and when you are eleven you just do what you’re told and get on with it. I can remember getting off the plane at Belfast and my heart sank, even though the weather was good. The one time I was out of Northern Ireland, they’d had a heatwave. I went to the Boys’ Model Secondary School, and I didn’t like it much, I don’t think that any of us did. There was a lot of truanting, everybody did it, so I’d take time off as well. The result of that was I didn’t do half as well academically as I should have. So I more or less just drifted through school and sort of went through the motions. There was an apathy about doing school work, but there was an apathy about the teachers as well, nobody had their hearts in it. As I say the only thing I really enjoyed in school was the football, and most of my friends would have been the same. I just wanted to leave school at the earliest opportunity, get a job and start earning money. I started working for Parsons and Parsons [a Belfast clothing company] when I was 16. I was told that it was a good job with prospects but at the beginning I was only earning £42 per week. I’d probably have been better off unemployed and claiming benefits, after I paid tax, insurance and travelling, but that wasn’t part of my culture, or my family’s culture. So I worked hard and always did more than I was asked to do, to try to get ahead. In the beginning I was working in ladies’ and gentlemen’s formal dress hire. I progressed

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from message boy to working in the stock rooms and eventually to dealing directly with the public in the fitting rooms. I was with Parsons and Parsons for about five and a half years and towards the end I would have been earning about £200 a week, which wasn’t bad really. There was a religiously mixed workforce in Parsons and Parsons, but there was no bad feeling whatever. We were just ordinary decent people trying to earn a living. We would go to the Slieve Donard Hotel in Newcastle for the staff ‘dos’ and we all socialised together and had a great time. That always provided us with the gossip for months afterwards. There was one Catholic guy I got on well with in particular and we’d have a pint together in Belfast on a Saturday, before we went home to our respective areas. I met my wife Karen when I was 19 and we just hit it off together from the start. I’d been out with lots of girls before but with Karen it was different, and she felt the same way. After a few months she became pregnant. Now that hadn’t exactly been planned, but I suppose a part of me was hoping that it would happen. I was overjoyed when I found out about it and Karen couldn’t have been happier. She’d always wanted to have a child and get married. We were living in a small two-bedroom terraced house on the Alliance Road, and our parents helped us, as much as they could, with bedding and furniture. Karen had to give up work, so there was only my salary. I worked hard fixing the house up, until we got it just the way we wanted it, ready for the child. Before 1989 the UDA would have had a bad reputation in the area. A lot of the UDA leaders were doing very nicely out of it. Those guys didn’t care about the loyalist cause, or any other cause for that matter, their only interest was in how much they could make from the UDA. Around 1989 we were aware that a new leadership was being formed. You had people like ——, who made no bones about it, he and others like him wanted to go for the IRA and Sinn Fein. Some of the UDA leaders before the new leadership actually worked for the security forces, and others had made deals with the IRA to leave them alone. The new leadership was different, the IRA were actively trying to kill them, and there had been repeated assassination attempts on them. While the police had left the old leadership in peace, because of their ‘understandings’, the new leadership were arrested and taken to Castlereagh [interrogation centre] all the time. The new leadership transformed the morale within the UDA, and good men were joining it again to take the war to the IRA and Sinn Fein. The IRA were still bombing and murdering all over the place. As far as the police and

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the army were concerned it was ‘an acceptable level of violence’. But it wasn’t acceptable to us [loyalists]. We wanted to take them [the IRA and Sinn Fein] on once and for all, to finish it. The IRA had been there all my life killing civilians, police officers and soldiers, bombing and devastating towns and cities. That’s what I grew up with, it was what my entire generation had grown up with, and we’d just had enough of it. I simply couldn’t understand how the Protestant and British people in Northern Ireland had been so complacent for so long. Who were these people [the IRA] anyway. It doesn’t take too much to plant a bomb, or to shoot some poor guy in the back. The UDA and the UFF post-1989 had a simple strategy to deal with them, find out who they are and kill them, before they killed even more innocent people. In the early 1990s there was a lot of talk about collusion, and about intelligence being passed to the UDA and the UVF by the army and security forces. Now I never directly encountered anything like that, but it wouldn’t have surprised me, because the security forces weren’t allowed to engage the IRA, so the UDA and UFF were increasingly doing the job for them, ‘taking out’ known Sinn Fein/IRA operators. The way I saw it the UDA and the UFF were becoming increasingly like a special forces operation for the police and the army. Brian Nelson had been the head of UFF intelligence and a British Army agent before he was arrested for collusion in 1989. An MI5 officer in a Sunday Times report recently called him a ‘patriot’ and a ‘hero’. The same MI5 officer complained that he had been ‘shabbily’ treated by the authorities after his cover was blown in 1989. So there you have an MI5 officer in the British secret service calling the head of UFF intelligence ‘a patriot’. That actually surprised people, but it shouldn’t have, because the British security forces and the UFF have a common enemy, the IRA. I personally think that when the loyalist paramilitaries started selective targeting [of Sinn Fein/IRA], information could have been passed on by the security forces, simply because the IRA were murdering police officers and soldiers, and they wanted it stopped. And there is only one way to stop IRA terrorists, and that’s by terrorising them, terrorising the terrorists. To hold them responsible for everything they do, the British or Protestant people get ‘hit’, they get ‘hit’. They called it ‘returning the serve’, and the timing of that was very important. The sooner it happened the better, so that everyone would see and know why it happened. That was the reactive part, but it had to be proactive as well. The IRA and Sinn Fein had to know that they were being hunted for a change, the victimisers had to become

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the victims, the victims of their own violence. It’s just like they say: live by the sword, die by the sword. I suppose the event which changed my life was the murder of a good friend of mine, William Thompson. He was older than me by about five or six years but we were the best of mates. A crowd of us would go away at weekends to a house which we would rent in the country. Some of the boys had legally held shotguns, so we’d have clay pigeon shooting, play cards and drink a few beers. We always had a great time together and we really enjoyed each others company. There was a lot of banter and good crack and we sparked off each other. The IRA murdered Billy on the Crumlin Road just outside Everton Girls’ School. He had been hit by nine bullets as he was dropping a passenger off. His family arrived at the scene while the police were still there with Billy’s body and they were completely devastated when they saw what had happened to him. That was a completely sectarian murder, Billy was killed because he was a Protestant, period. I know for a fact that he had no involvement in any loyalist paramilitary organisation, not even on the fringes. He came from a good decent family and none of them would have been involved in anything like that. The sad thing was Billy had only been taxiing for a couple of weeks. He was an ordinary decent young Protestant trying to make a living. He did his last run on the Shankill Road at 11 o’clock at night, and then he did another two or three hours in town [Belfast]. I was distraught when I heard that he’d been murdered but they [the IRA] weren’t content with that. They went on to claim that he was a sectarian murderer. They attempted to justify what they had done by blackening his name after they had killed him. That hurt his family almost as much as the murder itself because those people wouldn’t ever have been involved in anything like that. They had killed him and then tried to claim that he was a legitimate target, so as far as I was concerned the IRA were legitimate targets after that. Eventually I joined the UFF with the intention of taking out IRA men, and I knew that that was the UFF strategy by the 1990s. The only exception to that was if the IRA killed innocent Protestants, the UFF was prepared to kill innocent Catholics in retaliation. It did that so as the wider Catholic community would realise that if innocent Protestants were killed and if we couldn’t get IRA men, then they would pay the price. What that effectively meant was if the wider Catholic community wanted to be left in safety then the IRA had to stop killing innocent Protestants and British people, so it was up to the Catholic community to put pressure on the IRA.

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Timing was very important in all of that. There was no point at all in killing Catholics in retaliation six months after innocent Protestants were killed, because that was seen and presented by the media as random sectarian murder. The psychology in all of this was important and the Catholic community had to learn that if they countenanced the IRA’s murder of innocent Protestants, as they had done for 20 years, they would suffer the consequences with an equal brutality, and in very quick succession. The UFF really didn’t want to get bogged down with that because our principal targets were IRA men, but equally we couldn’t stand by as innocent Protestants and other British citizens were being killed. The loyalists had been accused of being mindless sectarian killers but it was always about maintaining a balance of terror. But the wider public didn’t see it that way because they couldn’t see the sequence in it. Too much time lapsed between innocent Protestants being killed and ordinary Catholics being killed because then it was seen as random, and not as ‘a return of serve’ that had always been dependent upon, and conditional upon, the murder of innocent Protestants, or British citizens more generally, be it civilians, police or army personnel. Yes hundreds of innocent Catholics were killed who never should have been killed, but the IRA was responsible for that, because Catholics were killed in retaliation for the murder of Protestants and British citizens. Karen had a very straightforward pregnancy but when it got close to the birth I was frantic with worry. I didn’t show that outwardly but that’s how it felt inside. I didn’t want her to have to go through all of that pain and distress. Would she be alright? Would the child be OK? But when Ryan was born we were both overjoyed, really over the moon. I loved him and I felt responsible for him from the first minute I saw him. By that time I was in the UDA because I saw the calibre of the new men who were joining. Those men joined for one reason and one reason only, to put the IRA out of business. Ironically in a way Ryan’s being born pushed me further into the organisation. I’d known nothing but trouble and murder and death all my life in Northern Ireland, and the people truly responsible for that were the IRA. I didn’t want Ryan to go through life as I had, and there was only one way to achieve that, to eradicate the aggressor, to remove, or at the very least to neutralise, the IRA. That’s when I decided to move to the military side of the UFF. I became a member of an ASU based in Belfast. It was very tight, very disciplined. But the changes [in the UDA/UFF] evolved slowly, you didn’t get to be as professional as the Provos overnight.

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More and more recruits were coming in and it wasn’t like before, these were high-calibre men. There was a small number of [UFF] ASUs but they were very highly organised and very effective. There is only a small number of men who are actually in an ASU, but they depend on a lot of support players. You had to get clothes, get transport, get guns, sometimes a backup car, get in, do the business, get out, go to a safe house or safe houses, get cleaned [i.e. forensically], get away and get an alibi. All of that involved a lot of people and organisation, and more often than not you never knew who they were, either before or afterwards. You entrusted your life and liberty to strangers but we knew that none of those people would let us down. The IRA knew that we were going after them, and that we were going to hurt them. The IRA and the media portrayed us [the UFF] as drunks and thugs, who celebrated our missions by going back into the local bar and boasting about what we did. But that was all lies, planned misrepresentation. When we were on active service we didn’t drink, because if you weren’t 100 per cent you were a liability both to yourself and more importantly to your unit. After a mission I went back to Karen and Ryan and had a cup of tea, just as if everything was normal. I just said to the boys, when you need me, come and get me. I remember the day of the Shankill bomb, everybody remembers what they were doing or where they were that day. It was a bit like the day President Kennedy was shot I suppose. Karen and I had been out with baby Ryan to get coal, because we had nearly run out of coal and the house had to be kept warm for Ryan. Shortly after we got home a neighbour whose husband worked for the Belfast Telegraph ran in to tell us that the Shankill had been bombed. The Belfast Telegraph’s switchboard had picked up the news almost immediately and her husband had phoned to make sure that she was alright. I drove straight to the Shankill to see what I could do. It didn’t take me long to realise that a bomb had been detonated. When I arrived on the scene there were about 300 people standing shellshocked around what had been Frizzell’s fish shop. It was difficult to get through the police lines to join the people who were trying to help to get the people and the bodies out of the rubble. When I saw what had actually happened I was gutted. There were bodies of men, women and children lying in the rubble. Grown men were crying with blood streaming from their hands from where they had been frantically searching through the broken bricks and masonry. I just can’t describe how I felt standing there, I think I was actually in

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shock. Karen and Ryan could easily have been there, in that shop. The IRA claimed that it was a strike against the UFF, that the UFF were holding a meeting there. The reality was that it had been a random bombing designed to turn the ordinary people away from the UFF through murdering and terrorising them, men, women and children. Of course what it actually achieved was the opposite of that. The ordinary people had completely given up on the police and the army in protecting them, they began increasingly to look to us [the UFF]. We were inundated with young loyalist recruits but by that stage we were only interested in quality not quantity, so we were very selective. That was in October 1993, ‘Black October’, and the Provos had ‘upped the anti’ big time. They started the ball rolling, it was a war situation, and things had to be done. Karen would have been just 20 and Ryan was about five months but that didn’t matter at that time, I sent the word out, ‘I’m ready to move.’ The entire UFF was mobilised, and we were all on standby and it was ‘watch this space’. I sat and watched the television coverage of the bomb, and the sadness of it all got to me, but more than that it was the hopelessness of it, as if these things happened and we’d just have to accept it. I just thought, ‘Fuck that, these things only happen because the IRA make them happen, so right we’ll go for the IRA and their supporters. We’ll take the war to them for a change, just as they had brought the war to us.’ By Sunday [the next day] I still hadn’t been called and it was eating me up because I wanted to go for these bastards and I didn’t want to waste any time in doing it. By midafternoon still no one had sent for me so I went to a location in Belfast and told certain people there, ‘Look I’m offering my services, regardless [i.e. of what the mission is], you know where I am when you need me.’ I didn’t understand the delay at the time but I know now that all our [the UFF’s] IRA and republican targets moved south [i.e. out of Northern Ireland]. They had disappeared overnight. The IRA and republicans didn’t want to pay the price for what they did to the Protestant civilians on the Shankill, but they were happy enough to let ordinary Catholics take the retaliation, and the dogs on the street could have told you that there would be retaliation. On the Monday night I was collected and taken to a house in the Village [an area of the Donegal Road in Belfast]. We drove past the cleaning depot off Kennedy Way where we were to strike the next day. They were going to drive past again to let me see the area for a second time, but I said, ‘No I have it in my head.’ I’m like that, you only have to show me something once and that’s it, I’ve got it. I said

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to the other two, ‘Look don’t worry, I’ll get you in and I’ll get you back out, it’s not a problem.’ Then I asked them, ‘Are the targets IRA?’ One guy then said, ‘Look, were those women and wee children on the Shankill UFF?’ Then he said, ‘Look, this is west Belfast they’re all republicans or Sinn Fein supporters up here.’ Now I had been on two missions before where we’d been ‘tooled up’ in IRA territory and we could have easily killed Catholics but we didn’t, because we were after specific targets [i.e. IRA men]. I was charged with the attempted murder of an IRA man in 1993. We drove to his house, we were wearing masks and carrying guns, in the middle of republican Belfast. His car wasn’t there and the house was clean [empty] so we just aborted the mission and drove straight out of there. On another occasion we were going for the IRA quartermaster in the Ardoyne [off the Antrim Road in Belfast] and that was the same story, we couldn’t get him, our selected target, so it was out of there, just abort the mission. But this was different, this was the aftermath of the Shankill bomb, and if the IRA were prepared to murder our people, we were similarly prepared to murder people within its host community. The only difference was we [‘Tommy’s unit] weren’t prepared to murder women and children. I got up at 6.30 sharp on the Tuesday morning and I made sure not to wake Karen getting out of bed. I made a cup of tea and left the house. I pushed the car down the street before I started it, again, so as not to wake Karen. I drove out to the Village and parked just a couple of streets away from the safe house. I walked over to the safe house, the door was unlatched and I just went in. There was a girl called Wendy already in the house, and she shouldn’t have been there. The house was to have been left empty for us. Then the other two [the gunmen] walked in so she saw them as well. I was angry about that but there was no point in shouting at her, because she was just a loyalist trying to help us. What happened, happened, but it was a serious breach of security, and in normal circumstances we would have simply walked away and aborted the mission completely, that would have been standard procedure for us. But these weren’t normal circumstances, and we were determined to press on with the attack and avenge the Shankill, regardless. We knew that we were killing innocents, like for like, but we hadn’t started that, and we had no choice because the ‘Ra’ [IRA] had gone to ground, so as we couldn’t target them. I can’t explain how I cut off from that [‘Tommy’s more characteristic sense of morality], but I did. I couldn’t

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normally have killed ordinary people, who happened to be Catholics, but I just felt pushed into it. If you weren’t prepared to be as ruthless as them [the IRA] you were going to lose. I didn’t sit down and try to work it out, I was completely driven by my instinct, I did it because I had to do it, and it was as simple as that. I drove the two gunmen to Kennedy Way and then to the depot. One was carrying an AK47 and the other a Mach 10, with 20 rounds. They were wearing DoE [Department of the Environment] coats to blend in with their environment. They put on balaclavas and locked and loaded the guns and walked into the yard were the workmen where. There were about 12 or 15 men there in all and they were standing around outside the office. The two gunmen opened fire, just a burst from the AK and then the Mach 10. There were several more bursts. One of the employees ran out of the yard, screaming, waving his arms in the air. Blood was streaming out of one of his hands where he must have been shot. I knew by that stage that some of those employees were dead by now. [Two men were actually killed and several more were seriously injured.] I was sitting outside the yard and I was fairly fired up when I noticed a red Sierra pull up on the opposite side of the road. I knew that he wasn’t security forces or IRA, because he just looked like an insignificant nosy bastard, so I ignored him. The two gunmen got back into the car, quite calm and collected. I then did a U-turn on the road and drove away in the direction we had arrived from. I drove away quickly but not fast enough to draw attention to us. I looked in the mirror and fuck me it was that red Sierra behind us. We had a backup car further behind us and we radioed to it to push in right on our tail to lose the Sierra. He pushed in, in front of the Sierra, forcing it to brake, then he jammed on his brakes forcing the Sierra to stop dead. We lost them in traffic after that. The two gunmen stayed down on the floor until we got back to the Village. Then it was into the safe house. We changed our clothes and dumped the gear [guns] and made our way back to the Shankill. We got there just in time to see one of the funerals going down the Shankill Road. [It had been the Morrison family, Michael Morrison, Evelyn Baird (his partner) and their seven year old daughter, Michelle.] A short time after the shooting I was arrested and taken to Castlereagh. I was questioned, and they were good, they used every trick in the book. Then they told me that they were arresting Karen as an accomplice to murder. About a day later they took me from the interview room and down the corridor to the cells. They walked

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me past another interview room and the door was three quarters open. Two police officers were interviewing Karen and I could hear that she was breaking her heart. I could only see her hands but I recognised her voice and the engagement ring. I knew that they were using psychology, there was nothing that they could charge her with because she didn’t know anything about my involvement. They were using Karen to get to me and I knew that, I knew it was all part of the game plan, but knowing that didn’t help. On two further occasions they walked me past that room and I could see that Karen was becoming even more upset, they had her crying her eyes out. I had been trained in anti-interrogation techniques, but I hadn’t been trained how to handle that. They told me that all I had to do was make a statement and they’d release Karen, and that she could go home to look after Ryan. By that stage they had built up a very good case against me and I knew that they knew that I had been involved. It was shortly after that that I signed a statement and Karen was released. The rest is just history, I’ve been in prison ever since [1993].* JOHNNY ADAIR Johnny Adair (now in his 40s) is one of the most striking men I have ever met. 5’8”, muscle-bound, T-shirted, and bristling with physical energy, he seemed perfectly at home in prison. He was obviously deeply suspicious of me, as he would be of anyone beyond his control. Adair exuded a sense of dangerousness and of raw power. There was a thinly veiled wildness about him which in normal military circumstances would inspire the men but profoundly concern the officers. But this was no conventional army, and Adair controlled precisely those who should have constrained him, ultimately in his and in his own family’s interests. I always knew that something was wrong within the organisation [UDA/UFF 1986–89]. Major atrocities were happening [perpetrated by the IRA] and we weren’t being allowed to hit back. The leadership then told us it wasn’t just about guns, there were political considerations. I said, ‘Fuck, we’re the UFF, we’re about guns not fucking politics.’ They would say, ‘Look, we know the way you feel, but the time’s not right.’ So we [the UFF] sat around on our hands watching the IRA doing just whatever they wanted, and getting away with it. * ‘Tommy’ was released on 28 July 2000, under the early release provisions of the Good Friday Agreement.

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We knew that there was something badly wrong, but what could you do about it? If you challenged the leadership you could have ended up in a body bag in somebody’s wheelie bin. Then there was the Stevens Enquiry which investigated police and loyalist collusion. As it turned out the leader of the UFF was acting as an agent for the security forces. The British [intelligence service] had to sanction everything the UDA/UFF did. So the odd time they [the UFF] would have been allowed to target some fucking IRA man the police and the army couldn’t get, but who they [the British] wanted taken out. Those were the crumbs off the table thrown to them [the UFF] to keep them happy. The Stevens Enquiry was the best thing that ever happened to the UDA/UFF. It removed leadership which had accepted suitcases full of money from the British intelligence services to keep the UFF out of the game. It took them out, removed them. After that there was a major clean-up [within the UDA/UFF]. All the criminal elements and men who might have been informers were removed. They only kept people they knew inside out, people from known families who had a history of loyalist involvement. The order was given, ‘Everybody watch everybody else, for the good and safety of membership.’ And that’s what they did. They [UFF] knew all about each other’s movements and we checked in with each other all the time. Just doing that brought them closer together and gave them a sense of unity and purpose. The organisation and the war became higher and higher priorities. They started to bond as an organisation and that was going to be very important for the task which lay ahead. The first task in front of them was intelligence, to build up the body of intelligence upon the IRA and Sinn Fein. Sinn Fein and the IRA are one and the same and everybody knows that. They want to be a political movement and a terrorist organisation, but that’s impossible, it’s a contradiction. The UDP for example, they’re completely separate from the UFF. They can advise them, and they can act as persuaders but they aren’t military and that’s the difference. Our [military] brigade staff make all the operational decisions. The biggest mistake IRA/Sinn Fein ever made was in taking their masks off. If you’re in a terrorist organisation you can’t do that. You compromise yourself and your organisation. You blow your cover completely and you leave yourself exposed and vulnerable. When they decided to do that they must have known it was over [that the IRA’s military campaign was over]. There is some suggestion that the leadership wanted to go political, and they wanted to go political before they were killed, because that’s the way things were

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going. Obviously they had a problem with their troops on the ground because all those guys knew about were AKs and Semtex. They didn’t give a damn about politics, for them it was just AKs and Semtex. So it just might have been very clever, get them to take the masks off, make them feel vulnerable as well, that concentrates the mind wonderfully. I was always very curious about IRA strategy and tactics, some of it was brilliant. The UFF actually adopted the IRA’s strategy and tactics and used it against them. They knew just how good it was because we’d been on the receiving end of it. But there were huge contradictions in the IRA’s strategy. Like the hunger strikes. The entire Roman Catholic population supported the hunger strikers. I firmly believe the hunger strike was set up by the British to achieve precisely that outcome. All they had to do was give the men [the protesting prisoners] their own clothes, end of problem. American, European and world opinion supported the protesters, and the IRA had an unrivalled amount of support. If I had been an IRA commander, and if those had been my men, I would have bombed the London Underground, Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle, even Dublin. In military terms it was a gift, and I would have pressed on to the full advantage. And what did the IRA do? Practically nothing. There were only two outcomes after the hunger strikes – total war, or a negotiated settlement, and that was going to have to be within a partitionist framework [i.e. involving an IRA acceptance of the legitimacy of the Northern Ireland state, and the recognition that a united Ireland remained a longer-term aspiration]. By 1991 the UFF had got its act together. The UFF had collected intelligence on a significant number of IRA men and women. They were undertaking regular surveillance of them all over Northern Ireland, and even in the Republic [of Ireland]. At first they [the UFF] acted reactively, if a loyalist or member of the security forces was hit the IRA was hit. Then they [the UFF] started operating proactively, they began to target and hunt the [IRA] leadership. The UFF was for the first time reversing the roles, and taking the war to the IRA. The UFF were operational in the republican heartland of west Belfast. The IRA were being rattled as never before. UFF men even let the IRA know that they were there. They would set an IRA man up for a hit, say using two cars. The IRA man would catch on, but then the ASU would just drive off. It was like a calling card. Connolly House, the IRA’s HQ in Andersonstown was hit three times in about a week. They used grenades, rockets and AK47s. From 1990 to the ceasefires 26 IRA/Sinn Fein men were ‘taken out’.

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There was one particular UFF unit, UFF 2nd Battalion C Company. They had been very active. They were on the job 24 hours a day, everyday. The men in C Company virtually lived with each other and they became like a brotherhood. It would be true to say that they would have been prepared to die for each other. They had one mission in life and that was to put the IRA out of business. And they took that mission very seriously. But there were funny times as well. On one occasion the leader had given —— guns to hide until they were needed. —— was an army fanatic and he was always reading books about the SAS. He would actually call to your door to tell you about some SAS exploit he’d read about. He called with the leader on this particular night. The leader had guns which he wanted hidden until they were needed. So he gave —— the guns to hide, and as far as —— was concerned this was a great privilege. Anyway if someone gives you guns to hide the chances are you’ll take them home and hide them in your roof space, or put them under floorboards. But not ——, he’d taken the guns halfway up the Black Mountain and buried them in a field 20 paces away from a big chestnut tree. This had been in the summertime and —— had taken his bearings from the sun. The leader needed the guns urgently so they took spades and travelled out to the field. By now of course it was November and the cloud cover was thick and very dark, you couldn’t even see the sun. After a couple of hours’ digging nothing was found so they stopped because they had to attend a [loyalist] funeral at one o’clock. After the funeral all the men went to a bar. They were all dressed in their best suits and everything else. The leader was desperate to get the guns, so he announced that —— [a deceased loyalist leader] had buried £50,000 in a field, and that if they could find it, it would be shared out equally. So these 50 men all drove out to the field and in their best clothes, in the pouring rain, began to dig for the buried money. They dug that field up until it got too dark, but the guns were never found. They tell me that some of the men still go out to dig in that field. The leader just lets them carry on because some day they just might find the guns. The IRA have wanted to kill me for years. I told you about the last time when I was shot in Botanic Gardens. The selective targeting of the IRA hurt them [the IRA], and it hurt them badly. They decided that they wanted me killed, which in a way was a measure of the UFF’s success against them.

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Back in 1990 I was starting to come to the attention of the security forces. I was arrested and questioned by the RUC. They offered me money in an attempt to bribe me, but I was having nothing to do with that. They told me that they could offer me protection and that the IRA were out to kill me. They told me that the IRA could kill me in my street, in my home, or while travelling to and from home, or they could kill me at the [UDA/UFF] headquarters, or they could kill me when I was taking my children to and from primary school. The interesting thing was that the IRA went on to try to kill me at all those locations. The first time was outside Berlin Street [UDA/UFF] headquarters. Unknown to me two IRA men had had me under surveillance. It was a nice warm sunny day and two men got out from a car and they walked toward us. We [Johnny Adair and his bodyguard] got into our car. We knew that they were there but we didn’t think too much about it. They had no hoods on or anything and they were just casually walking down the footpath. The next thing I saw was the glint of an AK47 being pulled out from under this guy’s coat, his associate pulled out a handgun. I thought I knew the tactic they would use: immobilise me and the car with the AK, and then it would be one to the head at point-blank range with the handgun. Those guys were cool, professional. Instead of spraying the car with automatic fire like a hot head this guy clicked the AK into single-shot mode. An AK47 will make a hole in metal the size of your fist. This was obviously a top guy [IRA man]. He systematically riddled the car, it was a white Vauxhall Carlton, and it was completely riddled. There were gaping holes in the driver’s seat where I’d been sitting. —— rolled out of the car and he was shot in the leg. I was grazed on the side and on the left arm, but by rights I should have been dead. Bullets had been coming in all around me. The Carlton was big enough for me to wedge myself up under the steering wheel and I just kept my body pressed down. The bullets that should have got me were lodged in the engine block. Then the two IRA men just walked away convinced that I couldn’t have lived through that. The ironic thing was if they had sent some idiot who would just have sprayed the car with AK automatic fire, I would have been killed. The guys they sent were too professional for their own good. They went by the book and they should have got me. The size of the car’s cylinder block probably saved me. A short time after that an IRA hit team was apprehended behind my house. They had been sent from Andersonstown. As it happened the police were undertaking surveillance of my movements and they

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arrested them. They were charged with conspiracy to murder. They [the IRA] hadn’t sent a couple of adolescents to get me. One of those guys was 39 and the other one was 42. They were mature, seasoned terrorists who had obviously done the business [killed] before. Where I live, on the Shankill, is one of the most heavily policed areas in Northern Ireland. Another IRA hit team was identified targeting my house. The police gave chase. They were stopped and caught in Brompton Park. They were carrying a shotgun and a Regur rifle. Ballistics traced the gun and it had been used previously in the murder of a UFF man. On another occasion the intelligence service tried to kill me. 14th Intelligence. They’re a special army unit, covert operations, SAS trained and they’re good, they are very good. You could be talking to one of them and you wouldn’t even know it. I’ve got security cameras in my house, you walk past and a light goes on and the short circuit TV bleeps. There were four of us in the front room, and we were watching this really short fat guy, a nondescript, walking up and down outside the house. We went out and called to this guy, ‘Why are you walking up and down here?’ He began to walk away quickly, and we followed him shouting, ‘Hey, who are you?’ The guy stopped and stooped over. The next thing his arm sweeps around perfectly straight, for precision firing. My reaction was to jerk back so fast I fell, and so I missed the bullet. It hit —— behind me but lucky for him he had a chunky key ring attached to this belt, and the bullet hit that, probably saving his life. The next thing we knew cars came from everywhere, guys in civilian clothes, just a driver in each car. 14th Int. Very quickly after that the police arrived, so obviously they had to abort their mission. This wee short fat guy, you would never have thought he was a soldier, never mind special ops. That was the beauty of 14th Int. They blended in with the environment. Nobody knew who the fuck they were. That taught us lessons too, to use the most unlikely people in intelligence work. Talking about the 14th Int., there was another occasion when a lone female from the 14th Int. had been driving around the Shankill, and then into the [republican] Ardoyne. A police SASU [special active service unit] had followed her and assumed that she was going in for a hit. As far as they were concerned she was probably a loyalist gunwoman. Two undercover police cars which had been following her rammed her car at Carlisle Circus. It was what they called a ‘hard hit’. That would stun most people and we know because it’s happened to our people. Anyway the police rammed her car at speed,

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and these guys were good. Their uniforms were near enough all black and they could almost pick any weapons they wanted from the RUC’s armoury. Again like the SAS. Anyway they hit the 14th Int. girl’s car and the first officer moved in holding his weapon high, pointing it at the driver’s front window. She put her feet up on the dash, and lowered her head and body right down on the seat. Using a high calibre revolver she fired under the wheel grip of the steering wheel, bang, bang, bang, bang. The police officer fell dead. As she was under the dashboard level she didn’t provide the police with a target and they weren’t about to find out if she had another firearm, or if she’d reloaded. 14th Int. guys just arrived on the scene from nowhere and she was out of there. The police couldn’t have stopped them retrieving one of their own from a war-zone situation. The SASUs were good, but they knew when to back off. As far as she was concerned the un-uniformed police could have been Provos, or even us, because she’d cruised the Shankill going past UDA/UFF personnel’s homes. Had we been following her we might have thought that she was a Provo, going back to the Ardoyne. But it would have been highly unlikely, the Provo ASUs usually consisted of two or three men. It just wasn’t their style, a lone female. So we’d probably have assumed she was 14th Int. or some other British special forces outfit, and we would have pulled back to surveillance status, attacking only if we’d been attacked. The police told me about another attempted hit. An IRA team had set off from north Belfast to shoot me as I took my children to school. Police intelligence had been on the case. Apparently the car the IRA men were using had broken down and they found it abandoned as they were making their way to Tennant Street [where the primary school was located]. On another occasion the IRA took over a house opposite my house. An old retired couple lived there and they were taken hostage. There were two IRA men and they tied the old couple up. Fair enough they told them that they wouldn’t be harmed, and that they were there to kill Johnny Adair. One of the guys was carrying a grip. He was a blond-haired baby-faced guy and they said that he was dead cool. They produced two AKs from the grip and snapped in the magazines. The front bedroom had two windows and they [the IRA men] each went to a window and positioned themselves. They were there for two hours but when I didn’t arrive they aborted the mission. After that the old couple moved out, and I was sorry about that because I’d liked them, and I knew that I was responsible for that. They told

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me not to worry before they left, because they knew that there was a war going on. They wished me good luck and they meant it. There were tears in the old girl’s eyes. That same house was then taken over by a loyalist couple. They were loyalists but they had no connections with the paramilitaries. They offered to keep a look out for anything suspicious in the street. If there was anything odd going on they told me that they would pull a blind down, ordinarily they just used the curtains. So every time I went out, or came into the house, I’d look over to their house to check the blinds. The IRA arrived and took over the house again. It was another two-man team. This time one of the guys was a wee fat man. After they had occupied the house the [loyalist] guy’s wife got up to pull a blind, but the fat guy told her not to move. He was a professional and she knew that he would have killed her. Then a knock came on the door. It was a friend of the family, an off-duty UDR who was with a friend of his. The IRA man told —— to bring them into the house. The UDR man caught on to the set-up immediately. He knew that the IRA men would search him, and that they would find his legally held revolver, and that they’d kill him, taking him for a loyalist paramilitary, or a member of the security forces. He pulled his gun and fired a single shot into the air, and then pointed the gun towards each of them in turn. The IRA guys panicked. The AKs weren’t loaded. They were lying on the floor with the magazines beside them. They [the IRA men] just ran straight out of the house and down into Snugville Street where they hijacked a car and made their escape. Shortly after that I was arrested and charged with directing terrorist operations. Policemen, who I thought I’d had friendly relations with, had secretly tape-recorded our conversations and they were used in evidence against me. Incredibly enough I had actually trusted police officers, but I thought that they were just a couple of decent wee men. They were uniform, not special branch, and to me they were lightweights. It never occurred to me that two wee shits like that could ever pose a threat to me. Obviously I’m not saying anything about that. I would like to say, however, that I was very glad when the IRA declared their ceasefire. They had a clear choice: stop the killing or die. What did they get after 30 years? Nothing. We hadn’t wanted the war in the first place, but some people weren’t prepared to let them [the IRA] away with what they were doing. There was going to be a heavy, heavy price to be paid for the pain and hurt

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they brought to my people, the Protestant and British people of Northern Ireland and the United Kingdom. ‘GORDON’ ‘Gordon’ (now in his 40s) was military, there was just no mistaking that. Well built, approximately 6’ tall, and obviously very fit, he exuded that special understated confidence of a soldier who is a master at his craft. He may have been a UDA prisoner in the UFF wings of the Maze, but he could as easily have been an SAS man operating undercover. ‘Gordon’ was so self-contained the immediate environment he was in was largely irrelevant. I knew that that had taken years of training, discipline and experience in the field, where even the most hostile conditions can be utilised to personal advantage. His current mission was getting through his sentence, and he was using that time to train in preparation for the next. I would have had a fairly ordinary family life. I would have been close to both my parents, but it was nothing special. They were just ordinary good parents. I got on very well with my brothers and sisters. I would have been closest to my big sister, she always looked out for me. My mother and father both worked and they were out of the house a lot, so I’d play in the street or go to friends’ houses. It was a very friendly community, everybody knew everybody else, and you always had someone to go to for tea or whatever. I went to Blackmountain Primary School, but I was no great academic. I can remember playing rugby there. I was good at that. I enjoyed school and being with my friends. The teachers were mostly fairly decent. In secondary school there would have been the usual fights. When I look at them now I have to laugh, ‘hard men’. Things change in life don’t they? I had good relationships with nearly all the kids, but I wouldn’t have been a leader or anything then, just average, part of the crowd. I didn’t take school work seriously, very few of us did, so I left before I had to sit the exams. I started work at 16 as a labourer with a Belfast firm and that was hard, rough work. I was always aware of the troubles, you couldn’t avoid them. I have very early memories of being pulled out of [evacuated from] the New Barnsley estate where we lived and that was frightening. The UDA men came in lorries to evacuate us and we took just whatever we could in the middle of a riot. I remember the expression on people’s faces, everybody was frightened. There was lots of shouting and screaming

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and you could see people’s silhouettes against the flames of burning houses and cars. I remember the acrid smell of the smoke, the smell of petrol and plastic. Every time I smell petrol or plastic it takes me back to that. It’s like a part of you that doesn’t go away, you grow older but it stays there and it stays the same. The army helped to put us up in a local school. The beds were lined up like in a dormitory. I was only a very young child but I knew that something terrible was happening. I’d never seen my mother crying before, she’d do her best to hide it, but I knew she was crying. A lot of the women were. Eventually we were moved to a house at the bottom of the Springmartin very close to the peace line. There was a lot of rioting, and IRA gunfire coming in from the Catholic estates. I remember that the army would come into the house and sometimes into my bedroom. They would tell me to lie on the floor and they’d take up positions at the window, or sometimes they’d take cover on the floor beside me. It was hard to get to sleep some nights because you’d lie in bed listening to the gunfire waiting for it to get closer. The army were actually stationed at my school [Blackmountain Primary School]. There would be gunshots and gun-battles around the school. The football pitch we had there was concrete and the army used it to land and take off in their helicopters. At first we’d all run to the windows to see them land and the soldiers jumping out, hitting the ground running, but it got to be so frequent nobody bothered. I saw a lot of wounded people and men running around with hankies over their faces. One of the soldiers was killed just beside the school. They [the IRA] tried to bomb the army barracks at the bottom of the Springmartin. They couldn’t get close enough so they bombed a house close to the barracks just a couple of houses down from us. We all thought that we’d been bombed. The explosion was so loud you were literally deafened. I remember that my heart was pounding so heavily I thought that I was having some kind of an attack. My mother used to give the army tea and sandwiches. The IRA would have killed you for that. My mother has a photograph of her with the paras [paratroopers]. One of them was killed, a guy called Sergeant Willetts. He threw himself down over a bomb in an RUC station to save the lives of other people. That photograph is very precious to my mother, probably because as she sees it, he died for us. And I don’t mean just loyalists, I mean for the people of Northern Ireland, Catholic and Protestant. She’s shown me that photograph a lot over the years. I always knew that the UDA and the UVF were there, but I didn’t become involved in anything until I was 28. None of my family,

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father, brothers or sisters were involved. I came from a very respectable family, people would have looked up to us. I had my own business. I ran a newsagent’s shop through the day and then I worked a night shift as a labourer. I had my own business, my own car, a wife and three children. I have a child from a previous marriage which failed. I married her because she was pregnant but I didn’t love her, it just wasn’t there. Make no mistake I mightn’t have loved her but I love the child, we’re very close. She’s a big girl of 16 now. With ‘Maggie’ it got to the stage were it was any reason to stay away from the house, so the night shift suited me, for obvious reasons. I suppose that there were two main reasons why I became involved. My wife and our three children had gone into Belfast to shop. I was just home from work and she’d left a note to tell me that, on the kitchen table. I turned the radio on before making a cup of tea just as the news was coming on. ‘A no-warning car bomb in Belfast.’ I was frantic, it could have been my wife, my children, my parents, you, me, anybody. Suddenly it became personal. Who the fuck were these people bombing innocent civilians, Protestants, Catholics? It didn’t matter a fuck to them. All of this coincided with what I knew to be the new leadership within the UDA/UFF. I was always aware of the corruption which had existed [within the loyalist paramilitaries] previously, but now it was different. The new UDA/UFF leadership was determined to take the war to the IRA. They were going after the players [active IRA/Sinn Fein members]. My community had been under attack from the IRA for over 20 years. Friends, and good friends of mine, had been killed, some in the RUC and some in the UDR. I thought to myself I have my own shop, my own house, my own car but no matter how far up the ladder I went it was no good. I was a product of the conflict, and I was a part of that conflict. Suddenly it had touched me. It was a revelation like suddenly waking up and realising these people could kill you or your family. When I saw the no-warning car bombs going off again that was it, it could have been my wife and my children, and that wasn’t on. I decided to join the UDA as I knew they were doing something about it. The media talked about all these innocent Catholics being killed, but they weren’t innocent. There was specific targeting, they were known Sinn Fein/IRA men, and the loyalists were acting on high-grade intelligence and painstaking surveillance. The truth is there was a concerted government/media conspiracy to delegitimise the loyalist paramilitaries, and to present them as mindless sectarian murderers. Nothing could have been further from the reality. They were going for violent

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republicanism, Sinn Fein and the IRA. We’d had 20 years of being terrorised, bombed, shot and murdered, and now we were determined to go for broke, to put the IRA out of business. The change of UDA/UFF leadership carried a lot of consequences, now they were attracting high calibre volunteers, competent and dedicated men who were willing to do the business. I firmly believed, as did the other volunteers, that the war had to be taken to the IRA, that we’d have to put them through what we’d been put through. The strategy and tactics changed to taking on known republicans, the IRA, and I was a part of that. I became part of UFF 2nd Battalion C Company. We were all very close, like a family. There was a dedicated leadership and we took our inspiration from that. The leaders led from the front and we were never asked to do anything which they hadn’t done themselves. These weren’t the sort of armchair generals who had been in control before, they were in there with us. The previous leader of the UFF had been a guy called Brian Nelson. As it turned out he was being controlled and run by British intelligence. That’s why the UFF was so comparatively inactive up until 1989. Virtually everything had to be sanctioned by the British. That’s why the men couldn’t operate, they were being held back. We always had good high quality volunteers, no shortage of them, but they were betrayed by the leadership. All of that changed in 1989. Under the new leadership only a very small and select number of men were active, but there were hundreds of men and women we could call upon. Now we knew that the IRA were a formidable enemy who had developed highly successful tactics and strategy. OK, so we used precisely their strategy and tactics in our war against them. They had gone for our leadership, so we decided to go for their leadership. We reversed the roles; what they did to us, we now did to them. We targeted both —— and ——, and they’ll never know how lucky they were. Every time we set them [the IRA] up they, either the RUC, the army or a foot patrol would arrive like clockwork. They were like a sheet of cotton wool between us and them [the IRA]. We had good intelligence on known IRA men and women, and we started hunting them. We undertook surveillance and we would have ‘backtracked’ them [find out everything you could about them, from a range of sources. This was actually a very elaborate and sophisticated process details of which cannot be divulged]. We knew who they were [Sinn Fein/IRA] even if they claimed their innocence. We watched where they went, who they associated with, where they lived, the relationships they had, their level of IRA contact, we even

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had full plans of their safe houses. Sometimes we let them know that we were there. They would have been in the middle of the republican heartland of Andersonstown and the next thing they knew the UFF were behind them, they would go to run but we would have men in front of them as well. That was psychological warfare, we were scaring the shit out of them. They were being rattled as never before. We didn’t even bother to wear masks, because we wanted them to know who was on their case. We backtracked ——. He had been an IRA commander in Londonderry and he had been responsible for attacks on the police and the army. Ken Maginnis [UUP MP] had openly called him an IRA man on television. To claim that we had no information or intelligence is quite wrong, we had men who did nothing else except collect intelligence. That was their full-time occupation, and they were bloody good at it, both men and women. As I progressed within the UFF I became a member of an ASU, and we would work on a number of special projects at any one time. Some were hot and some would have been passive, and that might have changed depending upon a number of variables. Was he, or she, active? Was access difficult? Was there security forces surveillance? etc. So you just weren’t after one person at any given time. We would even have picked up important information when we were taken to Castlereagh [interrogation centre]. The police would have told us about the IRA men they were holding, who was suspected of what, who did what. But this wasn’t collusion because they were also telling the IRA men about us. They hated the loyalists as much as the IRA so if we wiped each other out that was fine by them. As far as we were concerned the police were mercenaries. They just did whatever they were told for money. But some of that was really highgrade information. We played the police along, getting as much information as we could. So we didn’t mind going to Castlereagh, for us it was just another intelligence-gathering mission. When we got released we’d meet and debrief as soon as possible and put all the information together, who had said what to whom, how many times it was said, the disposition of the police officer when he said what he said, who were the key players. It all went up on a blackboard, everything we could remember, then that was all written up and then typed up on computer as part of our intelligence database. Some of our younger people were computer whizz-kids. I’d no idea how useful they could be. We were building up a very clear picture of the IRA structure and hierarchy in Northern Ireland, all of Northern Ireland. We had people

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working all over the place, even in republican bars with tape recorders tuning in on all the rumours and gossip, who was what, who was doing what. That was one of the richest veins of information, there was a lot of loose talk with drink taken, and no consideration given to security. Just go into a republican area after an IRA operation and everyone is talking about who did it, who the CO was, etc. That taught us valuable lessons about our own security. We even let other [loyalist] units claim our hits. We didn’t give a damn about who took the credit, just as long as the job got done. Our information was first rate, and a lot of it was committed to memory, who was who, where he lived, the safe house, the colour of his car, the number of his car, things the RUC had said about him. This business about police/loyalist collusion was rubbish, sheer fabrication. Some loyalists have claimed that we got information from the police and the army. But those were loyalists arrested by the police and the army who said that simply to get back at them. The police and the army were out to get us, not to collude with us. UFF 2nd Battalion C Company were totally loyal to each other, like brothers in a family committed to each other and the cause in common purpose. Throughout all our operations we have only lost one man and he is serving a life sentence for the murder of an IRA man. As far as we’re concerned that wasn’t a murder, that was a public service which could have saved innocent lives. We didn’t regard ourselves as terrorists, we were counter-terrorists. We were in the business of taking out the real terrorists, the IRA. There never would have been a 2nd Battalion C Company if Provisional IRA violence had stopped when it should have, in 1971 when the true IRA, the Official IRA, declared their ceasefire. The fact is the police knew who we were, but they couldn’t prove it. We were too clever to provide them with any evidence. Personal security and unit security were paramount. If we compromised ourselves, we compromised the unit, and that was unthinkable. I would have shot myself rather than compromise the unit or the leadership. One time we were targeting a known IRA man, he was [IRA] army council. He decided when soldiers died, or when bombs went off, or when England would get bombed. We tracked him down wearing disguises. He had a personal assistant, and they drove about in two different white cars. Although she was a female, to us she was a legitimate target because she was actively helping him in what he did. We had photographs of them, their houses, their cars, houses they frequented, people they knew, who they associated with. All of

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this was cross-tabulated with existing data. We’d use long lens zoom cameras, state of the art. You could zero in to see a scar on someone’s face, a number plate, or even scratches on a car’s paintwork. We had all that detail, we even had photographs of them being searched by the army. The UFF leadership decided that these people should be assassinated after some IRA atrocity, I can’t remember which one. We set up operations in Andersonstown with a regular flow of people in and out working shifts. In particular we wanted to monitor the movements of the RUC and army in the area, identifying and monitoring patterns of area security. We had him pinned down in the middle of Andersonstown in what he thought was a safe house. The ASU went up dressed as painters and decorators. We took over a house facing the target’s house, holding the occupants hostage. This was once again turning the tables. The IRA had used precisely this tactic against loyalist leaders in attempted assassinations. Now it was being turned upon them. There was a sort of poetic justice to it, biblical, what so ever you sow, so will you reap. We told the occupants that we were the IRA, and that we were going to kill a British soldier on foot patrol, but I don’t think that they believed us. We were using AK47s and we made sure that they saw them. We didn’t wear masks or anything. Everything was meant to instil fear and to let them know that we were assassins. We were replicating the tactics which the IRA had used against us because we knew from personal experience that they worked. As the leader said, ‘In this business you need balls and brains.’ It was an inspirational leadership, it made you feel 100 per cent. When you went out on a mission they’d wait for you, and when you got back there was great relief. It was just the fact that you got back safely without being killed or caught. The mission was secondary; if you’d been successful, fine, but the paramount concern was for the safety of the men in the unit. When we got back safely there was a real sense of elation, it was like we were untouchable, we couldn’t go wrong. We were taking on the IRA in their heartland of republican west Belfast with apparent impunity. We were there and they knew it and there wasn’t a thing they could do about it, despite their best efforts. They [the IRA] tried to kill our leader on four separate occasions. Once they got him in his car, two IRA men at close range with two AK47s riddled it. He had jammed himself up under the steering wheel and escaped with a graze. That was just inconceivable. It the UFF had gone after a Provo with a handgun in similar circumstances he’d have been dead, bang, bang, no problem, he’s out of it. I said to him

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once, ‘You’ve got the luck.’ He said that luck had nothing to do with it, things happen for a reason. I knew what he meant, I suppose we all had a sense of that, that we were being looked after. Sure, the UDA were involved in fund raising but all of the 100 per cent went to buy guns, and guns were expensive. We only used the best weapons: AK47s, RPG7s [rocket launchers] and Russian grenades. When we got the RPG7 we used it three times in three months. The UVF had an RPG7 and they used it once in three years, and that was the difference. My first wife wouldn’t have approved of what I was doing. I suppose that was part of the problem. It suited me to be active in the UFF, as it meant more time away from her. My second wife was a loyalist, although she wasn’t involved in anything. But at least she understood what I was doing. We have three young children and I wanted the IRA off the streets for their sake, and for the sake of their whole generation. I’d known nothing but conflict, and I’d just had enough. The security forces had had 20 years to sort it out, but it was as bad as ever. The IRA could act at will, there was no disincentive. That’s where we came in. We knew that the IRA could ‘give it’, they’d demonstrated that over 20 years. But as with all bullies we knew that getting some of their own medicine was a different prospect altogether. And that’s all we did, turn their own tactics against them, because we knew what it was like. That day when we targeted him [the IRA army council member] we sat in a bedroom directly overlooking the house he was using. He arrived at the house fairly early in the morning with his PA and they were sitting ducks, but then we were informed that an army foot patrol was moving in. We had two cars parked in the street observing all movements and reporting back to us. We were standing there watching the army who in turn were watching the IRA. We waited until nearly 11.00 a.m. and then we decided to abort the mission, it was just too risky. A soldier or one of us could have been killed. That’s how they were saved. We also knew that an army sweep was due. We knew from our intelligence that the army were dropped off at Black’s Road and that they then did their sweep up to Connolly House, where they would be picked up. We knew that they would have been in the area around that time. Then we told the occupants who we were, UFF 2nd Battalion C Company. I said to the woman, ‘You were right love, we weren’t IRA at all, we’re here to kill the IRA.’ We then named our targets and pointed out the house they were in, and then the room they were in.

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‘Tell them we were here, tell them who we are, and tell them they won’t be so lucky the next time.’ All of that was designed to put fear into them, to let them know that they were being targeted and targeted by professionals using IRA tactics. We were picked up [arrested] shortly after that and taken to Castlereagh and all the police were laughing. Other police officers had interviewed —— and his PA after the attempted hit and then they told us that they were shitting themselves. They told us that we had taken them completely by surprise by going into the middle of the IRA’s heartland and almost taking out the man. Then the police told them that it was only the army presence that had saved them. They told us, ‘If you’re trying to scare the shit out of Sinn Fein/IRA, it’s working.’ That was music to our ears, it was confirmation that our strategy was working. It was what we had always believed, they could dish it out [violence] but they couldn’t take it. We had learned the IRA’s secret, if you were prepared to be totally ruthless, and if you had the strategy and the tactics, it was easy. By now they knew that we knew that and make no mistake, that had them worried. On another occasion we located one of ——’s safe houses and we bombed it. We knew it was empty but again we wanted them to know that we were on the case. It was like a calling card. The RPG7 is a phenomenal weapon. We knew when the IRA used Connolly House [Sinn Fein HQ] for interviews and interrogations. It was being hit a lot by the police so we knew that the IRA were using it, and then we did all our own surveillance. We decided to attack it with a rocket. A Sinn Fein/IRA man would open the office every morning and we decided to get him first, at their HQ. We had these bright green Russian grenades, but none of us understood Russian so we couldn’t read the instructions. We knew some of the grenades could be booby-trapped and we didn’t know if the ‘6’ stamped into the metal on the side was a 6 or a 9; it could have been either depending on how you held it, so you’d either 6 seconds or 9 seconds to get away, but none of us were too anxious to pull a pin and find out. Anyway we sprayed those grenades black and set one under rubbish beside the front gate of Connolly House and attached wire to the pin. We waited but the Sinn Fein man was late and it was a wee cleaner who arrived first. Because she just walked up the street and pushed the gate open from the footpath it was too fast for us to do anything. We just watched horrified as the gate was flung open. Thank God the grenade didn’t go off.

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A few days later we went back to Connolly House with the RPG7 and the AK47s. We knew that a Sinn Fein/IRA meeting was about to take place. We hit Connolly House with a rocket and then sprayed it with the AK47s. There was quite a lot of damage but no one was killed. We knew that Sinn Fein would have to repair Connolly House, their prestigious headquarters, because the evidence of the rocket damage and the bullet holes caused by the AKs would have been an embarrassment to them. We also knew that the IRA would only use their own people to undertake the work. They always kept things in the family, a bit like the Mafia. We maintained a regular surveillance until the plasterers started working, then we went up with the AKs. We shot and wounded three of them. That meant that within eleven days C Company alone, never mind the battalion, had hit Connolly House three times. But again these operations were about instilling fear. To let them know that we could attack, and even rocket attack, the IRA HQ in republican west Belfast any time we wanted. The sheer symbolism of that was very important. The blowback from an RPG7 is about a 30-foot flame, that took the very paint clean off our car. A few days after that we went to ——’s house [known to be a Sinn Fein/IRA member]. —— wasn’t there but he had decorators in painting the place. We knew —— and again we knew that he would only call upon his own kind [Sinn Fein/IRA] to work for him. The decision was taken to hit them both, and that’s what happened. Once again this was strategic, designed to instil fear into the IRA leadership. Then the UFF issued a statement on Friday (April 1993) which threatened direct and draconian retaliation if more Protestant towns were bombed. At that time predominantly Protestant towns were being bombed and wrecked all over Northern Ireland. That same Saturday the IRA bombed and totally devastated Coleraine [a largely Protestant town in the north of the province]. The IRA knew that the UFF would retaliate and that their own community would suffer the consequences of that, but the IRA didn’t give a fuck. But it wasn’t like the old days any more when loyalists would get into an endless debate about what to do and eventually did nothing. No, we had learned from the IRA and turned their tactics back on them. Within a short time after Coleraine a bookies in an IRA stronghold of the Oldpark [Road, Belfast] was attacked with assault rifles and grenades. There were three dead and 54 injured. We took absolutely no pleasure in that but the IRA had to learn that it would suffer the consequences of IRA violence, and that the retaliation would be swift and every

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bit as brutal as IRA terrorism. Tragic as it was, the Oldpark strike was strategically necessary. I saw myself as a loyalist and a soldier. I would do it all over again, but if I’d had the chance I would have started when I was younger. I firmly believe that it was the loyalist paramilitaries and their new strategy that brought the IRA to the talks table. Its leadership was frightened and they wanted peace before they were killed, and that’s what was going to happen to them. We were going from strength to strength, getting better and more confident with every day that passed. For the first time ever it was the IRA on the run. We all had a strong conviction that we were winning. We had the guns, the men, the strategy, the tactics and most important of all the leadership. As far as we were concerned they [Sinn Fein/IRA] would either declare a ceasefire or we’d kill them. When the IRA declared their ceasefire there was actually a sense of loss. We’d lost our mission, the mission which had brought us all together and became the most important thing in all of our lives. I’m glad it’s over. We are fully committed to the peace process and we don’t want violence back on our streets. But to be honest with you a part of me misses all of that. I’ve never felt more alive than when I was on active service with C Company. I think we all feel the same way. ‘ALAN’ ‘Alan’ (now in his 40s) was one of the most atypical men I encountered in the UDA/UFF prison wings. I had been sitting in the recreation area writing up notes, when he walked in and enquired as if surprised, ‘Is nobody looking after you? Can I offer you tea or coffee, or something to eat maybe?’ This contradicted the macho culture of the UDA prisoners to such an extent I was actually shocked. ‘Alan’ was an extremely pleasant, mild-mannered man, with obvious sincerity and authenticity. Almost middle class in appearance, and in bearing, his was perhaps the most tragic of all the backgrounds I was to encounter. I would have had a very happy childhood. My mother gave birth to me late in life, she would have been nearly 40. So I suppose I hadn’t really been planned, not that she ever said that to me. That meant that there was a considerable age gap between me and my two brothers and sisters. We were a very close family, we would have done everything together, go out for runs [car outings] on a Saturday or Sunday. I was very secure as a child, I would have felt loved. Because

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my sisters were so much older it was actually like having three mothers. My sisters spoiled me, they did everything for me, made my bed, cleaned my shoes, everything. If there was anything I wanted they got it. I got on well with my brothers as well. They would have protected me, so nobody ever picked on me in school. We would have been a Christian family and went to church regularly. I had always attended Sunday School as a child. I suppose we could have been classed as a respectable family. My family wouldn’t have had anything to do with the loyalist paramilitaries. Don’t ask me why I turned out to be so different. I had a good, happy childhood; there was nothing about my childhood that caused me to do what I did [murder]. I’d had friends in school who were abused and neglected, and they would get into trouble a lot, but the problem was they were angry and unhappy people. So I know about that, about bad childhoods and people turning to crime. But it just wasn’t like that with me, I was a happy child with lots of friends. I never broke the law before this [Alan’s murder conviction]. As far as I’m concerned it [the murder] was political and that was that. There was a war going on with the IRA, it affected my community, and it affected me so I joined [the UFF]. We were all in exactly the same boat, we wanted the IRA dead, and we were all prepared to do just whatever was necessary. We weren’t taking this [IRA violence] any more. I enjoyed school but I was no academic. I would have got on well with my friends in school, some of them are still my friends even after all this time. My parents would have taken an interest in my education, homework and that, but I really had no time for it. From a very early age I developed an almost obsessive interest in cars. I always wanted to drive, that was my ambition. If you could drive and you had a car you were free, you could go just wherever you wanted. At least that’s what I thought. All that led to my wanting to become a car mechanic, to work with cars. I knew that you didn’t need an education for that, so I didn’t see much point in studying. I regret that now of course, because I think that I could have done well if I’d only applied myself, but I’d really no interest then and all my friends were the same. Going to university would never have entered our heads, that was for clever people. I’d never been political in any sense of the word. I have only ever voted once, and then I voted for Ian Paisley, not because I liked him or his politics, but simply because I just knew that he was a loyalist. I got a job as a motor mechanic and I enjoyed that because of my interest in cars. I was brought up to respect people and their property.

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I’d never broken the law. My car was kept in good order, and I made sure that it was taxed and insured and that the tyres had good treads. I was just a hard-working guy looking after my wife and [three] children. It was a good life, we would have taken a drink at the weekends, and we enjoyed ourselves. My wife was a good mother to the children, and I did my best to be a good father. I have always loved my children, we were all very close as a family. I suppose we had been living in a bubble where we lived [i.e. insulated from the realities of the Northern Ireland conflict]. We knew all about the trouble, the violence and the killing but it never really affected us, we just got on with our lives thinking or maybe pretending that everything was normal. Then it happened. There was a guy I knew in our estate, he was a Protestant businessman. He traded with the police and the security forces, but he was just an ordinary man going about his business. He wasn’t connected to anything [the security forces or the paramilitaries]. The IRA came into our estate and killed him while he was going about his business. They claimed that he was a legitimate target because he was dealing with the security forces, but he was just an ordinary man going about his work. He was killed because he was a Protestant. They put a bomb in his car, and blew him to pieces. He lived just around the corner from me, I knew him and his wife and children very well. It was the sheer brutality, the carnage, the viciousness of it. They just came in and killed him. His wife was emotionally devastated, the shock and the pain of that nearly killed her, it was written all over her face. I just knew that she’d never get over that. The children were blown apart as well, they couldn’t comprehend the sheer viciousness of what had happened to them. At first I was just heart sorry about it all. But then when I read in the paper that the IRA had regarded him as a legitimate target, and that they didn’t admit, but claimed responsibility for it. The bastards were proud of it. That bomb could have as easily killed his children. They had come into my estate, killed an innocent man, devastated a family, and they were proud of it. That’s when the grief I felt for him and his family turned to anger, big time. Who the fuck were these people? What sort of hypocrisy was it that when they committed a sectarian murder, they could claim it was legitimate? I became more and more obsessed with it, and more and more angry. This area [‘Alan’s housing estate] was peaceful, my community were decent, good people who minded their own business and just got along as best they could. The trouble had been something that happened down in Belfast, we never dreamed that it

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would come to us. It’s hard to explain: suddenly there was a trauma, we just couldn’t believe what had happened. It was a big thing, a really big thing, it was all anybody talked about. Ours was a mixed estate, Protestants and Catholics, and there had never been any trouble. Then that happened, and people started to ask, ‘Was he set up, who set him up?’ Now we had policemen and prison officers in my estate. These were people in my community, people I knew well. I had grown up with them, and we had all gone to school together. But now they were all in danger. Any of them could be killed any time. That’s when it hit me, there’s a war going on here and you and your community are a part of it, whether you like it or not. I don’t know if it’s a territorial thing or what, but they [the IRA] brought the war to me, by killing an innocent man in my community, and I had to do something about it. It’s not something you think about or question, you just know that you have to act. No matter what anybody else thinks, you feel it, you don’t think it, you feel it, and you know that you have to do something. I’ve thought about that a lot over the years, did I make a mistake by becoming involved [with the UFF]? But I can tell you now, I had no choice. I was compelled to do what I did. When I say to you it was my destiny, that’s not overstating the case, that’s just exactly the way it feels. When the IRA came into my world my fate was sealed, it’s all just history. I talked to my own family about what had happened and they told me that all we could do was pray for the family and pray for peace in Northern Ireland. Now by this stage I knew that I was well beyond that, it was becoming personal. I looked at my children, and I thought about his wife and what they must be going through. It became almost obsessive, ‘Who the fuck do they think they are, coming into my community and killing innocent family men?’ Then there was all the republican propaganda about discrimination and oppression. They lived in first-class British council houses, claimed British benefits, and killed British citizens. Hypocrisy. Protestant civilians as legitimate targets, hypocrisy. After the Civil War in the south about 15 per cent of the population was Protestant. It’s now about 2 per cent. In Ulster 35 per cent of the population was Catholic, that’s now about 45 per cent and growing. What does that say about so-called oppression? Catholics prospered in Protestant Ulster, while Protestants fled Catholic Ireland. But you never heard about that. I was about 30 when I got involved [joined the UFF]. I felt that I’d absolutely no choice, that as I saw it I’d have to stand up and defend my community against the IRA. The police and the army had had

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their chance, they had 20 years to put an end to it [IRA violence] but it was as bad as ever. The IRA could target and kill innocent Protestants at will, but this time it affected me, it had reached out and touched me and my community. I was 30 years of age and I’d never been involved in anything illegal, not so much as a parking ticket. I was a friendly, easy-going guy, good neighbours and a lot of good mates. I hadn’t an enemy in the world, but suddenly I had now, the IRA, and I wanted to kill them for what they did, for everything they did. I went to the library and read up on all the atrocities, La Mon, a kennel club function bombed and burned to hell, bodies burned beyond recognition. The newly married man who ran back into the flames to save his wife, but never came back, the Abercorn, Oxford Street, Bloody Friday, the Shankill bombs. The mass murder of innocent civilians, regarded as legitimate targets by the IRA. 1989 and it was still going on. I was angry, enraged, my wife noticed and asked me, ‘What’s wrong?’ How could I explain it to her? How could I tell her that I’d made up my mind that I had to kill IRA men? I went to a loyalist bar close to us and talked to some people there. I told them that I wanted to join, and explained why. They were UDA, and they said, ‘Look we’re all in the same boat, we all feel the same way.’ I told them that I didn’t want to fuck about, I wanted to kill known IRA men. I said that I’d absolutely no interest in ordinary Catholics, because they’d done nothing against me or my community. They told me that the UFF were going selective, that they had a deliberate policy of targeting IRA men. They told me that I would be contacted by ‘A’ and that he was UFF. They warned me, ‘If you’re not serious don’t fuck around with this guy.’ ‘A’ [the UFF contact] telephoned a couple of days later and we met in the same bar. I didn’t recognise any of the faces in the bar as I walked in. They were obviously UFF men, and these were serious-looking people. ‘A’ questioned me for about an hour. They had obviously checked me out. ‘A’ said, ‘We know you’re from a Christian family son, are you absolutely certain you can handle what you’re getting into?’ ‘A’ would have been in his 50s and you just knew that he’d seen action. He wasn’t what I’d expected. He exuded an air of authority. It was obvious that the men respected him. I was reassured by that, these weren’t just young guys going at the thing half cocked. These guys were in for the long haul [until a cessation of hostilities by the respective loyalist and republican groups]. I told him that I couldn’t live with myself without doing something. He knew exactly where I was coming from. He looked directly into my eyes and just nodded his head. I knew

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that he’d been there. ‘A’ explained a bit about their [UFF] intelligence operations, and I was impressed, but I was only told what I needed to know at that time. I was sworn in later that night. There were various meetings after that, then I was given weapons training, pistols, rifles and AKs. I enjoyed all of that because these were people who felt exactly the same as me, they saw the IRA as the enemy and they were committed to taking the war to them. I’d lived all my life in Belfast without realising that that underground loyalist culture existed. I immediately felt a part of it, it was like finding a new family. They were good men. As far as I was concerned these people were patriots. A short time after that I went operational. UFF intelligence had located one of the IRA men who had been responsible for the murder in my estate. I couldn’t believe my luck. I was being given the opportunity to get one of the men responsible for murdering an innocent man in my community. There was a poetic justice to it. I felt no compunction whatever. This guy wasn’t an innocent Catholic, this guy was an IRA sectarian murderer, who was going to be put down before he killed again. On the night in question we moved in, four men in two cars. I was the hitter, I was carrying the gun in the back seat of the second car. We toured the area to make sure that there were no security forces around. They were small terraced houses, two up and down, and they all looked identical. The guys in the first car had been to the house several times before, and had watched our man over a period of weeks. We knew that he sat in his front room so a hit would be relatively easy. The first car did a dry run up and down the street. They flashed their lights on the way back up which meant that the target was in place, and that the hit was on. We drove down the street slowly so as not to attract attention, we parked very close to his house and I just got out leaving the door open. I double-checked the number of the house as I passed the front door, saw the target and opened fire. By this time the driver had mounted the kerb so I just spun around, jumped into the car and we were out of there, fast. We drove from there to waste ground with lots of tree cover and dumped the car. Motorcycles were waiting to take us from there to where we would dump the clothes and the guns, and clean up to avoid anything which could provide forensic evidence. Everything had gone well and the IRA had got a taste of their own medicine and I felt good about that. We were still in the safe house when we got the word. We had hit the wrong man. We had got the right house, the right number, but it had been the wrong

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street. We’d been given the wrong street. But we were acting upon the good intelligence which we had been given. I had been given every assurance that the target was IRA. The elation I had felt, the high from it disappeared. I just thought to myself, ‘You stupid bastard, what have you done?’ The guys I was with said, ‘Look, Alan, don’t worry, it happens.’ That was OK for them, they hadn’t pulled the trigger. They hadn’t killed an innocent man. But what do you do? Someone had made a genuine mistake. It wasn’t like we were professionals. But in the last analysis it was down to me, I’d pulled the trigger on an innocent man and I knew that that was going to be with me for the rest of my life. I was furious about that and I let my [UFF] CO know all about it. I’ve thought a lot about all of that in here [H Block 7]. Maybe what happened was in someone’s interests. An innocent Catholic was killed, putting fear into the Catholic community. A Provo knows just how close he came to being killed, so he goes on the run and that’s him neutralised. But the clever part may have been, he’s had the shit scared out of him, and he carries that fear like an infection with him back to the organisation [the IRA]. That’s the sort of psychological warfare that would fit with what was happening in those days. We [the UFF] were involved in that, putting the fear into them [the IRA]. But I wasn’t into playing mind games, I hadn’t wanted to kill an innocent Catholic for any reason, tactical or otherwise. The guy who we were going to kill lived in the house with the same number in the next street. The police apparently paid him a visit and told him how lucky he was. He moved out the next day, we never heard about him again. He probably moved south. As I rationalised it, now there were two innocent men dead, because of the IRA. I would never have attempted to retaliate if the IRA hadn’t murdered a member of my community. I was arrested by the police and questioned in Castlereagh barracks. They needed a confession from me to convict me, but there was no way that I was going to talk. They did their best, the interrogation went on for ever but they couldn’t make me talk. That’s when the dirty tricks came into it. They told me that they had arrested my wife, and that they regarded her as an accomplice. But my wife knew nothing about it, she had no idea that I was involved. ‘Sandra’ was a soft sort of woman, and I knew that she couldn’t handle a prolonged interrogation. They [the police] told me that they had arrested her, and I told them that they shouldn’t have wasted their time, because she was innocent, and that there was nothing for her to tell them. Which was true as far as she was concerned. By the

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second day it was obvious that the police were using her [‘Alan’s wife] to put pressure on me. And it was, because I couldn’t stand the thought of her being roughed up. I knew that just being arrested was enough for her. When ‘Sandra’ is very nervous or frightened she’ll roll up the end on her jumper or blouse, at her waist and pull down on it. She just crumples it up and pulls it down over and over again. When she does that I know to treat her very carefully, because she’s so nervous. She has always done that, even as a child. The police came into my cell and asked ‘“Alan”, when your wife is nervous does she crumple her jumper up and pull at it?’ I said ‘Yes’. And they said, ‘Well she must have something to hide, because she’s doing it now.’ My interrogation was almost a secondary issue now, I was really worried about her. The police came back into the cell some time later, and by now I knew that they were going to get me, through using her. They said, ‘“Alan”, we showed your wife photographs of your handiwork [the dead man’s body]. He was on a slab in the morgue with a wooden block under his head. We forced her to look at it and describe it to us. You know what, “Alan”? She was sick all over the place.’ It wasn’t long after that that I confessed, even though I knew it was going to mean a life sentence in prison. But I couldn’t put her through more of that. I made a deal with them: if I gave them a full confession they’d release her, and that’s what happened. I confessed and she was released. They [the police] blackmailed me, and it worked. It transpired that my co-accused, who had been ‘running me’ [as a senior UFF officer] had been working for the police. The whole thing had been a set-up; apparently we were never meant to get the IRA man. My wife took it all very badly. She came up to see me while I was on remand [in prison], and it was fairly obvious that she was hitting the drink hard. Her hands and sometimes her whole body trembled. We had always enjoyed a drink but not like that. She just couldn’t handle it, the trauma of it all had just pushed her over the edge. She was turning into an alcoholic if she wasn’t one already, and it was my fault. I just hadn’t anticipated all the consequences of what I did. I’d never intended to do anything like that to her, my own wife and the mother of my children. ‘Sandra’ got so bad the social services took the three children into care. That nearly killed me, that I had been responsible for having my own children taken into a home. ‘Sandra’ just couldn’t forgive me for that, so she put in for a separation and we’re divorced now. We’re divorced but we still care for each other. I went to see her the last time I got parole and I hardly recognised her. She was in hospital

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with jaundice and she was bright orange. I’ve seen people go yellow before but I’ve never seen anyone go orange like that. She was very frail, just skin and bone, lying there in that hospital bed. I couldn’t help myself, the tears just welled up in my eyes. I just felt so helpless standing there, and there wasn’t a thing that I could do about it, she was just too far gone. Her liver has nearly had it, with the drink. The doctor just said, ‘It doesn’t look good.’ It hit me like a freight train, ‘Christ, what have you done to her?’ Her family have been great and they have stood by both of us. They got the kids out of care and they foster them. That was a great weight off my shoulders, knowing that the kids are OK. They visit me about once a fortnight, and I know they’re happy and well cared for. I’ve been in here [H Block 7 HMP Maze] for eight years now, and some of my own brothers and sisters haven’t been up to see me. They can’t forgive me for what I did. I write to them but they never reply, not even a Christmas card. I’ve often thought about that, what made me so different from them. I’ve known guys from broken homes, or who had bad parents. I knew them in school. They walk around with an anger inside them, just looking for trouble. But you know it’s not that type who tends to get actively involved [i.e. as gunmen in the paramilitaries]. They are more likely to be quiet easy going fellas, the sort of guy you’d never expect. It’s the same with the republicans, you’d pass them in the street and you’d never dream that they were IRA. It’s hard to explain why one person gets involved and another person doesn’t. I think it’s when it becomes personal, somebody you know gets murdered and click, you know you just can’t walk away from it. Things can be happening all around you and still you can manage to ignore it and just try to live a normal life. But then suddenly something happens, it touches you and your world changes, it’s like your number’s called and you do what you have to do. Any of the men [loyalist paramilitaries] in here will tell you the same thing. What I did has caused a lot of suffering, my wife, my children, my family, and I regret that. It was never my intention to hurt them. And obviously the man I killed, and his family, I deeply regret that. I’d never wanted to harm an innocent man. That was the last thing I’d ever wanted to do. As far as I was concerned I was killing an IRA man, and I would have had no regrets about that. Unfortunately it didn’t work out that way, but it’s no good blaming anybody. In this business people get hurt, shit happens. I’m certainly not going to do

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a —— thing [a former loyalist prisoner who committed suicide while suffering remorse]. The loyalists expressed remorse for the innocent they killed and that’s genuine, we do suffer remorse. But not the IRA, they have no concept of what remorse is. I just want to serve the rest of my time, get out of here, and start a wee business. Cars or maybe a warehouse somewhere. Maybe in time my family will understand, but who knows? Maybe they’ll never understand. Twenty-five years of murder and killing and where did it get them [the IRA]? Then they offer us peace as if it’s a gift. That’s just too late for too many.

8

Phase Five: The UDA/UFF 1993 – the Shankill Bomb and the Greysteel Massacre

The Greysteel Raid, in UDA/UFF terms, was an act of retaliation, following an IRA bomb on the Shankill Road on the 23 October 1993. Nine Protestant civilians were killed including two schoolgirls aged seven and twelve. In the Greysteel massacre which followed on 30 October 1993, seven people were murdered, including a Protestant, while an eighth person died later. Nineteen others were injured, all adults. This final section, Phase five, will have a different presentational format, in order to concentrate upon the operation and all its terrible consequences. This is in the interests of personal anonymity, given the limited number of men involved, and the high-profile nature of the atrocity. COMBATANT A I joined the UDA when I was 16. I admired the UDA because they were hitting back and Sinn Fein/IRA men were being killed. The other reason I joined up was out of sheer boredom, there was nothing else to do. A lot of my friends joined for that reason as well, simply because it gave them something to do. At first I was with the Loyalist Prisoners’ Aid [in the UDA]. We would have gone around the bars and clubs collecting for the prisoners. Two UDA guys in their 30s swore me into the organisation. I got to know them very well, they were good guys. They really cared for the people in their community and did a lot to help them. When the IRA killed them I was traumatised. To me these guys [the IRA] were just the personification of evil, and there they were fully supported by the Catholics in murdering Protestants. To me they [Catholics and the IRA] were all the same. They wanted to drive us out of their country. It’s hard to describe the impact that those killings had upon me. Going to the funerals, seeing the distress, the 193

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pain and hurt in people’s faces, their bodies being lowered into the ground. I can remember thinking, ‘Jesus, this is for real.’ I can recall controlling my emotions, almost pushing them out of me. I took a deep breath and tensed every muscle in my body. I can remember thinking, ‘I’m steeling myself.’ That’s the first thing I thought about when my commander told me about Greysteel. There was something about that. I knew immediately that it was going to be big. When I heard about the Shankill bombing the first thing I thought was, ‘Right, what are we [the UDA] going to do?’ That hadn’t been provoked. The loyalists hadn’t done anything to deserve a massive no-warning car bomb in the middle of the [ultra-loyalist] Shankill Road, where civilians and children were bound to be killed. We [a different UFF unit] coincidentally had an operation planned for that week. We were going after a well-known republican. We had undertaken good surveillance and our intelligence had identified an exact pattern in his movements. Belfast [UFF brigade staff] told us to hold fire, that we might be getting another mission. A rendezvous was arranged for the next day. We were told that republican Belfast had closed down nobody was coming out at night, everybody had gone to ground. They [republicans] were all waiting for the UFF strike. The [UFF] brigade staff wanted to hit back where it wouldn’t be expected. As far as the UFF were concerned the IRA’s Shankill bomb was a sectarian hit, killing ten innocent Protestants. They wanted to retaliate with a big hit preferably on a republican target, in a republican area. However, if Catholics were killed as well, that was to be regarded as collateral damage. As luck would have it we had already undertaken surveillance of the Greysteel bar, for our own purposes. We knew that the IRA used it, and we had heard that highlevel republican ex-prisoners used it. Those boys had been found guilty of murder, no-warning car bombs, the whole heap. So as far as we were concerned it was a legitimate republican target. Anyone who used that bar would have known that it was a republican bar. The IRA had used that bar for meetings, so either the punters knew that that was a republican bar or they were as mentally challenged as the people I worked with in Gransha [the psychiatric hospital in Londonderry]. I watched Gerry Adams in the [IRA] Colour Party at Begley’s funeral [the Shankill bomber] and I thought that was another joke. 150,000 Catholics had voted for a man who was honouring an IRA man for killing ten innocent Protestants on the Shankill Road. There were scenes of adoration for that mass murderer. I totally identified with

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that [British Army] squaddie who shot Copeland, the Commanding Officer of the IRA in the Ardoyne [north Belfast]. He [the soldier] had been in a Land-Rover driving past Begley’s house, Copeland was standing outside it, and the soldier just opened up. He wounded him. Copeland has just been awarded massive damages [financial compensation] for that in the courts. The soldier was charged with attempted murder, but the soldier had been absolutely right in doing that. That’s what the army should have been doing instead of just walking around republican areas providing targets for the IRA. That soldier obviously felt the same way I did. He was sick of the hypocrisy and the double standards, he just wanted to go in and take them out. Later that day I was called in by my [UFF] commander. The order had come from Belfast, ‘Hit Greysteel and hit it hard.’ They wanted a spectacular. The Belfast brigade staff had wanted to hit the IRA/republicans/Catholics somewhere where they wouldn’t expect it. A number of targets had been considered but Greysteel would be the one eventually selected. Just about every UFF unit in Northern Ireland was on active service alert. I can remember feeling excited and privileged that I was one of the people chosen to exact revenge for the Shankill bomb. We drove to Greysteel and parked outside the bar. We drove from Derry in a ‘clean’ car to pick up the getaway car in Limavady. It had been purchased for the hit. The Derry UDA wouldn’t use stolen cars. We bought them, usually in Ballymena. Earlier that day we’d tested the guns in a local forest. We were using an AK47, a Browning .9 mil pistol and a shotgun. That afternoon we undertook a reconnaissance of the bar to check out the security system, and the blind spots of the security camera. We checked out the lounge and the bar, and decided that the lounge was a better bet. We knew the place was a republican stronghold because there were tricolours on every other lamp post, and every single 12th of July they would stone the loyalist Orange parade as they walked through. Everything happened so fast. We carried the weapons on our knees in the car for speed, and we knew exactly what we were going to do. Two of us would go into the lounge and open fire. The third man with a shotgun would make sure that nobody ran in from the bar. I opened up using automatic fire and finished the magazine. I had two magazines taped together for speed [speed strips], so I reloaded with the other magazine. I used single-shot fire with that. The .9 mil jammed after one round had been fired. The .9 mil was to have been used for selective shooting. I must have used about 50 rounds, it was all over in less than a minute. The bodies and blood were everywhere.

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Then we were out of there and back on the road. The mission had been completely successful, payback. I’ve heard some loyalists talk about remorse, but I’ve no remorse about that. I was a soldier carrying out my orders, and that was that. Of course I would have preferred it if they had all been known IRA men. But I’ve no regrets about what went down. I don’t know what I’ll feel like in ten years’ time, but I’ve never felt remorse about what I did. We were using IRA tactics against the IRA and the republican community. It was Old Testament justice, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. We weren’t letting them [the IRA] get away with it any more. This time we had the initiative, we were taking the war to them. COMBATANT B Me and a few of my friends eventually joined [the UVF] but that was to provide us with a cover more than anything else. We formed our own unit and saved up all our money to buy guns. We didn’t go on holiday, all of our money went into buying guns and guns were expensive. Unlike the IRA we didn’t have friends in America, or in the south [Irish Republic], we didn’t have friends anywhere. Eventually the UVF caught on to the fact that we were going solo, and they didn’t like that. They [the local UVF] had their wee deal with the IRA so the last thing they wanted was us shooting them [IRA men]. We all received death threats and we couldn’t go into the local bars any more without being attacked. The local [UVF] commander could only operate on a Thursday night, because that was the only night in the week that his girlfriend let him out. You would be shitting yourself every Thursday night in case a [UVF] active service unit came for you. Looking back at it now I should have shot one of them [the UVF men] and that would have stopped it. But the fact of the matter was I didn’t join up to shoot Prods, it was the IRA I was after. I was sickened by the state of the UVF in Londonderry. They hated us because we showed them up to be what they were, a bunch of drunken cowards. Eventually there were about 15 men in our unit. We had bought shotguns and .9 mil pistols. After about a year we decided to approach the UDA. We knew that the UDA had reorganised and we also knew that they were targeting the right people [IRA/Sinn Fein]. They [the UDA] were very wary of us at first but eventually they took us on board. The north Antrim/Londonderry UDA had a good track record and they had a history of taking out hard targets [IRA/Sinn Fein]. They [the UDA

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men] were a much higher calibre than the UVF boys that we had been running with. Out of the 15 men in our unit a number of us volunteered to go active because we all wanted to do the business [kill IRA/Sinn Fein personnel]. The other men in the unit were backup, they would undertake intelligence, surveillance, move guns and provide safe houses. They were all good men, but they had no taste for actually doing the business [killing]. We had good intelligence and we were targeting a known IRA man. Our boys had been watching him for weeks and he had no idea that we were on to him, because he took absolutely no security precautions. He was wide open but we had a major problem. None of the four of us could drive, and we needed a driver to hit this guy, so all of that fell through, just because we didn’t have a driver. After that I learned to drive myself, to ensure that we [the UFF] wouldn’t be caught out like that again. We volunteered for all that was going. We were doing something different every week, training, moving weapons, intelligence, surveillance, targeting. Nobody in Londonderry knew about us, we were a tight cell. But even so there was still a high attrition rate and quite a few of our men were arrested, and it was difficult to replace them with men of the same calibre. We just didn’t want ordinary volunteers, we wanted men with the capacity to become professional counter-terrorists. As well as that we only accepted men who we trusted. We were very selective but that’s the only way we stayed alive and out of prison. After the Shankill bomb, and after the UFF’s warning, everyone waited for the UDA to retaliate on a massive scale. Belfast had closed down. Republicans in Belfast either went to ground or got out of the place. All the [nationalist/republican] bars were empty and they were even afraid to attend their [Catholic] churches. Even though the churches were virtually empty there was a heavy police presence around every one of them to prevent loyalist attacks. The Belfast UDA/UFF were desperate to retaliate, but they couldn’t find a target. Even if they [the UDA/UFF] did locate a target they couldn’t have attacked it because the police were all over them. The streets in Belfast were empty apart from the army and police patrols which were everywhere. At that time there were only three loyalist brigades which were really active, the 2nd Battalion [UFF] in Belfast, the UVF in mid-Ulster, and us in north Antrim/Londonderry. The Shankill Road bomb had been in UDA territory, so it was up to the UDA/UFF to retaliate. I’m quite sure that the mid-Ulster UVF would have taken action if requested to do so [by the UDA/UFF] but that wasn’t an issue. It was

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down to us [north Antrim/Londonderry UDA/UFF], it was going to be our party. The police would have realised that, so everything that moved in north Antrim, or more particularly Londonderry, was stopped, questioned and searched. We knew that there would be a state of high alert, and the security forces had enough personnel to saturate the whole area, as they had done in Belfast, because those were the only three hot spots, Londonderry, mid-Ulster and Belfast. I had been charged with murder and attempted murder before, so I half expected that I would be under surveillance, but I didn’t see anything suspicious. Once about two years ago I walked out through my front door and turned the corner to see a Range Rover parked there. These two guys were in the back with headsets on and I saw them snatching them off before I passed. I stared in at them through the window and they just nodded at me, and then tried to ignore me, but they knew that I had caught them out. Then there was Greysteel. I was called in by my commander on the Wednesday. They weren’t using my unit, just me and men from other units. That struck me as very odd, why not use an existing unit who were used to working as a team? By that time they [the UFF] had taught me how to drive, and as it turned out I was good at it. The guy who taught me had been a rally driver and I learned all the tricks of the trade from him. Just as long as I was in a fast car, I wasn’t too worried about the police. I was only told that something was going down on Saturday and to be ready, so I guessed they needed a driver. I volunteered immediately, I didn’t know what was going down, and I didn’t want to know. The fewer people who knew about a mission the better. I must admit that I was curious but at the end of the day it didn’t matter. If I could help a UFF ASU on a mission I was going to be there. I was told that it was going to be the Rising Sun Bar in Greysteel, at 3.00 p.m. that Saturday afternoon. As soon as I heard that it clicked, we were to retaliate for the Shankill Road bomb. I knew immediately that this was going to be serious, that I would be taking part in a mass murder. I knew that Greysteel was a republican stronghold so I hoped that IRA men would be killed. Whether they would be claimed [i.e. by the IRA] or not was a different story, but I also knew that there’d be civilians. But there was no going back, I’d volunteered, the mission was ‘go’ and I was a part of it, so that was that. Then I reasoned that Protestant children and women had been killed in the Shankill. There was simply no way we [the UFF] could let that go, and everybody knew that. Everyone in Northern Ireland was waiting for the UDA/UFF strike. The IRA knew that full well

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before they ever planted that bomb. But no matter how I rationalised it I was still very uneasy that civilians would be killed. I hadn’t joined the UFF to kill ordinary Catholics, I wanted the hard targets, the IRA. I was to drive the ‘scout’ car. My job was to drive about 100 yards in front of the ‘attack’ vehicle. It was my own car so that if I was stopped by the security forces, or at a checkpoint, I could produce ID and papers to prove that the car was mine. If I saw anything suspicious I was to tap the brake three times to warn the others so as they could turn off to the right or the left and escape. I would simply drive on allowing them to abort the mission, and as far as anyone would be concerned I’d be legitimate. I picked up —— and —— and then — — at previously arranged locations in Londonderry. The four of us were in my car, which was a Skoda. I had her set up and she was fast and a good handler despite what anyone says. We drove out to Ballykelly where —— was to pick up the other car. That was to be the hot car which they [——, —— and ——] would use for the actual mission. The car was to be left in Ballykelly by another UFF unit. The four of us were driving out to Ballykelly when we saw a mixed police and army road block at Maydown which we had to drive through. We all knew that four young men in a car in that area was bound to look suspicious so we fully expected to be stopped and questioned. But to our amazement the police waved us on through. In the circumstances none of us thought that we would ever get through that road block. —— was wearing a boiler suit rolled down to the waist, so even if they only looked into the car we’d had it. Even if they didn’t notice that, if we had been stopped and questioned, the mission would have been aborted, because they would have connected us immediately with a UFF revenge mission. After all, I was using my own car, so they would have taken my number and all of our names. The police would have put two and two together very quickly. The plan was we would drop —— off at the ‘hot car’ in Ballykelly, and then the three of us would drive to the forest in my car to where the guns were hidden. —— would follow us in the hot car and then drive the two ‘hitters’ [gunmen] down to Greysteel. By the time —— got to the forest where the guns were hidden, we had already been there for about 10 or 15 minutes. A car had passed him while we were in the forest and slowed right down to take a close look, because it must have looked suspicious two cars parked there with just one man. It transpired that the driver of that car reported suspicious activity in the forest, and presumably he gave a

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description of our two cars. There really weren’t that many Skodas in Londonderry so that could have been important. —— and —— got into the back seats with the guns on their knees, —— was the driver. We had a final briefing and then we set off. We drove down the forest road and on to the main road. I drove past the Rising Sun in Greysteel and I watched —— pull into the car park in his car. I was to drive to an agreed location about half a mile away. —— and the boys were to drive out to meet me after the hit and we’d lose their car because the police would have a description of it. All that shooting was going on but I didn’t hear a thing and I was just half a mile away. I was beginning to think that something had gone wrong because I expected to hear the AK. The next thing I saw was —— flying around the corner in the car. It was obvious that the hit had been a success because —— and —— were very excited, they looked jubilant and they couldn’t stop smiling. It was like that after a mission if you were successful, you’d done it, and you hadn’t been killed or arrested, and you’d done the business. In stark contrast to —— and ——, looked almost serene. You would have thought that he’d just returned from the movies. But there was no mistaking the fact that —— and —— had just seen action. We poured a gallon of petrol over the car we had used for the hit and left an incendiary device under it, to blow it up. As it turned out in all that excitement they had forgotten to wind the windows down, as they were supposed to, so the car didn’t half burn at all. There was no oxygen to burn the inside of the car. I was very nervous, they had all done their bit, but now it was up to me, my job was to transport them safely away from the scene. I was the driver, and I was responsible for all of them, and my job was only beginning. We [the UFF] had always been told to plan the escape, even before planning the operation. The escape was always the most important part of the job. That’s why I had been so well trained as a driver, escape was crucial. We piled into the car and I took off fast. We were on a narrow country road doing nearly 80 mph when we passed two police cars speeding from the other direction, obviously heading for Greysteel. We were so close to each other on that narrow road that I actually clipped the wing mirror of the second car. I had a fixed wing mirror, but the police car must have had a retractable mirror which retracted upon impact, otherwise both mirrors would have been smashed. After about ten seconds a third police car passed us speeding towards Greysteel. I was actually driving on main beam, and I didn’t dip

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because I have poor eyesight in the dark. I didn’t even realise that until after the third police car passed us, then I dipped. I dropped —— and —— off at a wood outside Eglinton. They were to hide the weapons and stay in the wood that night, and I was to pick them up at 6.30 a.m. the next morning. I left —— off at a bar in the Waterside. We had UDA men there who would testify that he’d been there all night. On the way to the bar we passed a police Land-Rover on the other side of the road and they slowed down, watching us. Once again we though that we’d had it. I watched them in my rear-view mirror convinced that they’d turn and pursue us, but no, they just drove on down the road. They [the police] hit my mother’s house at 5.30 a.m. the next morning. I’d been living at home until the Wednesday of that week, so they knew where to find me. I was just about to leave my girlfriend’s house to pick the boys [—— and——] up at 6.00 a.m. when they [the police] arrived. There had been nothing whatsoever to connect me to Greysteel, and yet within hours they’re at my front door. The police raided 15 houses that night. That was a massive operation which required organisation and logistics, but it was obvious that they were prepared for it. The Londonderry police had everything under control, everything was in place, as if they expected it. After I was arrested they were supremely confident and they were smiling to themselves. You can always tell when the police know, or when they’re feeling about in the dark, and those police officers knew that they had me for Greysteel. The police who arrested me just said over and over again, ‘Just tell the truth and you’ll be OK.’ It was the same when I got to Gough Barracks, ‘Just tell the truth and you’ll be OK.’ I knew that they were keeping something from me, that they knew it was me. I was transferred down to Castlereagh interrogation centre for questioning, and it was the same there. The police were really confident. I’d been in Castlereagh before on two previous occasions but I hadn’t talked. They [the police] had hit me before, and burst my lip, they even squeezed my testicles, because they knew that they would have to force me to talk. There was none of that this time. I heard squeals and someone crying out for mercy in a cell up the corridor and the police said, ‘Those officers will have to interview you next if you don’t talk.’ I wouldn’t have minded a beating so much, that would have been better than the mind games they were playing. I was taken to the toilet later and I glimpsed into a room going past. There were two officers sitting at a table with a tape recorder. They looked away,

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embarrassed. They had been playing tapes of heavy interrogation in an attempt to frighten me. The difference was this time they knew that they had me, and I knew it as well, so eventually I did talk. The police didn’t produce fingerprint evidence at my trial. My fingerprints would have been all over the car. I had also used a torch and a folding spade which were in the boot of the car and my fingerprints would have been on those as well. That was standard police work, that was the sort of evidence you gather before you arrest someone and charge them. But they didn’t have to bother with that because they knew exactly who we were. You don’t need evidence to convict people when you know what they did, because armed with that knowledge you can make them confess. We carried out the Greysteel attack because we were soldiers and those were our orders, but I know that we have all felt remorse because of what we did. If they had been all IRA men in that bar, no problem, but they were civilians and that was different. Nine Protestant civilians, including four children, had been killed by the IRA in the Shankill bomb the week before, and everyone knew that there would be terrible retaliation in kind. That was tactically necessary, and justified, to bring an end to it. The loyalists had to demonstrate that they would hit back and replicate IRA strategy and ruthlessness every time that the Protestant and British community got hit. So in one way I don’t regret what happened, but I deeply regret the fact that I was a part of it. But the fact is it was going to happen, the UDA/UFF were bound to retaliate, and if it hadn’t been me it would have been someone else like me, at least as I was then. COMBATANT C The UFF were determined to take out IRA and Sinn Fein people, because they had brought the war to us [Protestants/British], so now we were taking the war to them. The UFF had good intelligence on known IRA men, and those were the men we wanted. We had no interest whatever in killing ordinary Catholics. Just before the murder my unit had been stalking a Provo ‘godfather’ for three days in a row. Whenever there was a Provo ‘hit’, it was always his house they went to for the debriefing so we knew that he was high up in the organisation [the IRA]. Then the order came from Belfast to suspend all current operations because we had to act upon intelligence about a known player [an IRA man]. Now that really pissed me off because I really wanted to kill the Provo who we had been stalking. He was a

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brave age [old] but he was a bad man, who was in it [IRA terrorism] up to his neck. But Belfast was running the show, and they decided who lived and who died. They said that they had the intelligence, but the fact was that we had our own intelligence which was better than theirs. When they [UFF] told me about the hit I naturally assumed that they were going to use my unit. But my unit weren’t to be used. They said that they wanted fresh men blooded. That was all wrong. When you work as part of a team you know the other men. You know their strengths and weaknesses and you can almost anticipate what they will do in a given situation. All that is part of your professionalism. Men who are unknown to each other simply don’t act as a team. We were told by them [the UFF] that it was an IRA target, and that it would be in IRA territory. Now I knew Greysteel and I knew that it was a republican town alright. There were tricolours hanging off all the street lights and IRA slogans all over the place. So I was fairly sure that there would be IRA men in the bar. When you are given a mission you get pumped up. The risks don’t matter any more. The most important thing in the world is the mission, the mission becomes the absolute priority. There was a guy I knew once, another UFF man. A Provo had come into the killing zone where the UFF had him set up. ‘Billy’ was informed about this by two men in his unit, but at that time they had no ‘clean’ car ready to undertake the mission. They had the guns, they had the target but they didn’t have a ‘clean’ car. So he said, ‘Fuck it, we’ll use my car.’ Now logically speaking that was absolutely crazy, sheer madness. Republicans or the police could have traced him down through the car. But I understood that perfectly because that’s the way it is when you’re on a mission. It doesn’t matter about the risk, or the danger, or the common sense. The only thing in your life at that time of any real importance is the mission. Anything that gets in your way gets killed. It locks into some instinct in you and you become absolutely ruthless. It becomes personal between you and them, you and the mission. A new unit was set up comprising of myself and two new guys. In my own unit we were always itching to go. If there was anything going down we wanted to be a part of it. We had all wanted to do a lot more than we were allowed to. We all thought the same way and we looked out for each other. So being part of a new unit felt strange. Operations took a lot of time in both planning and preparation. You had to undertake surveillance and intelligence work and that

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could involve a lot of people and organisation. After an operation there would have been a lot of police surveillance and there would be a very heavy police and army presence in the loyalist estates with road blocks and searches. So it was always harder to move after an operation had been carried out. We had hidden the guns to be used for the hit in a local forest and we had been out firing them the night before to make sure that they were in perfect working order. That was a standard procedure by now. The guns were checked and fired the night before a hit and then hidden by members of the same unit. No one else would know where the guns were so if anything did go wrong you’d know it was someone in the team. Those precautions were necessary because of the security forces’ infiltration of the UDA/UFF which had gone on before. We’d lost a lot of men that way, but that would have been mainly in Belfast. My brigade had always been fairly ‘clean’. I think that that was because in a rural community everybody knew everything about everybody else. Also in Londonderry there was none of the criminality or corruption that had taken place in Belfast. The UDA/UFF had respect in the community in Londonderry, because the Protestants felt so oppressed and excluded. We met at the car which we were to use for the mission. It had been left for us in a remote forest location. People would have thought that the car belonged to a man out walking his dog in the forest. We were all pumped up and excited and ready to go. I turned the key in the ignition and it just went click, and then a series of clicks. A car drove past us slowing down as it passed. I got out and opened the boot to pretend that I was changing a tyre, because three men sitting in a forest road was bound to look suspicious. The car would still have had us in sight when it turned and drove back down the road toward us. I didn’t even look at the driver, I just knelt down beside the front tyre and started to change it. Now I’m very suspicious and I didn’t like any of that. We had a car that wouldn’t start, and we had been spotted in suspicious circumstances and we hadn’t even got off the ground. After the car had disappeared around a bend I went back to the boot where I found a pick axe handle. I opened up the bonnet and I hit the starter motor several good cracks. I got back into the car and turned the ignition and this time she started. We went into the forest and got the guns, they were exactly how we left them. We had used very fine invisible thread and tied it to each of the guns. If they had been tampered with in any way the thread would have been broken, but that wouldn’t have been visible to the

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naked eye. But we knew what we were looking for. There was an AK47 [assault rifle] loaded with spare magazines on a speed strip [for rapid reloading], a Browning [.9 mil automatic pistol] and a shotgun. By this time I had every confidence in the other two. They were both dedicated loyalists ready to do the business. I’d seen them practice with the guns and they were both good, they were well trained men. —— in particular could really use the AK, and you could tell that he wanted to use it for real. It took us about 15 minutes to get the guns and get back to the car. We discussed the mission for the final time, shook hands and started driving towards the target area. When we got to the target area everything happened very quickly. From a military viewpoint it was a very successful strike. —— and — — jumped out of the car and went into the target area with the guns. When the gunfire started everyone ran for cover. I heard the AK on automatic fire but I only heard one shot from the Browning, so I knew that ——’s gun had jammed. But —— was doing the business. I hate to say this now but there was a sense of glory in it all. All your senses are on full alert and it’s like you feel really alive for the first time. I heard the shouts and screams coming from the target area, but at that time I just thought, ‘Payback, you’re getting a taste of your own medicine.’ I was standing outside the car aiming the shotgun at anything that moved. I was circling the car with my back to it, turning around about every five seconds. At that time I felt proud to be a part of that. I felt proud of the other two because they were my comrades, and they were doing the business. All those emotions were there, excitement, the buzz, the high, the feeling of comradeship. We were the UFF and we were taking the war to the enemy. We were soldiers under orders and we had to carry them out, and that’s precisely what we did. But some time after that, when I realised that we had actually killed, all my sense of justification and conviction of the rightness of what we did faded away. I was consumed with rage after the sectarian murders of Protestants, and I was proud to take part in the inevitable retaliation. But all that slipped away and I became consumed with remorse. The loyalists were right to hit back, we had to hit back, but when I realised that I had actually been involved, me personally, in a killing, the world changed. I had been pushed to the point where I felt that I had to hit back, but I hadn’t thought about the consequences of actually doing it. The minute that first bullet hit I knew that I’d never be the same again. It was like losing your innocence to know that life was so cheap, and that it could be taken away in a split second. And when

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you’ve been a part of that you never quite see the world in the same light again. I became seriously suicidal, and I couldn’t sleep any more. Being a part of Greysteel literally nearly killed me. [‘C’ was later ‘saved’ through an evangelical religious conversion.] COMBATANT D I progressed into the military side a lot more quickly than I had expected. They were a different calibre of men altogether on the military side. The UDA/UFF reorganised in 1989/90 and the younger people began to take over. The old guard had virtually ran the organisation as a sort of loyalist old boys’ remembrance association. But all of that was changing. The new leadership wanted to take the war to the IRA, and that suited me fine. I felt that it was about time that the loyalists got off their knees and started taking out Provos. A lot of people felt that it was up to the security forces, the police and the army, to take on the IRA but they’d had 25 years in which to do it, and it became increasingly obvious that the political will wasn’t there to defeat the IRA. They were being allowed to get away with it. They could do just whatever they wanted in Northern Ireland just as long as they didn’t bomb London. Greysteel seemed very rushed after the Shankill bomb. The UFF all over Northern Ireland were in a state of high alert. The Belfast UFF, and in particular the 2nd Battalion C Company had been very active in the early 1990s. They were targeting the IRA and Sinn Fein all over Northern Ireland, and IRA men were being killed. North Antrim/Londonderry UDA/UFF had been quite successful also, and quite a few IRA men had moved south well away from north Antrim. A lot of IRA men were killed in north Antrim, including the IRA’s CO. We were the second most active UFF command in Northern Ireland and we had quite a few good operators, both in Londonderry and north Antrim. We [north Antrim/Londonderry UFF] had a fair idea that we would be chosen to retaliate for the Shankill. I was picked up by a UFF unit on the Wednesday of that week, and driven to a secret location in the middle of the country. I was told that there was going to be a serious attack that week, and that a team was being put together. I was driven out to an arms dump in a forest after that. There was a sawn-off shotgun, an AK47 and a Browning pistol. I was to be one of the gunmen with the pistol which was to be used to finish people off. —— was the main shooter with the AK, and —— was to keep the getaway car safe, with the shotgun. We tested the

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guns, and they all fired perfectly except the Browning. The Browning jammed after two shots, and I had to clear it. I didn’t fire the gun again until that night when I was only able to get one shot off before it jammed again. Then it seemed to clear itself. So that was it, we were to be the three gunmen for the mission. We were to have a driver in a ‘clean’ car for our escape but we didn’t know who he was. We were just told that he was good, and that he’d get us out of there fast. But we hadn’t a clue where we’d be getting away from. We were all surprised that a new team was being specially put together for the operation. The existing teams were highly professional and proven in combat. So all of that seemed strange. We weren’t told that the target was the Rising Sun bar in Greysteel until the morning of the mission. —— was to be our driver and he was to pick us up in Derry. We were to drop —— off to collect the car which was to be used for the hit and then we were all to meet at the arms dump in the forest, with the ‘scout’ car and the ‘attack’ car. The four of us were in the car driving out of Derry actually heading in the direction of Greysteel. The police and the army were obviously in a state of high alert, and they were all over the place. I thought that the four of us in the car in Londonderry at that time was just asking for it, it would have looked too suspicious. We were driving down the road when we saw the joint police and army checkpoint at Maydown. We knew that if we stopped the car and turned to drive away the police would have been on to us. So we’d no choice, we had to drive straight into the police checkpoint. ——, the driver, would have been a ‘face’ [known to the police]. He’d been arrested before on charges of murder, and attempted murder, and he was the driver. As well as that, —— drove a Skoda and he was using his own car to transport us. The police obviously knew that he was a loyalist paramilitary and if they knew that, they’d know the sort of car he drove. And believe me there weren’t that many Skodas in Londonderry. On top of that —— had a boiler suit on, rolled down to the waist ready for action. So you had a known loyalist driving three men around in his car, and one of them was wearing a boiler suit. None of us thought that we had a chance in hell of getting through that checkpoint but incredibly the police just waved us on through. We couldn’t believe our luck. We drove straight to the hit car and dropped —— off, and then headed to the forest for the guns. We went in to retrieve the guns and by the time we got back —— had arrived. —— was the driver, so the hit was on. We were following —— in the scout car. He drove straight past Greysteel, and we pulled in fast right outside the Rising Sun bar.

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We went into the bar with the boiler suits and masks. It was Halloween so some of the customers actually smiled at us. They thought that we were in fancy dress playing a Halloween prank. We were pointing our guns directly at them when someone said, ‘That’s a sick joke boys.’ They had no conception of what was about to go down. —— was meant to shout, ‘Remember the Shankill’ or something like that but instead he said, ‘Trick or treat’ and then he opened up with the AK, and I opened up with the Browning, but it jammed after just one round. The funny thing was everything just seemed to go white. —— was firing the AK but I didn’t hear any noise. The bodies of the dead and wounded were hitting the floor, but there was no red blood, everything was white, and things seemed to happen in slow motion. People must have been shouting and screaming but I didn’t hear any noise. It was like one of those scenes from a Christmas opera, dramatic movements and gestures that were out of place in the real world. After —— finished the shooting we ran back to the car. —— was standing there with the shotgun ready to go. The car doors were lying open for us. We drove out to where we were to meet —— at his car. The other two were very elated, no doubt with the adrenaline rush, but I was really quite quiet. I suppose that was because my gun jammed so I’d failed to carry out the job as I was meant to. We threw petrol over the car we had used for the raid, then threw an incendiary device under it. We piled into ——’s car and we were out of there fast. There was a lot of activity and you could hear all the sirens from the main road. —— drove us out. We came to a fork in the road and —— turned right when he should have turned left. He’s got bad eyesight at night but maybe that’s what saved us. Two police cars passed us on the opposite side of the road driving back down towards Greysteel. ——’s wing mirror actually hit the wing mirror of the second police car. I turned right around waiting for them, or at least the police car we hit, to stop, turn and come after us. Then a third police car passed us and just drove on as well. Once again we couldn’t believe our luck. —— and I were dropped off in a small wood outside Londonderry. We were to bury the guns and stay there overnight. —— was to collect us again at 6.30 a.m. the next morning. By this stage —— and I were both spooked. We heard leaves rustle in the dark and, although we didn’t say anything to each other at the time, we both thought that it was the SAS and that they were going to kill us. As it turned out it was a couple of old cows that had made the noise. We made our own way back into Londonderry after —— failed to turn up.

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Because of all that had happened I was paranoid. I thought that there were policemen in every car I saw. I was convinced that they [the security forces] were on to us, that they knew about everything that had gone down. I remember the police detective who interviewed me after the arrest. He just kept saying, ‘Tell us the truth, and you’ll be alright’, ‘Tell us the truth and you’ll be alright.’ I was absolutely convinced that they knew everything, that they knew about the entire operation.

Conclusion THE PRIMACY OF POLITICS 1994–2000 Since 1994 the UDA has been an organisation in transition. Following the ceasefires of that year the organisation brought its killing completely to an end, as during 1995 the grouping worked toward a political resolution of the conflict. The UDA was represented by the UDP, whose leadership was comprised of two elected politicians, David Adams and Gary McMichael, and its chairman John White. All three men made commendable contributions to the talks process which preceded the Good Friday Agreement in 1998, and the formation of the Belfast Assembly later that year. The UDP was a proagreement party, however the UDA as a whole were divided along anti- and pro-agreement opinion. This issue was brought to a head prior to the referendum in 1998 when UDA/UFF prisoners in the Maze voted for an anti-agreement stance. This could have rendered the UDP’s political position untenable, posing a threat to the peace process itself. Realising the gravity of the situation the then Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Mo Mowlam, took the unprecedented step of visiting the UDA prisoners in their H Block, in HMP Maze. She argued the case for the agreement and incredibly persuaded the prisoners into a further vote, which was this time pro-agreement. However, this change was more influenced by Mowlam’s independence of spirit and contempt for convention than her alacrity in political argument. In the event Mowlam’s intervention had saved the day for the UDP and possibly even the peace process. The UDP went on to win two seats in the Assembly elections which should have marked the beginning of the politicisation of the UDA, but it didn’t. Very uneasy relationships existed between personalities, politics and paramilitarism. Politicians McMichael and Adams remained aloof from the UDA and became increasingly dismissive of the brigadiers. White who had the link role mediated between those with a thinly veiled mutual contempt. Meanwhile the grassroots membership, the critical mass in all of this, became all but ignored. The infrastructure necessary to sustain a political party was almost completely absent. Rather, the military and political loyalty of the volunteers was assumed, as policies were pursued without 210

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discussion and often against the wishes of ordinary UDA men on the ground. The UDA had ‘gone political’ without the inclusion, participation, education and mandate of the volunteers who remained broadly anti-agreement. The consequences of this political inactivity, assumption and apathy were realised in 2000 when the UDP failed to gain even a single seat in the Assembly elections. Adding insult to injury the UDP had failed to formally register candidates for inclusion in the Assembly elections, a potentially critical issue which was to become academic given the lack of electoral support. THE PRIMACY OF PARAMILITARISM 2000–2002 It simply is not possible to write a contemporary history of the UDA/UFF without including Adair. His role was central in the UDA’s return to paramilitarism. Adair’s record in the pre-1994 conflict has been described in the main body of the text, both directly and through inference. He, uniquely among the paramilitary loyalists, made the transition from being a loyalist icon in 1994 to becoming one of the most hated loyalist figures in Northern Ireland by 2002. Adair was imprisoned for 16 years in 1995 charged with directing UFF terrorism. He was released under the early release (of political prisoners) provisions of the Good Friday Agreement in July 2000. However, Adair’s reintegration into peaceful society was always going to be problematic as he was a product of history, and that history had been saturated in bloody conflict. Adair’s antecedents When the war ended with the ceasefires of 1994 Adair was substantially displaced as his raison d’être was removed. He had been at the nerve centre of the UFF’s campaign and for years this became pivotal to his role in life. When occupying this position he had the respect and even adoration of his men, and his ego didn’t suffer as a consequence. Surrounded by supporters his perception of being the unquestioned leader was further consolidated day by day in a rarefied social context with tenuous connections to everyday reality. Adair has been described as a Maine type character, even by his enemies. Clearly comparisons between Maine, a British colonel and war hero, and Adair are unsustainable in all but one respect, the difficulties experienced in adjusting to peace. Blair Maine, a fellow Ulsterman who had lived only miles away from Adair, was the founder of the

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SAS during the Second World War. Maine was an outstanding soldier who routinely defied death in acts of bravado which became the stuff of legend. He too had lived for the war, it had defined who he was, becoming central to his identity and purpose in life. Predictably Maine could not adjust to civilian life, missing the excitement, the adrenalin flow, the comradeship, but most crucially, the sense of mission. Many soldiers returning from the war found everything in peacetime comparatively meaningless, pointless and trivial. Adair experienced the same frustration as one who had been similarly driven by conflict, in a world where only the current mission has any real significance. In war the mission is something which absorbs men to the point where nothing else matters. It becomes personal and all-consuming as if locking into some primitive instinct in which meaningful reality becomes reduced to you and the mission. Men become blind to logic and to normal morality, because such considerations can detract from the mission and the absolute necessity of its success. The mission must be achieved, regardless of the risks, getting caught or killed and despite the collateral damage, underlining the priority which it must be afforded. This is the delusional world in which a soldier operates, where the normal rules don’t apply. It is experienced both by the individual and the group (company or regiment), becoming mutually reinforced, acculturated and ritualised. It develops into a form of military counter-culture in which civilian life becomes despised as routine and boring, because the soldier’s world is special, something which is outside ordinary experience. In this world killing the enemy (or even killing per se) becomes a means of status enhancement, precisely the act of greatest taboo in normal peace-time society. As a result of war, a state of conflict can be internalised, becoming an internally experienced reality which the soldiers may consciously or subconsciously wish to replicate in the external world. This can result in a state of paranoia and a psychological scenario in which, when the individual is not fighting or involved in conflict, he has a sense of being vulnerable to danger. In this case the soldier may create conflicts in the outer world to meet the expectations of an internally experienced ‘reality’. So Blair Maine would drink and get into fights to actualise or replicate in the real world his internally experienced conflictual reality. Adair was similarly driven to replicate conflicts, only these were to be on a much grander scale.

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The loyalist feud While still involved in my research in the Maze I overheard Adair comment of the UVF, ‘They look down their noses at us.’ He looked at me to gauge my reaction and my expression was grim in the knowledge that there would be further trouble. Adair had been an admirer of Billy Wright and the mid-Ulster UVF before the ceasefires, and he compared this highly active loyalist unit with his own C Company. (Wright and his unit claimed to have decimated the IRA in mid-Ulster and East Tyrone [Anderson, 2002].) After the ceasefires Wright had retained a militant posture causing him to be stood down by the UVF. Wright subsequently formed the Loyalist Volunteer Force (LVF) as a breakaway faction within the UVF resulting in a deadly acrimony between these two organisations. Adair claimed that the UFF had more in common with the LVF and openly formed alliances with them. This relationship was further consolidated following Wright’s murder as a prisoner in HMP Maze in bizarre and extraordinary circumstances (Anderson, 2002). He was shot dead by an INLA prisoner in Britain’s highest security prison in circumstances which clearly suggested collusion between the intelligence services, sections of the prison service, and the INLA (Anderson, 2002). Following this Adair was instrumental in having the remaining LVF prisoners accommodated with the UDA’s H Block. This increasing alliance between the UFF and LVF was clearly seen as a threat to the UVF, as perhaps it was intended. This was brought to a head in the summer of 2001 when the UDA/UFF organised a massive show of strength by marching down the Shankill Road in Belfast. This is an area of domicile for both the UDA and UVF. In an act of calculated provocation some of the marchers carried LVF flags and banners. Sporadic fighting broke out between members of the parade and groups of UVF men. Later that afternoon the Rex pub on the Shankill Road, frequented by UVF members and regarded as a UVF bar, was attacked by a lone UFF gunman. Shots were fired into the premises narrowly missing customers. Within days the UVF retaliated by shooting dead two men while they were sitting in a car in west Belfast. One of the men, Jackie Coulter, was UDA; however the other, Bobby Mahood, was associated with the UVF. Again within days the UFF retaliated by shooting dead Sam Rocket, also associated with the UVF. The events which took place after that marked the beginning of the end for Johnny Adair. Over 600 families, not aligned to

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C Company or the UDA, were forced to flee from their homes in the lower Shankill. Children, some still in their nightclothes, were bundled into cars and driven to wherever there was a floor to sleep on. Those who had claimed to protect the Protestant and loyalist community were now the persecutors of that same community, as the Shankill was split in two between UDA and UVF factions. Divisions in the community ran so deep some of the local primary schools were forced to reallocate classes upon the basis of families’ affiliation to the UDA or UVF. The intervention of the army was required to restore civil order and to prevent further killing. Adair had been blinded by his mission against the UVF, quite prepared to overlook the fact that the collateral damage on this occasion was innocent Protestant families. The human misery and distress caused to so many loyalist men, women and children was not lost upon some members of C Company, many of whom began to question the motivation of the leadership. Following the height of the feud in 2001 the Shankill C Company and the UDA staged a festival in the lower Shankill. It ended with a volley of rounds from AK47s shortly after which Adair was arrested and reimprisoned – on the grounds of breaking the conditions of his early release. Adair was reported as saying that going back to prison at that time probably saved his life. The worst of the feud was over but a legacy of interfactional hatred remained. Adair was released back into the community in the summer of 2002. John White’s association with Adair appeared to become closer throughout that year. This was studied by the UDA’s other brigadiers who felt that overall control of the organisation was becoming too centralised, from Belfast and the Shankill. This was particularly true with media coverage which centred on White and Adair, to the exclusion of other elements of the UDA. Previously cordial relationships became strained as the mainstream UDA took a step back from both John White and C Company. Adair became increasingly arrogant and dismissive of the UDA’s brigadiers in what were progressively brief encounters. The more the brigadiers distanced themselves from White, the more he moved towards Adair, in a relationship configuration which seemed to be inevitable. Further to this, John’s office was across the road from the Adair family home, and he appeared to spend more and more time there. As the UDA became fragmented into C Company and the mainstream UDA, things moved well beyond the point were simply being in White’s company was a guarantee of trustworthiness within the UDA.

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These divisions within the organisation posed personal problems in that my research activity was strongly identified with both White and C Company, which hadn’t been a problem, that is prior to the UDA/UFF feud. The mainstream UDA, the UVF/RHC and just about everyone else had blamed the feud on Adair and elements within C Company. While this unit assumed an air of ultra confidence and elitism its position was becoming increasingly isolated and desperate. There was a further and deeply disconcerting dimension to all of this. It was widely held that Adair had become involved in drugdealing, extortion, money-laundering and prostitution. While the mainstream UDA did not have an unblemished record in many of these areas, the organisation’s involvement in prostitution was widely regarded as a step too far. The claim that there was no contradiction between being a drug-dealer and a patriot was also called into question by the political and non-criminal elements of both C Company and the UDA, who clearly viewed these claims as mutually exclusive. It appeared to many that Adair had become heavily involved in precisely the criminal and self-serving activities he was instrumental in eradicating in the organisation a decade earlier. White was also accused of dealing in drugs but as one who worked closely with him over many years I have no direct knowledge of this. Throughout the year 2002 relationships between the leadership of the mainstream UDA and C Company became more fractious with each accusing the other of criminality, claiming for themselves political legitimacy. In mid-2002 William ‘Winkie’ Dodds, the UDA’s brigadier in the lower Shankill, was ousted, in what was seen as the beginning of C Company’s attempt to gain control of the organisation. By this time the leadership of the mainstream UDA had calculated that Adair was planning a coup d’état within the organisation with a view to assuming overall command. While Adair undoubtedly had still retained support in C Company and within elements of the mainstream UDA, the largely localised, federal and democratic structure of the organisation would have rendered any centralised dictatorial leadership untenable. In November 2002 Steven Warnock, an LVF member with links to Adair, was shot dead. The east Belfast UDA were held responsible and Jim Grey, its brigadier, was shot in the face in an attempted murder bid by the LVF. Both Adair and White attended Steven Warnock’s funeral which was construed as their taking sides with the LVF against the mainstream UDA. In December Jonathan Stewart, the nephew of the disposed Winkie Dodds, was shot dead in a killing attributed

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to C Company. In January 2003 Roy Breen, a UDA man with links to Adair, was shot dead by the south Belfast battalion of the organisation. C Company and the mainstream UDA were now effectively at a state of war. Later in January Adair was reimprisoned accused of breaking the terms of his licence by his alleged dealing in drugs, money-laundering, extortion and prostitution. Many observers, once again, took the view that this state intervention had saved Adair’s life, but this time that was almost certainly accurate. In February John Gregg, the brigadier of the UDA’s south east Antrim Brigade, was shot dead by elements within C Company. Another UDA man, Robert Carson, who was travelling with Gregg was also killed. Gregg had been imprisoned for staging an assassination attempt upon Gerry Adams in 1986 which had been foiled by the security forces. This had afforded him a hero’s status within loyalism, as he progressed to become a well-liked and respected leader. He had been asked on a television documentary if he had any regrets about his role in attempting to kill Adams, his reply was notoriously, ‘Only that I didn’t kill him.’ Gregg’s death seemed to have achieved the impossible when at his funeral the mainstream UDA, the UVF/RHC and LVF united in mourning in a massive display of loyalist unity. Shortly after Gregg’s funeral, in early February 2003 factions of the mainstream UDA attacked Adair’s lower Shankill powerbase in Boundary Way. Massively overwhelmed, C Company supporters offered a futile resistance in hand-to-hand fighting, but most of the unit had already departed the area. Many had been shocked by Gregg’s murder, while others had no wish to fight those whom they regarded as comrades. The police and army intervened, and a convoy of some 20 cars was escorted out of the lower Shankill to Larne harbour, en route to Scotland. John White, Gina Adair and the Adair children were among the refugees, who also included the remnants of what had been the once proud and defiant C Company. The group had fled so quickly they left behind Adair’s two alsatian dogs, who were filmed running around the streets in obvious confusion and distress. This poignant imagery prompted enquiries from around the world by those concerned for the welfare of the dogs. (They were subsequently looked after by Adair’s extended family.) THE NEW POLITICAL IMPERATIVE 2003 The events of 2001–3 had traumatised the UDA and occasioned the most significant debates ever to have taken place within the organ-

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isation regarding its role, function and future. This in turn led to a root and branch reorganisation and an almost complete change in the prevailing philosophy, as for a second time the UDA moved towards the primacy of politics. Crucially this quiet but steady revolution within the UDA has been from the bottom up, fully involving the grassroots membership. The political advisers to the UDA, the Ulster Political Research Group, now have an executive committee compromising of politicians and community workers and those with a genuine concern for the working-class loyalist communities they represent. For the first time in history, the UDA and the UPRG now have the coherency, organisation and vision to offer effective leadership to a people who desperately need it. A significant part of this process of change will be for the UDA to develop insights into its own history, and to gain an understanding of the nature of the flame which has kept it alive throughout long, desperate and turbulent years. The organisation needs to learn from its combatants and the political prisoners who were involved in the conflict, because they have defined what the UDA was and they will determine what it will become. This book was commenced in 1998 arising from a conversation in Castle Buildings, Stormont. It was largely finished by the year 2000, and would have remained unpublished but for a chance encounter with Marie Smyth in 2002, in what was another twist of fate. Colin Crawford July 2003

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Index Compiled by Stephanie Johnson Adair, Johnny xii, 18–19, 89, 143, 154, 165–73, 211–16 Adams, David 95, 210 Adams, Gerry 36, 37, 152, 194, 216 America xi, xiv, 21, 31, 34, 43, 155, 196 Antrim 128–9, 133, 198, 206 Ardoyne 55–6, 71, 99, 103, 104 Armagh 128–30, 133, 135, 142, 146 army 5, 11, 106–7, 128–34, 214, 216 14th Intelligence 147, 170–71 intelligence 117, 176 patrols 179, 197, 204, 207 protecting Protestants 67–8, 82–3, 174 and UDA/UFF 22, 29, 57, 157–8 collusion 44–5, 178 infiltration 37, 115 see also police; security forces B Specials 22–3, 53 ‘balance of terror’ 33, 45, 49, 160 Belfast Agreement see Good Friday Agreement Bloody Friday 152, 187 Bloody Sunday xiii, 33 bombs 29, 81, 131–2, 158, 161, 178, 182 see also IRA; terrorism; violence C Company (UDA) xii, 38, 176, 178, 182, 213–16 Camp Council (prison) 12–13 Carron, Owen 36 Castlereagh 60, 75, 109, 157, 164, 177, 181, 189, 201 Catholicism xii–xiii, 1–3, 5, 23 and IRA 5–6, 20, 35, 74–6, 83, 100, 138, 159–60 as defenders of Catholicism 7, 38, 54, 60 and Protestantism 6, 55–6, 81, 88, 100, 113, 144–5, 186 attacked by Protestants xiii, 5

attacks on Protestants 52–4, 67, 69 sectarian attacks by UDA/UFF xviii, 7, 32–5, 43–5, 70–71, 91–3, 194 opposition to 16, 42, 104, 136, 163, 199 ceasefire 42, 49, 136–7, 142, 178, 183, 210, 213 civil war 3–4, 5 Collins, Michael 3–4 Connolly House 181–2 crime, within loyalist paramilitaries xii, 16, 32 within UDA/UFF 26–8, 36, 39, 71, 83–4, 111, 215–16 Crumlin Road prison 71, 138–42 Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) xiii Devlin, Bernadette 36 direct rule xi, 34 Dodds, William 215 Downing Street Declaration (1993) 48 Easter Rising (1916) 1 education of UDA/UFF volunteers xvi, 65–6, 79–80, 99, 112–13, 156, 184 Enniskillen 148–50, 152 finances xv, 26–7, 57, 109–11, 114, 118–19, 180 Forces Research Unit 30, 44, 45 gangsterism xiii, xv, 16, 39, 136 Good Friday Agreement (1998) xi–xii, xiv, 4, 95, 165, 210–11 Great Britain 1–2, 6–7, 23–4, 31, 32, 144 and IRA 34, 91, 143, 152, 160, 173, 178, 186 Gregg, John 216

221

222

Index

Greysteel massacre xviii, 193–5, 198–203 guns see weapons Home Rule 1, 2 Hydebank (Young Offenders Centre) 73, 100 ideology 6–8, 24 independence, Irish 1–3, 4, 7 informers 27, 60, 109, 115, 166 intelligence 47, 116, 143 UDA/UFF 104, 147, 166, 197 on IRA 37–8, 43–5, 121–2, 125, 136, 149, 176–9, 188–9, 202–3 intelligence services 5, 42 British 29, 30, 40, 45, 115, 170–71 collusion with UDA/UFF 38, 43, 115, 158, 166, 213 security forces 37–8, 43–5, 94, 119, 132, 147, 170 Irish Army 3, 21, 47 Irish Free State 3 Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) 70, 99, 104, 108, 116–17, 213 Irish Republican Army (IRA), Official 1–4, 5, 12, 21, 142, 178 Irish Republican Army (IRA), Provisional 147, 177, 183 see also Sinn Fein bombs 61, 139, 150–51, 161–2, 185, 193 and British Army 83, 92, 129–34 and Catholicism 6–7, 38, 60, 69, 74–5, 90, 99, 100, 193 and loyalist paramilitaries xiii, 24, 136 and media 31, 137, 161 police, targeted xviii, 28, 131, 150 and politics xii, 4–5, 6, 20, 48, 166–7 prisoners 2, 12, 32, 86, 88, 139–40 Protestants, targeted 47, 52–6, 59, 91–4, 99, 151–2 and security forces 28, 43, 45, 147, 151, 158

and Sinn Fein 4, 166, 181–2 strategy 167, 176 security forces xviii, 46, 185–6 and UDA 28, 30, 101, 115, 119, 149, 160 selective targeting of IRA 32, 63, 103, 135–6, 180–82, 199 intelligence 38, 49 ‘taking the war to the IRA’ 37, 125–6, 175–9, 188, 196, 206 retaliation of violence 91, 153, 158, 160, 179, 197–8, 202 and UFF 160–63, 170, 182, 184, 188 selective targeting of IRA 89, 121–2, 142, 148, 150, 154, 168 intelligence 38, 44–5, 166–7 ‘taking the war to the IRA’ 37, 42–3 and UVF 58, 137–8, 149, 213 violence 33–5, 184 weapons 21–2, 53, 56, 167 Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) 1 Irish Republican Socialist Party (IRSP) 12 Lisburn 24, 128–9, 133, 135, 136 Long Kesh 10–13, 94–5, 98, 141, 146 see also Maze loyalism xviii, 5, 99, 172, 216 and Catholicism 6, 7, 37, 49, 76 and Great Britain 6, 34 and IRA 20–24, 29, 38, 48–9, 52, 57, 143, 205 paramilitaries 6–7, 15–16, 26, 34, 48–9, 94, 175, 183, 211 and security forces 36, 38 and police 93, 147, 166, 178 and politics xi–xiii, 2, 6, 184, 217 and republicanism 57, 115, 125–6, 145 in prison 12, 71–2, 84, 100, 138–41 and violence 8, 33–5, 46, 157 Loyalist Volunteer Force (LVF) 213, 215, 216

Index Maginn, Laughlin 37–8, 43 Maze (prison) 17, 139, 141–2, 173, 210, 213 see also Long Kesh McGuinness, Martin 36, 37, 152 McMichael, Gary 95, 210 McMichael, John 148–9 McSwiney, Terence 2, 32 media 34, 141, 160 and IRA 31, 54, 82, 137–8, 175 and UDA 28, 31, 37, 136–8, 161, 214 militarism xi–xiii, 49 military strategy of UDA/UFF 28–30, 34, 36, 39, 49, 111 Molyneaux, Jim 140 money see finances Morley, David 12 Mowlam, Mo xii, xiv, 210 nationalism xi, 5, 23, 25, 50 Nelson, Brian 30, 44–5, 63, 158, 176 Northern Ireland Assembly xi, xiv–xv, 4, 95, 112, 210–11 see also politics O’Donnell, Kevin 44 Orangeism xii–xiii, 88, 100, 137, 195 Paisley, Ian xiii, 140, 184 paramilitaries xi, 5–8, 12–13, 32, 44 loyalist xv, 15–16, 94, 99, 132, 136, 183–4, 211 collusion with security forces xvii, 36, 115 and Great Britain 7, 20 see also IRA; UDA; UFF; UVF peace process 5, 13, 48, 183, 210 police 5, 57, 100, 170–71 and army 128, 130, 186–7, 216 targeted by IRA xviii, 22, 59 patrols 108, 151, 197, 199, 204, 207 and politics xiii and UDA/UFF 23, 60, 94, 119, 121, 171, 198 arrested 157, 165, 172, 181, 189–90, 201–2, 209 collusion 166, 177–8

223

infiltration 36, 39–40, 93, 110, 115, 143, 147, 204 see also army; RUC; security forces prison service 2, 10–14, 32, 71–3, 84–7, 100–102, 111, 138–41, 213 Progressive Unionist Party (PUP) xi, 15, 112 Protestantism 2–4 and Catholicism 52–6, 69, 81, 100, 144–5, 186 and IRA 63, 91–4, 148, 151–2, 159–60, 173, 185 and UDA/UFF 115, 136, 182, 204, 214 Red Hand Commando (RHC) 7, 12, 215, 216 religion see Catholicism; Protestantism republicanism xi, 5, 30 see also Irish Republican Army (IRA) and Great Britain 23, 186 ideology 6, 7 and IRA 3, 6, 22, 57, 99, 150 and loyalism xi, xiv, 24, 29, 57, 115 in prison 12, 71–2, 84, 100, 138–41 targeted by UDA/UFF 37–8, 49, 115–16, 124–6, 147, 176, 194, 197–8 sectarian killings xviii, 91, 99 and terrorism 30, 34–5, 42, 44, 116 riots 52, 55, 69, 102, 113, 173–4 Roy, Herbert 52–4 Royal Irish Constabulary 2, 3 see also police Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) 40, 124, 171, 174, 176 and IRA 28, 44, 175 and UDA/UFF 29, 109–10, 149, 169, 178, 179 see also police sectarian killings 5, 21,27 by IRA 32, 46, 59, 91, 126, 159–60, 175, 185, 188

224

Index

sectarian killings continued by loyalist paramilitaries 7, 16, 46, 91, 126, 137–8, 175 UDA/UFF 32–9, 45, 47, 159–60 of Catholics 32–7, 38, 45, 91, 100, 137–8, 159–60 of Protestants 32, 59, 91, 159–60, 175, 185, 205 security forces 198 collusion with loyalist paramilitaries xvii, 36–8, 42–5 UDA/UFF xviii, 115, 157, 158, 166 infiltration of UDA/UFF 27, 29–30, 37, 39–44, 108, 110, 204 opposition to IRA xiii, 45, 92, 131–3, 143, 180, 185, 206 targeted by IRA 6, 32, 46, 59, 147 and politics xiii, 131, 136 see also army; police Shankill Road 51, 57, 64, 70, 77, 155, 170 bombed by IRA 20, 81–2, 161–3, 187, 193–8, 206, 208 and Catholics 52–3, 74, 113 and UDA/UFF 57, 59, 61, 114, 213–14 violence 90, 94–5, 113 Sinn Fein 6, 152 and IRA xii, 2, 4, 37, 166, 181–2 and politics xii, 4, 42, 142–3, 166 and security forces 45, 158, 181 and UDA/UFF 25, 32, 36–8, 49, 103, 136, 148–54, 181, 202 see also Irish Republican Army (IRA) Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) 38, 93 Spence, Gusty 12, 15 Stevens Enquiry (1989) 30, 36, 43, 115, 118, 166 see also security forces, collusion with loyalist paramilitaries Stone, Michael 37, 143–53 Stormont 34 terrorism xi–xv, xix, 5, 8, 48 counter- 29, 102, 126, 178, 197

IRA 4, 20–22, 34, 44, 91, 126, 142, 183 and security forces 29, 30, 42, 130 UDA/UFF 24, 29, 37, 47, 60, 126, 158, 183, 211 training, military 28–30, 41, 57, 81, 103, 188 Tyrie, Andy 24, 29, 37, 46–7, 60–61 Ulster Defence Association (UDA) xvii, 5, 23, 68–9, 80–81, 90, 109, 173–4, see also Ulster Freedom Fighters C Company 213–16 and Catholicism xviii, 27, 32–7, 46–7, 94 crime on behalf of UDA 71, 83–4 within UDA xv, 26–28, 36, 39, 204, 215 finances 25–7, 76 and Great Britain 22, 34 image 30–31, 113–14 and IRA 42, 61–3, 102, 148–9 intelligence 38, 49, , 135, 197 retaliation 46–8, 63, 94, 165, 197 selective targeting of IRA/Sinn Fein 29, 32, 36, 154, 158, 187, 196–7 ‘taking the war to the IRA’ 37, 157, 175, 206 junior wing 82, 113 leadership 16, 24–5, 29, 33, 101, 183, 215 corrupt 26–7, 30, 36–7, 111, 114–16, 118–19, 157, 166 replaced 30, 38–9, 102, 120, 157, 175–6 and media 28, 31 and police 60, 110, 135, 166, 178 infiltration 27–8, 36–7, 143 and politics xi–xii, xiv, 27, 32, 34, 96, 210–11, 217 prisoners 12, 15, 17–19, 86–8, 111, 139–41, 183, 193, 210 welfare 26, 111 and Protestantism 22, 30, 136 defence of 24, 36

Index sectarian killing of Catholics xviii, 27, 32–7, 46–7, 94 and security forces xviii, 30 collusion 38–9, 42–4 infiltration 27–9, 33, 39–40, 118 strategy 9, 34–6, 38, 101–2, 108, 115, 119–20, 134–7 structure 24–5, 102, 120 terrorism 34, 37, 48 training 28–30 and UVF xii, 117, 213–15 violence 8, 33–5 volunteers 16, 25, 30, 33, 39–41, 176, 211 recruiting 58, 118, 145–6, 154, 160–61, 187 war xiv, 4, 6, 7, 19, 32 weapons 20–21, 25–6, 58, 180 welfare of community 26, 111, 119, 137, 179, 193 Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR) 37, 128–34, 135–6, 172, 175 Ulster Democratic Party (UDP) xii, xiv–xv, 15, 42, 95–6, 111, 166, 210–11 Ulster Freedom Fighters (UFF) xi, xvii, 6, 7, 71, 161, 213 intelligence 48, 104, 147, 149, 166–7, 177, 188, 194 from security forces 38, 43, 115, and IRA 43–4, 48, 90, 142, 148, 160–62, 165 retaliation 198, 202 selective targeting 36–8, 44–5, 89, 121–4, 136, 150–51, 180–82, 187–91, 198–9 leadership 16, 33, 38, 41, 90, 142, 166, 175–6 and politics 4, 42, 96, 165, 166 prisoners 12, 15, 17 and Protestantism 136–7, 182 sectarian killing of Catholics xviii, 33–6, 45, 159 and security forces collusion 38, 42, 115, 158 infiltration 39–41, 44, 166 strategy 9, 34, 38–9, 159–61, 167, 194

225

structure 25, 39 violence 8, 34–5, 211 volunteers 8, 16, 41, 120–21, 135, 154, 186 training 28–30 Ulster Political Research Group (UPRG) xii, 96, 217 Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) xii, xiii, 177 Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) xv, 5, 7, 57, 118, 136 and IRA 58, 63, 137–9, 196 and politics xi, 15, 112 and prison 12, 15, 112, 139–41 and security forces 2–3, 158 and UDA/UFF 32, 36, 39, 58, 114, 16, 197, 213–16 feud xii, 96, 117 volunteers 69, 102, 120, 196–7 weapons 21, 180 unionism xi–xiv, 2, 5, 20, 23, 50, 57, 95 vigilantes 67, 80, 81 violence xiv, xvi–xvii, 8, 35, 50, 91 IRA 22, 33–4, 133, 136, 157–8, 181–3 Warnock, Steven 215 weapons 98 army 83, 133 IRA 21–2, 53, 56, 167 loyalist paramilitaries 80, 148, 152–3 UDA/UFF 41, 57–9, 93, 119–21, 124, 164, 181–2 Greysteel massacre 195–6, 204–7 lack of 20–21, 56, 70–71, 114 obtaining 25–6, 146 training 29, 103, 188 Westland Defence Association (WDA) 55, 56 Westland Estate 55–6, 57, 61 White, John xii, xv, 15–18, 89–96, 210, 214–16 Wilson, Harold 22 Wilson, Paddy 92–3, 95 Wright, Billy 213