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Showing posts with label UDA. Show all posts
Showing posts with label UDA. Show all posts
Paper Trail ✒  Secret British Army documents prove just how close its agents were to Ulster Defence Association (UDA) leaders and UDA “Romper Room” killers in the winter of 1972.

 

The previously unseen British Military Intelligence files lead families to question why the killers were not stopped long before many other Catholic civilians died at their hands.

Paper Trail has been working with a number of families whose loved ones were murdered by the UDA’s notorious G4 Romper Room killers led by Ned McCreery and British soldier Albert “Ginger” Baker in 1972.

G4 referred to Number 4 Platoon of G Company UDA in the Lower Newtownards Road area of East Belfast. In these British military files, the gang is also referred to as the Young Newtons.
Romper Rooms

They have a particularly dark space reserved in our shared history due to the terrible deaths they gave their victims in “Romper Rooms”.

The torture chambers became known as “Romper Rooms” in UDA parlance after the children’s television show and “rompering” referred to the vicious beating and torturing of victims prior to their murder.

The gang was responsible for multiple murders from the summer of 1972 to the late winter of 1973.

Continue reading @ Paper Trail.

British Soldiers, British Agents And The UDA's Romper Rooms

Brandon Sullivan ✍ looks at some of the main characters in the Belfast UDA. 

Fear and Loathing Within the Belfast UDA 

Brian Nelson’s prison journal is a veritable treasure trove of information. Often mundane and petty, it nevertheless has unique historical value as an insight into the world of loyalist paramilitarism.  What is apparent from reading this journal is the breadth and depth of information that the UDA had on republicans.  What is also apparent, from looking at historical reports on killings from the period of time covered, is that the UDA usually failed to act decisively and effectively against the republicans.

The journal also reveals the personality clashes endemic within the UDA, and the rampant self-enrichment.  Nelson reported meeting Davy Payne in the mid-1980s.  Payne was now in charge of “procurement” which usually meant robberies and extortion, but unfortunately for Payne also had a much more dangerous element, of which more later.  Payne wanted the UDA to rob the Fisher Body factory in Dundonald, and asked Nelson to do intelligence-gathering work for this, promising Nelson he'd receive 10% of the proceeds of the robbery.  Nelson did what he was asked, and provided Payne with the information required.  The robbery took place, and Nelson received nothing.  Payne never mentioned it again.  Payne’s role in procurement meant that he now played a role in the importation of loyalist weapons in January 1988.  Nelson himself wrote of the role he had in the procurement of this weaponry, and whilst he doesn’t spell it out, it’s possible that Nelson ensured Payne undertook the risky business of receiving and transporting the consignment.  As ever, Balaclava Street describes what happened next brilliantly.  Apologies for the lengthy quote, but it captures the nature of events perfectly:

For reasons that are still not entirely clear, on the 8th of January 1988 Davy Payne, the UDA’s north Belfast brigadier, turned up at this location in a hired Maestro accompanied by two others, Thomas Aiken and James McCullough, each driving a hired Ford Granada. To the astonishment of the cache’s caretaker, Payne and his two companions began loading the Granadas with 61 vz. 58s (plus 124 magazines), 30 P9Ms, 150 grenades and fuses, and 11,520 rounds of ammunition – the UDA’s entire share.
As the procession left the farm, the Granadas with their rear bumpers practically scraping the ground, it is difficult to fathom exactly what Payne’s plan – if there even was one – for getting the arms safely to Belfast was. Indeed his thinking and motivation throughout the affair eludes comprehension. For whatever reason he decided to set off not on a direct route to the city but via Portadown. The main A27 road from Tandragee to Portadown was heavily patrolled by the security forces and the main entrance points to the town covered by checkpoints, which makes his decision to use this approach, and not one of the numerous back roads which criss-cross the area, all the more mystifying.
What happened next was virtually inevitable. Just three miles into their journey the UDA team were stopped by the RUC and the arms discovered. Various authors and reports have credited the seizure to a tip-off from an agent or informer, and given the extent to which the UDA was compromised at the time this is quite possible, but the sight of two heavily burdened saloon cars with their rear axles grinding along the asphalt would have immediately alerted even the most unobservant constable or squaddie. The lead Maestro, the supposed scout car, was not even equipped with a CB radio, a vital addition that Payne – evidently never having seen Smokey and the Bandit – had neglected to bring along. Given such a standard of planning the operation was doomed from the start.

Nelson had been shocked at Payne’s physical appearance when they met in 1985, following a gap of many years.  Payne, who would have been in his 30s, suffered from a heart complaint and was visibly ill.  He died in 2003, at the age of 53 – ironically, the same premature age that Brian Nelson was when he died.

The Curious Case of a UDA Brigadier Leaping Out of a Window

Throughout the Nelson journal are instances of leading UDA figures being advised by RUC sources that specific republican paramilitaries are targeting them. John McMichael was convinced that an INLA member was tracking him, and ordered Nelson to find and set up for assassination his supposed assailant – let’s call him “Bill.”  Nelson sent two men, later to be part of Johnny Adair’s inner-circle, to carry out surveillance on Bill.  Both men grew bored quickly of their task, and remonstrated with Nelson, saying they’d only do such tasks again if they were armed.  Much like he disliked Winkie Dodds, Nelson loathed these UFF members, and considered them low-lives.  Tucker Lyttle was utterly terrified, and with justifiable reason, of two specific IRA operatives.  One was Dan McCann, who the UFF, in classic Winkie Dodds “Thud & Blunder” style, tried and failed to kill during an attack on his home.  Reportedly, McCann had drifted from the IRA but became active following the botched attack.  McCann was a particularly effective IRA man, and the UDA hierarchy lived in fear of him.  Following his death, another IRA man loomed large in the fears of the UDA upper brass, let’s call him “Graham.”  It’s speculation, but one wonders if the UDA leaders were indeed being targeted by specific republicans, or if the RUC were just feeding misinformation to the UDA in the, somewhat optimistic, hope that the UDA would kill them. 

In the summer of 1988, an internal power struggle led to the ousting of Andy Tyrie and the subsequent empowering of another UDA figure, Tucker Lyttle.  Tucker, perhaps understandably, felt that he was under an enhanced threat from the IRA.  Tucker, in fact, had contacts within the RUC’s Special Branch who not only told him that he was under threat, also advised him that the IRA were considering an attack on 275A Shankill Road, where the UDA had an office (later attacked, with devastating civilian losses, by the IRA in 1993).  Lyttle was particularly frightened of “Graham” who he considered the most dangerous IRA man in Belfast following Dan McCann’s killing (some say murder) in Gibraltar.

During that summer, according to Nelson’s journal, two senior UDA men, Eric McKee and Nelson, left the UDA Office.  As they did, Nelson noticed two men standing outside, one of whom nudged the other.  Nelson asked McKee if he had noticed the two men, and McKee confirmed that he had.  McKee also agreed with Nelson that they did not recognise either man.  Suddenly, the man who nudged the other man turned abruptly and started waving his arm.  McKee grabbed Nelson, and both men, sensing an imminent IRA attack, started to run.  Nelson saw another three men, none of whom he recognised, and signalled to McKee, and they sought sanctuary behind a beef lorry parked outside of a butcher’s shop, urgently saying to McKee “there’s another three men standing at the corner of Canmore Street.”

Both men ran, until they reached Tennant Street, where they stopped and noted that they had not been pursued.  McKee said to Nelson that he was going to collect his car, and instructed Nelson to phone the UDA office and inform them of the ongoing threat outside.  Nelson did this, speaking to a UDA man named Ken who answered the phone.  "Ken, be very careful about who you let in.  We think there's a few fellas from PIRA across the street who might try to get in."  Ken reacted with "Holy shit" and dropped the phone.  Ken then shouted a warning from the bottom of some stairs, advising Tucker, and a UDA heavy named Campbell, that PIRA "were trying to get in through the front door."

Tucker, whose paranoia about an IRA attacked was all-consuming, ran from his office, picked up a chair and threw it through a window.  He then leapt out of the window.  Nelson had headed back down the Shankill, and seeing that the coast was clear, went into the office, where he found Ken and Campbell looking for Tucker.  Nelson noticed the broken window and looked out, realising that, in his haste to escape an IRA attack, Tucker had jumped out of a window three stories above ground level.  In Nelson’s words:

A quick look through the broken window revealed Tucker lying sprawled on the yard below.  By the time I got to him, an ambulance had already been summoned.  Although he was conscious, he was in shock, and it was clear he had done quote a lot of damage to himself, which was to put him in hospital for a month.  Undoubtedly, what had saved him from possible death was the stack of fish trays, belonging to the shop which occupied the ground floor, and which broke his fall. 

The following week, McKee and Nelson were on their way to another UDA office, on Gawn Street, when they discussed a news programme which had been on TV the previous evening. The police had described the hijacking of a beef lorry on the Shankill Road – the same beef lorry that McKee and Nelson had sheltered behind thinking that the IRA had come for them. It was not an IRA unit they had seen, but a group of men intent on stealing a lorry of meat. They both decided not to mention this discovery again.

Holed up in the Mater Hospital, Lyttle remained terrified that the IRA would finish him off, and ordered young UDA members to stand guard in and around the hospital. These included a then low-ranking UFF member, Johnny Adair.

The Rise of Johnny Adair

Adair rose through the ranks, and whilst his unit were obsessed with killing “Graham”, they failed, as they failed to kill any active IRA members. They did kill large numbers of nationalist civilians, but significantly fewer than the C Company of the 1970s.

A frequent claim of Adair is that republicans lived in fear of him, and cites the fortifications of their houses as evidence. Adair’s memoir details the fortifications on his own home, and those of the “main men of C Company.” Perhaps Adair compares the evident fear other and prior UDA leaders had for the IRA and compared his own attitudes to theirs. But then again, Adair still took huge precautions, and the IRAalmost killed him on a number of occasions. It also killed and wounded other members of his unit. In fact, in crude death count terms, the Belfast IRA killed more members of the Belfast UDA than vise-versa during the Adair era.

Adair remains, not least through his own efforts, synonymous with violent loyalism. But the truth is that the deeds of him and his unit didn’t match previous UDA units in terms of targeting republican militants, or political figures, or even, in the crudest possible terms, the number of nationalists murdered. Much is written of him elsewhere, and these three articles was an attempt to add to the narrative.

⏩ Brandon Sullivan is a middle aged, middle management, centre-left Belfast man. Would prefer people focused on the actual bad guys. 

Another Look At The Belfast UDA – Part IV

Brandon Sullivan ✍  with a brief overview of the UDA’s “Shopping List” killings.

By the end of the 1970s, UDA killings had decreased dramatically, but attacks on actual militant republicans were about to increase, and reach a tempo which Adair’s unit failed to match.

In March 1979, the INLA killed Conservative MP Airey MP, who was in line to become the next Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. This was a shocking blow to the British establishment, of whom Neave was a fundamental part. A number of killings of republicans followed. These killings have been linked to South Belfast UDA/UFF leader John McMichael, and are known as the “shopping list” killings. The sequence of events – Neave’s deaths followed by numerous killings of members of the organisation responsible, led to predictable, if somewhat understandable, claims of high level collusion with loyalist paramilitaries, if not direct involvement of British security forces.

The excellent blog Balaclava Street discussed the “shopping list” killings, and notes that:

If we except the UVF killing of former Sinn Fein vice-president Maire Drumm in 1976, John McMichael’s “shopping list” of 1980-81 was indeed the first time loyalist paramilitaries had gone on the offensive against republicans, in this case the INLA/IRSP and those associated with the Anti H-Block campaign. This offensive, said to have been planned in the room above McMichael’s pub, caused serious damage to the upper levels of the INLA/IRSP by eliminating Belfast OC Ronnie Bunting and political leader Miriam Daly.

The following republicans, a mixture of paramilitary and political figures, were killed:

  • John Turnley – killed 4th June, 1980 (Irish Independence Party)
  • Miriam Daly – killed 26th June, 1980 (IRSP)
  • Rodney McCormock – killed 24th August, 1980 (IRSP)
  • Ronnie Bunting – killed 15th Oct, 1980 (INLA)
  • Noel Little – killed 15th Oct, 1980 (INLA)

And then there was the attempted murder of Bernadette McAliskey and her husband, Michael, by a UDA unit which included Ray Smallwoods. Again, collusion theories abound, with one of the UDA units allegedly shouting "Fuck this for a double-cross!” upon being arrested on leaving the house.

The killing of Billy Carson, in 1979 (discussed in Part Two), would not appear out of place in the “shopping list” of UDA targets and victims – though of course Carson was IRA, and the other victims were INLA, or associated with the H-Block campaign.

Despite the protestations of Adair and his friends, Billy Carson was also the last member of the Belfast IRA killed by the UDA/UFF to appear on the IRA’s Roll of Honour, with the exception of Caoimhín Mac Brádaigh/Kevin Brady, who was killed during the attack on Milltown cemetery.

Murder on the Shankill

On the 4th August 1986, two men, reported at the time as being suspected UVF members, arrived at a council cleansing office on Huss Row, in the Shankill area. The back passenger got off and went into an office where a Technical Services Inspector was standing in for a colleague. The loyalists had somehow found out that the man in the office on that day was a Catholic. The would-be assassin’s gun jammed, and the council inspector grappled with him, got the better of him, and managed to lock himself inside an office toilet. The gunmen fled, and the man was treated for shock and a head injury. One cannot help speculating that the survivor of this nakedly sectarian attack must have been set up for murder by someone he worked with.

Later that day, an IRA unit followed UDR Sergeant Denis Taggart into Battenberg Street, off the Shankill Road (in which Lenny Murphy’s family home was at one point), and shot him dead. Ed Moloney (Sunday Tribune, 05/11/89) quoted loyalist sources saying that Denis Taggart was also a member of the UVF, though he doesn’t appear on any UVF Roll of Honour that I’ve seen. Taggart's 13-year-old son, Leonard, witnessed the killing.

A tragic postscript to the attack on the Catholic council employee, and other sectarian shootings, was the withdrawal of “meals-on-wheels” services for pensioners on the Shankill. They didn’t have enough drivers, and Catholic volunteers, understandably, did not feel safe.

The Murder of Terry McDaid

Denis Taggart’s brother Michael was also a “UVF man” according to Ed Moloney (Sunday Tribune, 05/11/89), and would later become implicated in a murder which spanned the UVF and UDA, that of Terry McDaid. Another of the dead UDR man’s brothers, Thomas Taggart, was released on compassionate parole to attend the funeral. Thomas Taggart had been convicted of the 1973 murder of Shankill Road publican Leonard Rossborough during an armed robbery carried out on behalf of the UVF. Michael Taggart became involved in an intelligence gathering ring, albeit a rather unsophisticated one, which involved a Scottish soldier, then Corporal (now Major) Cameron Hastie, and a UDR Lance Corporal, Joanne Garvin. Hastie, described at his trial as a "very fine soldier" by his regimental commandant, passed documents, including a file on politically uninvolved nationalist civilian Terry McDaid, to Garvin, which ultimately ended up in the hands of loyalist paramilitaries, including Jackie Mahood UVF), and the notorious British Army agent, and UDA Intelligence Officer, Brian Nelson.

John Ware, for The Telegraph (29/03/98), reported the following:

Winkie’ Dodds, a UDA assassin nicknamed ‘the Big Evil’, had gone to see Nelson. He asked him if he had any "targets" for him in West Belfast. Nelson had suggested Declan McDaid, a man he believed had a link to the Provisional IRA. Nelson had given Dodds what he believed to be McDaid's address … along with a photograph of him.

On May 10, as a direct consequence of Nelson's information, two men burst into 4 Newington Street and, in front of his wife and parents, fired seven bullets into the head and body of the man they believed to be Declan McDaid. His youngest daughter was in the adjoining room. She saw her father dying on the floor. But the man the UDA assassins had murdered was not, in fact, Declan McDaid. It was his brother, Terence. When Nelson asked Dodds about what had happened, the UDA man said:

We got the wrong fella. I didn't know that. I mean, the boys went in to see this fella that looks like him. I mean what are they supposed to do, go up and ask his name?

Joanne Garvin was dismissed from the UDR. Cameron Hastie went on to have a glittering career within the British Army. For all the justifiable criticism the UDR has taken, in this case they took robust action against their criminal member. Hastie’s regiment and the British Army did not. The respective calibre of Garvin and Hastie may have informed the different decisions, but it remains a despicable decision.

Such lethal bungling was to be a feature of C Company’s actions. Whilst Dodds was unrepentant and unremorseful about the botched targeting in this case, Terry McDaid’s widow, Theresa, and her children grieved for their husband and father, but poignantly called for there to be no retaliation.

William “Winkie” Dodds

If Johnny Adair’s importance in histories of the Troubles has received an excess of coverage, the same cannot be said about Winkie Dodds. Dodds was born in 1959, and had what his defence counsel described as “a very bad start in life.” A petty criminal and delinquent, in 1980 he took part in a Post Office robbery. An off-duty RUC officer witnessed the robbery, and identified Dodds going into a club afterwards. He was arrested, convicted and sentenced to 10 years, the Belfast Telegraph reporting that "the judge took into account evidence that Dodds was a man lacking in intelligence and immature for his age."

Newspaper reports had him as living rough in the Shankill area. What is interesting is that him and his brother, Milton, were in prison for the same time. Shortly after his release from prison, in 1986, Winkie Dodds became commander of a militant UDA unit within C Company. Brian Nelson linked Dodds to numerous murder attempts in the latter half of the 1980s. Whilst Dodds and his men almost always failed to kill IRA or Sinn Fein targets, they were acting off up-to-date intelligence files. Nelson described Dodds’ tactics as “thud and blunder” – kicking in doors without checking if the target was at home, and other brutal, hapless practises. But Dodds and his men did kill nationalists that were noted on security force files as republican targets. Indeed, at one point, UDA Inner Council members advised Dodds and others to ignore UDR intelligence as it was usually inaccurate as to the republican bona fides of a particular nationalist.

Brian Nelson had contempt for Dodds and other UFF members. He considered them uncouth and unintelligent, and refused requests from his army handlers to socialise with Dodds.

⏩ Brandon Sullivan is a middle aged, middle management, centre-left Belfast man. Would prefer people focused on the actual bad guys. 

Another Look At The Belfast UDA – Part Ⅲ

Brandon Sullivan ✒ ✍ delves into the activities of John White, Davy Payne, Kenny McClinton: C Company in the early 1970s.Ⅱ

John White, along with Davy Payne, and Kenny McClinton were founding members of the UDA’s Shankill Road C Company, according to Johnny Adair’s autobiography. When White was asked how he could have stabbed Irene Andrews (murdered along with SDLP Stormont Senator Paddy Wilson in 1973) to death he replied “we thought she was a Catholic.” Like Adair, Kenny McClinton enjoys publicity, and like White, spoke of using a knife in their loyalist terrorism. McClinton described loyalist violence like this:

People in loyalist circles are driven by ideals and the defence of their country. The only reason for them to exist is to defend the loyalist community. It is cause and effect. The IRA rebellion was the cause. The effect is armed loyalism.

McClinton was jailed for two murders; a politically uninvolved Catholic civilian, and a Protestant bus driver. Neither killing had any effect on “the IRA rebellion.” Why would they?

Davy Payne is suspected of being involved in murders, some involving the use of knives and torture. Kevin Myers wrote a memorable eulogy about Payne, on another occasion describing him as “one of the most ferocious savages in the history of Irish terror.” The sadly now defunct blog “Vixens With Convictions” also wrote of a sordid double murder Payne was alleged to have been involved in, that of Patrick O’Neill and the singer Rosemary McCartan.

Whilst White is typically exaggerating when he says C Company were responsible for “90%” of sectarian murder from 1972 – 1976, it is true that the west Belfast UDA had within its ranks pitiless murderers and sadists with the drive and capacity to murder any nationalist civilians that they could get access to, often after barbaric abduction and torture. From teenage boys, to middle aged mothers, the 1970s Belfast UDA murdered on scale, and at pace. They killed far more people than the Adair era UDA did.

What effect did this have on the IRA? Well, it didn’t affect their capacity to kill large numbers of RUC members, British Army soldiers, UDR members, and Protestant civilians, and neither did it put them off a wild campaign of bombing “economic targets” that reduced much of Northern Ireland to rubble. Recruitment never seemed to suffer, and in fact some IRA figures openly admitted that loyalist murder kept the volunteers coming:

IRA reaction to the double murder (Patrick O’Neill and Rosemary McCartan) was callous indifference. Former IRA Chief of Staff Daithi O’Connell coolly explained in an interview that Catholic victims of loyalist death squads served to increase recruitment to the IRA’s ranks and kept sectarian hatred perennially on the boil.

John White himself, acknowledged that he and his organisation's campaign of violence against the nationalist population had zero effect on the IRA, though he did say that it curtailed the social lives of Catholics. It also inflicted desperate suffering and grief on nationalists, as well as subjecting once proud loyalist areas of the North to gangster rule. Payne was known for his brutality to his own men, and as we have seen, McClinton murdered a Protestant bus driver.

“Davy Payne Does the Military Reaction Force (MRF) a Big Favour”

Much has been written about collusion. It is undoubtedly true that it took place, and did so from the chaotic early days of the conflict. How successfully loyalists parlayed that collusion into effective action against the IRA is debatable.

Ed Moloney (with James Kinchin-White) on his excellent blog TheBrokenElbow wrote that:

official papers from 1971 show the Heath cabinet agreed a potential intelligence relationship with ‘Protestant vigilantes’ – ‘civil defence’ groups could be ‘tolerated’ – dealings would be ‘unofficial & local.’


This agreement was made at a “Gen 47” meeting held in October 1971. As Moloney writes:

… the UDA was soon wading in blood and that … when the GEN 47 committee convened in London, the UDA had been responsible for just 4 deaths (including two UDA men killed by their own bomb). And because of a policy never to claim killings, unlike the IRA which invariably admitted its violence, it was never clear when the UDA had murdered people. The following year the UDA killed 72 people – one every five days and the reality that lay behind this particular ‘civil defence’ group was bloodily apparent.

Central to the Belfast UDA’s killing campaign was Davy Payne. Despite, or possibly because of this, Payne had good working relationships with some factions of the British security services. When a three man MRF unit was apprehended by an angry loyalist crowd (the British army estimated 150), who thought they’d captured an IRA cell, local loyalists made off with valuable materiel from the MRF car. The military log recorded that during the incident:

The MRF men were then kicked and punched by the Prot crowd. Mil ptl then arrived and managed to get the 3 MRF men out. They were taken to Flax St (one badly beaten up, two slightly injured) One wpn lost (Sgt Williams’ 9mm pistol) in the crowd and the RUC took possession of Lcpl Kinlock’s 9 mm pistol. By the time the car was recovered the red folder (which contains nominal role, codes, c/s, RV’s in city registered initials etc) was missing.

The MRF got their valuable materiel back courtesy of Davy Payne – who was recorded as a “contact” of the army. The full story is fascinating, and it’s worth reading the MRF files on TheBrokenElbow. Interestingly, the “Sgt Williams” is “Taffy” Williams, charged by the RUC with the attempted murder of Nationalists, but found not guilty.

Moloney’s note about 72 murders committed by the UDA is relevant to this article. Adair’s UDA never carried out anything like that many killings in such a condensed period of time. And his unit perhaps did not have anyone like Payne in it.

A Short History of Davy Payne

The Sunday World has reported that Davy Payne was related by marriage to John White. Kevin Myers wrote that what separated Payne from most other UDA members was his “astonishing readiness to kill.” In October 1972, Payne was charged with possession of a large cache of weapons which were kept in a lock-up garage owned by him. He was found not-guilty, but interned shortly afterwards. The Irish Sunday Independent (27/10/74) interviewed him, and noted that he had just spent ten months interned without trial. Payne, bizarrely, said at an internment hearing he had 15 security force witnesses appear against him, accusing him of the murder of Paddy Wilson, and being commander of the UFF. Payne had two Catholics support his release: “One is a builder here on the Shankill who gave me a character reference, and the other is a Catholic woman from Andersonstown whom I had helped.

When asked about sectarian murder, Payne said “I can understand how some people on our side could justify this type of murder. Personally, I would not engage in a sectarian battle." Payne also claimed, probably with good cause, that the Official IRA had him “under sentence of death.” It is unclear if the OIRA, or the PIRA, ever did try to kill him. His “own side” certainly did, as we shall see, in 1978.

The Belfast Telegraph (12/05/75) reported that:

The UDA's brigade commander in North Belfast, Mr. David Payne, saved the Jolly Roger Club in Alliance Avenue from serious damage on Saturday night when he carried a bomb clear.

Payne had nipped the fuse of the bomb, and then carried it (the bomb was contained in a satchel) to a piece of waste ground using a bamboo pole. The reported noted that the UVF had denied that they planted the bomb. In 1976, the IRA opened up on the Jolly Roger, killing two politically uninvolved Protestants, and a UDA member, William Archer, was shot dead outside it on another occasion. At some point after 1976, Payne was relieved of his command of the North Belfast UDA over allegations of the misappropriation of funds.

Payne then shocked militant loyalism when he openly supported the “Peace People” movement, giving speeches rejecting violence, and being involved in the administration of a £10,000 grant in 1978 (Magill 01/03/78). Given that Payne was ejected from role as a UDA leader it would be easy to view his conversion to peace as cynical and opportunistic, but the UDA nonetheless attempted to kill him over it. One week after he gave a speech at a Peace People rally in Ballymena, gunmen arrived at Payne home and opened fire, wounding him in the leg. The gunmen were presumably unmasked, and their fates are unknown, as is the effect the attempted murder had on Payne’s commitment to peace.

By 1980, Payne was running Crumlin Road Opportunities, a cross-community project aimed at training with vocational skills young people who would contemporaneously be described as NEET – Not in Education, Employment, or Training. Trainees included Johnny Adair (who discusses the project in his autobiography) and Skelly McCrory. McCrory was at an event hosted by the Lord Mayor of Belfast in 1982. The Lord Mayor, Tommy Patton, “paid particular tribute” to Payne (Belfast Telegraph, 18/06/82).

The project Payne managed was situated in Ewart’s Mill. In 1972 a nightwatchman employed at Ewart’s Mill, Thomas Madden, was sadistically murdered. Payne has been linked to the shockingly brutal murder of Mr Madden by a number of historians. Tom Madden’s employment at the Mill would have been known to his assailants. One wonders if Davy Payne ever spared a moment for Tom Madden as he held court in Ewart’s Mill, whilst drawing a government salary and administering £120k of UK and European Social Fund money (over £550k nowadays adjusting for inflation).

Perhaps predictably, Payne was sacked from Crumlin Road Opportunities for the same reason he was relieved of his command of the North Belfast UDA (having his fingers in the till). He was later allowed back in, with disastrous results for the post Anglo-Irish Agreement era UDA. Also worth reading the Balaclava Street article which covers Payne's final hurrah for the UDA. Ed Moloney noted that it was one Brian Nelson who was meant to take delivery of a massive shipment of loyalist weaponry, but he ducked out at the last minute, leaving the hapless Davy Payne to pick up the slack.

The UDA in Belfast towards the end of 1970s

Whilst 14 year old Samuel McCrory was getting hammered literally for anti-social behaviour in 1979, the UDA/UFF (according to the imperfect CAIN resource) in Belfast killed two republicans: an OIRA activist named Joseph McKee, and a Provo, Billy Carson. The UDA/UFF also killed at least six politically uninvolved nationalists, and were involved in feud killings.

One of the men convicted of killing Carson was named David Milton Dodds, the other was a man named Mullan. Another man named Dodds, “Winkie” became a senior C Company figure in the 80s and 90s, ultimately falling foul of Adair as did his brother, Milton Dodds. A source indicated that David Milton Dodds is Winkie Dodds brother, though I cannot say for sure if he is or not. There are two years between them in age.

The murder of Carson was unusual for the UDA at that time. It involved a high level of planning, and up-to-date intelligence. Dodds and Mullan called at Carson’s home, but he wasn’t in. They returned later that day, and sat with his family until Carson finally arrived home, at which point they shot him dead. This was a killing which wouldn’t have been out of place in John McMichael’s “shopping list” of killings in 1980 and 1981 (more of which in part 3). It was arguably more sophisticated a killing, with a more consequential impact on the IRA, than anything Adair’s C Company did.

The ratio of republican to nationalist victims of UDA violence in 1979 was unusually high, and the number of victims significantly lower than previous years, but otherwise 1979 was very much business as usual for the UDA in Belfast.

In 1980, members of the UDA’s C Company committed a murder which was as brutal as anything committed in the 1970s, and as futile as any carried out by Adair’s outfit a decade later. A juvenile delinquent, Alex “Oso” Calderwood beat an unarmed and defenceless nationalist, Alexander “Speedy” Reid to death with a concrete breeze block. As Calderwood put it:

“I grew up hating Roman Catholics and that’s the honesty about it because I don’t think I was politically aware. It was basically sectarianism at its heaviest. I joined the UDA when I was 16 years of age, in C Company with people like Bucky McCullough, Tucker Lyttle and Jimmy Craig.

The INLA killed Bucky McCullough, Adair’s rise to prominence would be occasioned by Lyttle’s fall from UDA grace, and Jim Craig was allegedly killed by individuals linked to Adair. And, of course, former associates of Adair’s would murder and secretly bury the son of UDA legend Bucky McCullough.

UDA killings had decreased dramatically, but attacks on actual militant republicans were about to increase, and reach a tempo which Adair’s unit failed to match.

More in part three…

⏩ Brandon Sullivan is a middle aged, middle management, centre-left Belfast man. Would prefer people focused on the actual bad guys. 

Another Look At The Belfast UDA – Part Ⅱ

Brandon Sullivan ✒ ✍ “We were the business. There was no one better than us.” - Sam “Skelly” McCrory.

Intro

Skelly McCrory’s death in July 2022 was widely reported. He slipped and fell, suffering catastrophic fatal injuries, outside his flat in a rundown part of Ayr, Scotland. The business that Skelly referred to in the quote above was the operations of the West Belfast UDA/UFF, roughly speaking from around 1987 to 1994. This piece will look into some aspects of McCrory’s life, and tie together the fates of some other West Belfast UDA figures, including Johnny Adair.

Much has been written about Adair, the volume of which in my opinion significantly outweighs his importance in the Troubles. Adair is a gifted self-publicist, and this has led to many histories of loyalism in general, and the UDA in particular, focusing heavily on him and the actions of those around him. Despite the self-congratulatory hyperbole, when analysed closely, far from being the most effective paramilitary unit of the Troubles, they were not even the most prolific iteration of “C Company.” I was given an opportunity to view files that the RUC prepared for the case to prosecute him for Directing Terrorism. Much of the detail of these files is already in the public domain, reported by Hugh Jordan, Ian S. Wood, Martin Dillon, and others.

As with many of my pieces, I sometimes find news reports of persons with the same name and approximate age as those I am writing about. Unfortunately I am unable to confirm if they are indeed the same person, so simply give the details as reported and cite the source, which is usually the Belfast Telegraph via the British Newspaper Archive.

Bigots, Skinheads, Hoods, and respectable unionist cover

On Friday, 2nd November 1979, three men were given six months in prison each for an assault, in which hammers were used, which fractured the skull of a 14 year old named Samuel McCory. The assault happened in the Crumlin Road area of Belfast, and appears to have been a reprisal for earlier incidents involving “gangs of youths” harassing locals. I do not know if this is Skelly, but he would have been 14 in 1979. The last reported criminal incident I know of involving Skelly was in 2019, a bizarre incident which involved indecent exposure and homophobic abuse.

One of the interesting, and unreported, details from the RUC Adair files concerns George Seawright, UVF member, Belfast City Unionist Councillor, and assailant of Tom King. Adair, and others, were seen in Seawright’s company in 1986, and the RUC assumed a “process of sectarian indoctrination” was taking place, with Seawright playing the role of indoctrinator. Given the close friendship of Adair & Skelly, it’s probable that Skelly was with Adair. But I think, not for the first time, the RUC had it wrong. Adair and his friends were already deeply sectarian by that stage, as well as being violent, anti-social, and deeply dysfunctional criminals who enjoyed the power their violence gave them. Seawright was given an eulogy in an “Official National Front” publication, that lauded his far-right credentials and links with the NF. Perhaps it wasn’t just sectarian indoctrination that had taken place with Skelly & Adair, though the racial politics seemed to recede in importance to the men. Adair and his friends association with the NF dated to at least 1983.

In April 1983, a 36 year old homeless alcoholic Catholic man named Patrick Barkey had the misfortune to meet three men from the Shankill area who called themselves “NF Skinz.” William Madine (17), Clifford Bickerstaff (18), and Albert Martin (19) were originally charged with murder, but convicted of manslaughter. Despite luring the vulnerable Mr Barkey to what would be the scene of his death, and using their fists, feet, and concrete blocks to ill Mr Barkey, the trio were provided with “character references from respectable unionist politicians” (UDA, McDonald & Cusack) which helped them receive sentences ranging from 12 months suspended (Martin) to under three years (Madine, Bickerstaff). Adair and Skelly were named as members of NF Skinz by Henry McDonald in the Guardian, but there’s no suggestion they were involved in this particularly squalid killing. In 1991, eight years after 18 year old William Madine violently killed a defenceless man, another William Madine from the Shankill vicinity (I can’t confirm if it is the same man) aged 25 was charged with a violent assault on a Belfast woman. Skelly had a son named Samuel Madine – again, I cannot confirm if he is any relation is the violent Shankill “NF Skin.”

The UDA’s Political Animals

Skelly and Adair were given to proclaiming their effectiveness in targeting the IRA. Skelly saying that “The IRA had the upper hand so we decided to fight fire with fire and fight the IRA on a level battlefield and they didn’t like it” with Adair recently saying, about Skelly:

Sam McCrory wasn’t just a crazed gunman. He followed a carefully thought-out strategy … He was a political animal who physically stood up to the IRA. And when the time was right, he supported peace.

In terms of taking the war to the IRA’s door (a wearisome loyalist trope), it is true that Skelly was sentenced to 16 years for the attempted murder of two senior IRA figures. But it is also true that that operation was a security force set-up, and the chances of either IRA man dying at the hands of the UDA/UFF was remote. That ill-fated operation in 1992 led to one loyalist saying “they [security forces] were going to wipe us out – this was going to be our Loughall (Mad Dog, Lister & Jordan, p125). This gives the entire collusion debate another, usually overlooked, angle.

Killings that Skelly has been linked to (in the Belfast Telegraph 11th Aug 2022) include ex-internee Francisco Notarantonio, a pensioner, and an English man named Patrick Hamill, both in 1987. It’s difficult to see how either of these killings could be considered taking the war to the IRA in any feasible way.

Just over a week before Skelly and his comrades drove into the security force ambush, UDA members in East Belfast murdered a 51 year old teacher named Cyric Murray. A former colleague of Mr Murray’s had this to say about him and his death:

It was unbelievable that it happened. He wasn’t a political animal in any way at all ... He was quiet, reserved, shy. He’d given his whole career to the children. That was his life – the school was his life. He was dedicated to his school and the children. When I look back on it, I think it was an awful waste. A terrible act. And, really, they couldn’t have picked a worse target.

I wonder what Skelly, the “political animal” following a “carefully thought out strategy” would have made of the murder of Mr Murray, a man dedicated to education, who was not a “political animal.” I am unaware of this question being put to him.

I’m frequently baffled at the lack of challenge given to loyalists who see the post Anglo-Irish-Agreement phase of their violence as successful, let alone different, to loyalist campaigns that preceded it.

“When the time was right, he [Skelly McCrory] supported peace.”

Mo Mowlan, as was heavily reported at the time, visited the UDA/UFF prisoners in HMP Maze, and this supposedly played a role in maintaining the UDA/UFF ceasefire in the late 1990s. In 2000, Skelly is alleged to have led a massive crowd of UDA/UFF members and supporters during an assault on the Rex Bar on the Shankill Road (Mad Dog, p289). The Belfast Telegraph reported that he was one of the those who opened fire on the bar. Again, it’s difficult to see a carefully thought out strategy at play here, but I revisited some sources and, whilst it’s speculation on my part, can perhaps see a rationale for the attack on the Rex Bar, and the subsequent loyalist feud, which was intense and bloody, as well as devastating and traumatic for the Shankill Road community. I am starting to think that the nucleus of the Shankill feud sat with John White. One thing is abundantly clear though: the UDA’s penchant for nihilistic, politically barren violence didn’t stop with the Good Friday Agreement.

When sadistic, oddball knife killers fallout: John White vs the UVF

In Jack Holland’s book, Hope Against History, John White claimed that the UDA’s C Company were responsible for “90%” of the sectarian violence in Belfast between 1972 and 1976. This is highly unlikely given the range of organisations carrying out killings in this era, including the Red Hand, UVF, and some elements of the Provisional IRA. White, like Adair, seems to enjoy publicity and revising his own history. Despite White’s egotism, Hope Against History is a good book to get a sense of the UDA without the undue focus and attention given to Adair. It’s published prior to Adair’s weird attempts to place himself front and centre of loyalism, and a meek media’s acquiesce to his desires.

Ian S. Wood in his peerless book about the UDA, Crimes of Loyalty, wrote this about John White in particular, and tensions between the UVF and UDA in general:

The lingering antagonism between the two organisations supposedly brought into being by a common enemy was clearly voiced in a short and lavishly illustrated history of the UDA published late in 1999 and widely believed to have been compiled by John White. In the section entitled 'Casualties' he declared: "It is sad and quite ironic that the UDA had more men murdered by the UVF than by the IRA. In fact the UVF has been responsible for murdering twenty seven members of the UDA. In many cases these crimes were carried out for no other reason than rivalry and disrespect for an organisation which the UVF saw as a threat to its power base and influence in the Loyalist community." He went on to refer to the "deep resentment among many UDA members towards the UVF that still comes to the surface from time to time.

White’s animus against the UVF could well stem from his belief that UVF members (some of the ‘Shankill Butchers’ gang) gave the RUC information about him (Hope Against History), leading to his intense interrogation and subsequent conviction for the “psychotic outburst” murder of Paddy Wilson and Irene Andrews. In 1977, the RUC put it to UVF member William Moore that he’d been involved in recent cutthroat murders. Moore replied “It was the UDA in the lower Shankill who committed those murders” (Shankill Butchers, Dillon, p209). Moore was deflecting: it was him and his friends who had committed cutthroat murders in the mid-1970s, but it was indeed the lower Shankill UDA who committed many murders of Catholic civilians involving knives and torture. White may well be correct about the source of information about him. Interestingly, Martin Dillon attributes murders from 1972 to UVF members which are likely to have been instead carried out by UDA elements.

Brian Rowan, in the Belfast Telegraph named John White as working for RUC special branch. Rowan also wrote: “Loyalists also blame him for the collapse of the CLMC ", an umbrella leadership covering the UDA, the UVF and the Red Hand Commando.

"He had a deep hatred of the UVF," one loyalist source said.

Another source described him as "the most malign figure within loyalism."

The article also says:

There was his association with Johnny Adair, no-one was closer, his role within political loyalism after the ceasefire and in the run-up to the Good Friday Agreement and his links to the Inner Council of the UDA. White sat in meetings attended by the so-called brigadiers - the six most senior figures in the paramilitary group.
So, on the face of things, he would have been a valuable listening device inside this part of the loyalist community, but, of course, there is another side to the story.
He is a convicted killer. He was also a suspected drug dealer, and he and Adair became two of the most destabilising influences inside loyalism during the peace process years.
Indeed, it could be argued that they are largely responsible for the mess that loyalism now finds itself in.

So, several sources, wrote of John White’s antipathy towards the UVF.

It is of course conjecture on my part, but the RUC would presumably have been quite happy to watch militant loyalism descend into violent anarchy that reduced the menace of the UVF and UDA individually and collectively. Perhaps White got what he wanted, and the security forces got what they wanted.

Part Two to follow…

⏩ Brandon Sullivan is a middle aged, middle management, centre-left Belfast man. Would prefer people focused on the actual bad guys. 

Another Look At The Belfast UDA – Part Ⅰ

Brandon Sullivan ✒ I set out to write a relatively short piece about the Belfast UDA post Anglo-Irish Agreement, compared to the same organisation in the 1970s. 

It’s become more complex than I first intended, more and more sources became available, and very interesting themes emerged. This piece is to explore two of those themes: Ulster Resistance, and the IRA’s 1993 Shankill bomb, which killed ten people, eight of whom were politically uninvolved civilians, including women and children.

Ulster Resistance and the UDA post Anglo-Irish Agreement

Sometime after taking control of the West Belfast UDA/UFF (hereafter referred to as the UDA), John James “Johnny” Adair met with an organisation, shadowy even by Irish paramilitary standards, in the pursuit of weaponry to step up his campaign against, he claims, the IRA. That organisation was Ulster Resistance. The number of dead nationalist civilians (and not a few unionists) and the scarcity of UDA-assassinated Belfast IRA men challenges some loyalist, and ( security force and media) narratives, that Adair and his comrades had “the IRA on the run. This is a theme that I will return to another time.

The BBC reported that the clownish Willie Frazer was Adair’s Ulster Resistance contact. Frazer lost his father, and other close relatives, to the IRA. A source said to me that Frazer’s father, Bertie Frazer, was targeted because of links to the UVF, as well as his UDR membership. The Historical Enquiries Team said there was no evidence of Bertie Frazer being a “terrorist suspect.”

Ian Cobain wrote an excellent article in The Guardian detailing the formation of Ulster Resistance, and that organisations links with the Democratic Unionist Party, up to and including leadership level. Cobain wrote:

Ulster Resistance joined forces with the two established loyalist paramilitary groups, the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) and Ulster Defence Association (UDA), to smuggle an enormous arsenal of weapons into the province, including about 200 Czech-made assault rifles called VZ58s and tens of thousands of rounds of ammunition.
Over the next 17 years, these VZ58s would be used in the murder or attempted murder of about 70 people in Northern Ireland. In the early 90s, they were used in three massacres: gunmen stood at the doors of a bookmaker’s shop and two bars, and simply sprayed the room. Nineteen people died and 27 were wounded.

The Sunday Tribune (20/11/88) reported that:

Speaking in the context of the huge arms finds in the past week, former [DUP] Lord Mayor of Belfast, Sammy Wilson, has defended ‘the right’ of loyalists to stockpile weapons.

The DUP later officially “disassociated” themselves with Ulster Resistance. A founding member of the DUP, the brilliant lawyer Dessie Boal, told Eammon Mallie that, if he, Boal, were ever to write his memoirs, “If I did a lot of people might end up in gaol.” Interestingly, Boal “disassociated” himself from his decades long friendship with Ian Paisley over Paisley’s entering into government with Sinn Fein. Boal said he couldn’t stand the thought of Paisley governing with the men Boal had defended, often successfully, in court. Boal’s life and times would make for a fascinating biography.

When Adair met with Ulster Resistance, he put his case for access to the formidable arsenal that they possessed, writing in his autobiography:

Their ranks were filled with prison officers, landowners, RUC men, even the clergy. Although they weren’t going to go on operations, Ulster Resistance snapped up their slice of the 1987 shipment in case of a doomsday situation. C Company was able to strike up a relationship with them and tap into their stocks. The more success we had, the happier Ulster Resistance were to hand over guns.

Adair’s mention of Ulster Resistance having prison officers in their ranks is interesting, as a man who served in the prison service and UDR, was shot dead by the IRA. Charles Watson appears on a UVF Roll of Honour, and has been linked, by Martin Dillon, to Ulster Resistance.

Adair had other sources of weapons, but Ulster Resistance had a stock from a major arms shipment that loyalists received in 1987. The assault rifles, hand-grenades, and rocket launchers would feature in many UDA attacks until the 1994 ceasefires, and beyond.

Loyalists threaten violence “to a ferocity never imagined.”

On the 5th January 1993, the Independent newspaper reported that:

“ON NEW YEAR'S EVE, a violent loyalist group, the Ulster Defence Association, issued a grim warning that it intended 'to intensify and widen our campaign in 1993 to a ferocity never imagined'.”

In 1993, up to and including the 15th October, loyalist militants killed 24 members of the nationalist community, including at least one member of the IRA, and two members of Sinn Fein. The death toll also included two women.

Andrew Silke in his superb analysis of the Shankill bombing, Beyond Horror noted that:

Predictably, the relentless attacks and the mounting numbers of people killed and injured, led to an increasingly tense atmosphere in Catholic areas in general and in nationalist West and North Belfast in particular. The IRA found themselves under growing pressure to respond to the loyalist threat. Pressure to do something grew within the movement as well and IRA commanders in Belfast experienced increasing grassroots unrest, as men on the ground became more and more anxious to take some action against the loyalists.

This is in stark contrast to the belief held by some loyalists that murdering members of the nationalist community would pressurise the IRA into calling off their campaign. In fact, it appears to have had a contradictory effect.

The IRA released a statement that said:

[W]e in the IRA are very clear about a number of issues. One is that no-one should respond to the activities of the loyalist death squads in anything but a disciplined manner. We in the IRA will under no circumstances play into British hands by going down the cul-de-sac of sectarian warfare, which would allow our enemy to portray itself as somehow holding the ring between warring factions in Ireland. But as we have demonstrated . . . there is no hiding place for those involved with the loyalist death squads. We are determined to exact a price from them. No one should be under any illusions. Those involved with the loyalist death squads will be held accountable for their actions.

October 1993 – the targeting of Adair

An interesting chain of events took place in mid and late October 1993, concerning Johnny Adair.

On the 19th October 1993, an armed INLA unit was apprehended close to Adair’s home. The RUC noted that this was the fourth serious attempt on Adair’s life that year. That same day, Adair was noted by the RUC going into 275A Shankill Road, which was the UDA’s HQ in Belfast. Also on that day, an article appeared in the Guardian newspaper detailing the often squalid lifestyle and antics of a man named as the “UFF commander, West Belfast.” The IRA, as well as the RUC, were satisfied that the man in the article was Johnny Adair.

On the 22nd October 1993, the Irish Independent ran an article entitled “Face to face with the UFF’s Top Assassin.” Again, the RUC, and the IRA, were satisfied that the man detailed in the article was Johnny Adair.

Johnny Adair and 275A Shankill Road

Adair was noted by the RUC of entering 275A Shankill Road on numerous occasions. Furthermore, Adair gave his address as 275A Shankill Road on over 30 instances to the RUC. An RUC file on Adair noted his:

 … propensity to give the address of UDA headquarters as his personal address on number occasions both pre and post UDA proscription.

On the 10th of August 1992, Adair and another man, Curtis Moorehead, walked into Tennant Street RUC station to announce that they had, up until that day, been members of the UDA, but no longer were. The UDA was, finally, proscribed on that particular day. The RUC were able to demonstrate that Adair’s movements and associations remained identical pre and post UDA proscription. His relationship to 275A Shankill Road was a major part of this, comprising two full appendices (out of 13) of an RUC file evidencing Adair as a “Director of Terrorism.”

The day after Johnny Adair informed the RUC that he was no longer a member of the UDA, his brother, James, and another man, convicted rapist and child murderer Trevor Hinton (both members of the UDA) were remanded following the attempted murder of a nationalist civilian. Adair and Hinton had used knives and hammers to attempt to kill the man and were later convicted of attempted murder.

Brian Rowan, in his book Living With Ghosts, described the effect of Adair on the Belfast IRA like this:

The IRA spoke of their absolute determination to made Adair ‘pay for his crimes’. He was inside their heads, inside their plans. They were chasing him, hunting him. And it was this fascination with him, that absolute determination to kill him, that led to the unthinking madness of the Shankill bomb.

Rowan is right that Adair was in the IRA’s plans, and that they were determined to kill him. Silke wrote that “The IRA had known for some time that senior members of the UDA, including Adair, met regularly on Saturdays at the West Belfast UDA headquarters.” The UDA HQ featured in a series of IRA plans to kill Adair and other UDA men involved in violence against the nationalist community.

The RUC heard from an informer that one plan was:

two IRA bombers would be dropped off by car about 20 yards from the building, and the driver would remain in the getaway car with the engine running. The two men, the coffee jars concealed under their jackets, would hurl the jars into the first floor offices and make their escape (Silke).

Another plan was to:

mount a heavy machine-gun on the back of a lorry, and rake the offices while a UDA meeting was taking place. The IRA certainly had the firepower to make this a serious threat. However, there was a rumour that the loyalists had reinforced the structure of the building, so an attack using one of the dozen or so general purpose machine-guns that the IRA possessed might not have been powerful enough.

The IRA had heavy machines, DHSKs, capable of killing everyone even in a reinforced building but, according to Silke:

 … the IRA dropped the idea, claiming the possible UDA reinforcing made the plan unworkable. However, the real reason was different. The reality was that the IRA planners realized that using a DHSK in the circumstances of the planned attack would have severely undermined the likelihood that the attackers could escape successfully.

As determined as the IRA were, they would not undertake an operation without a solid chance of their volunteers and equipment “returning to base” safely. Silke reported that the IRA considered an attack with RPGs, but that the Provisionals viewed them as generally unreliable, but:
 
bombs have been much more successful weapons for the organization. With over 20 years of bomb-making and deployment behind them, the IRA at that time were arguably the most skilled terrorist group in the world when it came to the use of explosives.

So it was that the IRA chose to use a bomb to attack the UDA HQ at 275A Shankill Road.

The Shankill Bomb

The IRA’s bomb attack on the Shankill Road on 23rd October 1993, by any standards, was a disaster. There has been debate on this blog about the intention of the bombing, but I think it's clear that it was a targeted operation against Adair in particular, and high-ranking members of the UDA in general.

I would challenge Brian Rowan's assertion that it was "unthinking madness" - arguably, it is madness to use an explosive device in a civilian area at any time, but it had been done many other times, including in two attacks on bars in loyalist areas in 1994, without death or injury.

In their determination to kill Adair, the IRA unit definitely risked the lives of Protestant shoppers on the Shankill Road, but also their own lives. Silke wrote that:

Although the timer had failed disastrously, casualties could have been much higher but for the fact that the design of the rest of the bomb worked as the IRA had intended. The charge had been shaped so as to explode upward taking out the floors above the fish shop rather than damaging the buildings to either side. In this at least it succeeded and only two people outside of the shop were killed by the bomb.

As one senior security source put it:

The difference between that [the Shankill bombing] being a disaster and a stunning success in IRA terms was very marginal. The bomb was designed to direct the blast upwards, and it did—in the fruit shop next door the rows of oranges were hardly disturbed.

The aftermath

Silke wrote of “disarray” in the ranks of the Belfast IRA following the Shankill bomb. Loyalist paramilitaries predictably went on the rampage, so indiscriminate were their attacks that they killed two Protestants “accidently”, one of whom was a former B-Special. Looking back at statistics, CAIN notes that 26 nationalists were killed by loyalists before the Shankill bomb, whilst 16 were killed after it before the end of 1993.

Adair survived some more attempts on his life, before the RUC lifted him, and most of his UDA structure, off the streets and into remand, awaiting trial. Republicans killed eight loyalist paramilitaries in 1994, prior to calling their ceasefire at the end of August, as well as killing others ranging from Protestant cleaners to British soldiers and RUC officers.

Without the political manoeuvres which had been in place since the 1980s, an IRA ceasefire would have been highly unlikely. Silke described the internal pressure the IRA was under to “deal” with loyalist violence. I believe that the loyalist campaign, and potential republican response, could have dragged the North back to levels of violence last seen in the 1970s. I don’t think it would have been a high-intensity civil war situation, but, as ever, civilians would have borne the brunt of paramilitary excesses.

In the past few days, the media has reported that the UVF and UDA are “reviewing” their ceasefires. It is worth noting the intense misery, death, destruction and imprisonment the loyalist campaigns brought their own communities, as well as in nationalist communities.

⏩ Brandon Sullivan is a middle aged, middle management, centre-left Belfast man. Would prefer people focused on the actual bad guys. 

Ulster Resistance, The UDA, The IRA, And The 1993 Shankill Bomb

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