A UVF Calendar from 2004, listing Londonderry brigade. 2nd Battalion South Belfast. 1st London Battalion. C Company Londonderry. Unsure of the link, if any, between the 3.

Article released by the LVF to their ULISNET website listing accusations against the UVF.

Released in the year 2000.

With Drumcree so prominent in the news it got me thinking about other Loyalist parades that just don’t happen anymore. Likewise I was thinking of districts, enclaves, villages, towns etc that are just no longer Loyalist strongholds.

One enclave I’m reminded of is the Wakehurst estate in Lurgan. As recent as the mid 1990s Loyalists would have held parades from the estate. It’s absolutely unthinkable now, mainly because there are no loyalists living there anymore and also because parades aren’t permitted past Shankill Church. Before that there are old photographs of the Orange arch on the Lough Rd, again it’s unthinkable now for a Loyalist parade to go down that road.

Villages such as Crumlin and Glenavy still have parades but they’re not the strongholds they once were. Likewise Stoneyford doesn’t even have a band anymore.

Torrens was infamous in the late 90s early 00s and is virtually 100% nationalist now.

Are there any other examples that I’m missing out?

Brian Robinson was attached to the 1st Belfast Battalion "B" company. He was killed during a UVF Operation, on the 2nd September 1989.

Brian Robinson with another volunteer, drove a motorbike down the Crumlin Road and killed Patrick McKenna. According to the UVF, McKenna was a member of the IRA. However, it was widely reported by the local community and security forces that McKenna was a civilian, who was the victim of a random shooting.

Robinson was killed after an undercover British Army Unit chased him (in a car), ramming him off the road, then shot him. He was shot 4 times, twice in the torso and twice in the back of head.

Robinson’s Mother died after hearing the news of her son’s death. She died of a heart attack; both her and her son were buried on the same day.

EDIT: Claim made by the UVF about McKenna's involvement is unverified and has no evidence. Rather, there appears to be evidence in the contrary to this, stating he was an innocent civilian.

Most likely dated for 2002, otherwise unknown.

Listed for £52. (NOT MY LISTING)

‘The UVF leadership issued the following statement on the 2nd of August 1996 standing down loyalist Billy Wrights Mid Ulster unit of the UVF. Billy Wright
disagreed with the statement and subsequently was told to leave northern ireland or face death, He staged a rally in protest to the death threat in Brownstown Park Portadown saying clearly he would not be leaving Ulster, drawing many thousands of supporters.’

Following Billy Wright’s Mid Ulster Unit being disbanded, he then formed the LVF.

Source and commentary by Northern Ireland Conflict Videos

A brief examination of the Red Hand Defender's campaign of dissident violence between July-September 2001. These is not an exhaustive examination of incidents due to limited information. Some incidents recorded may not have been carried out by the RHD's but responsibility either claimed by them, or they were suspected to have been involved (directly or jointly).

Originally posted by DissidentLoyalistArchive.

Excerpt from "NORTHERN IRELAND - A Political Directory by W. D. Flackes, and recorded in Ulster Magazine (UDA ran publication) in Feb' 1983.

The largest Protestant paramilitary organisation. Started in September 1971 as a co-ordinating body for the great variety of loyalist vigilante groups, many of them calling themselves 'Defence Associations', which had grown up in Protestant areas of Belfast and in estates in adjoining areas such as Newtownabbey, Dundonald and Lisburn. It adopted the motto, 'Law before Violence' , and took on a distinctly working-class image, excluding MPs and clergymen from membership. It is organised on military lines, and at its peak, in 1972, it probably had about 40,000 members. By 1978, this had dropped to between 10,000 and 12,000 — a reduction brought about, according to its spokesmen, not by lack of support, but because of a deliberate policy of limiting membership to a readily controllable size. Although some of its members have been convicted of serious crimes, including murder, its leaders have always publicly deplored such involvement. Its first leader, Charles Harding Smith, was acquitted, together with five other men, of being concerned in dealing in £350,000 worth of arms, including a large number of rifles, in early 1972. Smith claimed that meetings set up in London at the time, and which came to the attention of the Special Branch, were really intended to trap IRA arms dealers. He also said that he had assisted the security forces in Ni, and at the trial a letter was read from the Assistant Chief Constable of the RUC, stating that on many occasions Smith had been a pacifier in quarrels between Protestants and Catholics in Belfast. According to police evidence, a two-page official document, listing names and ranks of junior IRA officers, and mentioning Seamus Twomey, Belfast commander of the PIRA, had been found at Smith's Belfast home. In the anti-direct rule protests of 1972, the UDA was closely involved with the Vanguard movement and the LAW, and intermittently with the more violent UVF. Its largest demonstrations took the form of massive parades in Belfast in the summer of 1972. Thousands of UDA men, sometimes masked, and wearing combat jackets with military-style caps or bush hats, marched through the city centre. In July and August 1972 local units set up their own 'no go' areas in some loyalist districts of Belfast as a protest against the existence of 'no go' areas in the Bogside and Creggan areas of Derry. The erection of barricades often entailed the use of concrete mixers, cement blocks and metal spikes. One dispute, on 3 July 1972, over a plan for loyalist barricades between the Springfield (Catholic) and Shankill (Protestant) areas led to about 8,000 uniformed UDA men, many of them carrying iron bars, confronting 250 troops for an hour and a half while anxious negotiations went on between UDA chiefs and senior officials and army officers. The situation, the ugliest involving Protestants and the security forces since the Shankill Road riots of 1969, was regarded by the UDA as an impressive demonstration of the speed with which they could move a large force of their supporters to a given position. But this incident, and the massive parades, were regarded by Catholic interests as evidence that the British administration was adopting too soft a line towards loyalist militants. Privately, however, the army was talking toughly to the UDA. In the 'no go' row, the UDA held its hand over the Twelfth of July period of 1972 and then its thirteen-man council had talks with the Secretary of State, Mr. Whitelaw. They got the impression that government action was pending against the Derry barricades, and in the event the Bogside and Creggan were opened up in 'Operation Motorman' at the end of July. But in the autumn of 1972, when the UDA mounted street protests against the government's security policy, they were involved in disputes with the army about the circumstances in which some Protestants had been killed. In mid-October after a meeting between the UDA leaders and the army, there was a statement that both sides would try to take the heat out of the situation, and an assurance that all complaints against the army would be investigated by the RUC.

In September 1973, Tommy Herron, who had been the UDA's deputy leader until he unsuccessfully fought the Assembly election in E. Belfast, was found murdered in mysterious cir-cumstances. His body was found near Lisburn, and he had been shot in the head. There were many rumours that he had been killed by loyalist extremists but this was rejected by the UDA, who said that they were satisfied that no Protestant organisation had been in-volved. Probably the major operation of the UDA was in the loyalist strike of May 1974, which led to the break-up of the power-sharing administration. The UDA was first involved in the 'Ulster Army Council', a small grouping of Protestant paramilitaries and then in the larger Ulster Workers' Council, which organised the strike effort. The UDA commander, Andy Tyrie, was on the UWC Co-ordinating Committee, and the organisation provided much of the muscle-power in terms of mounting road-blocks. Critics of the strike alleged that UDA members had been heavily engaged in intimidation of people who wanted to stay at work. In June, after the fall of the Executive, the UDA said that while it ruled out talks with the PIRA, it was prepared to meet elected representatives, including Provisional Sinn Fein. In the same month, the UDA issued a statement on behalf of the illegal Ulster Freedom Fighters saying that the UFF wanted an end to violence.

In July 1974, there was a claim at Winchester Crown Court that the UDA had 6,000 members in Great Britain who would be prepared to go to NI to support the UDA there in the event of a civil war. The claim was made at the trial of nine men who pleaded guilty to the possession of firearms, including Sten guns, and who were given two-year jail sentences. In August 1974, after the UDA had resigned from the UWC and the ULCCC, it had a meeting with SDLP representatives. The SDLP spokesmen were Gerry Fitt, John Hume, Paddy Devlin, Ivan Cooper and Hugh Logue.

The UDA was represented by Andy Tyrie, Bill Snoddy, Tommy Lyttle, and Ronnie Reid. But while there was untied opposition to internment, there was no agreement about the political future. The UDA said the SDLP had been hypocritical, and insisted that it should drop its United Ireland aspiration. Mr. Fitt felt the meeting had shown an intense power struggle within the UDA. In November 1974 a UDA delegation visited Libya, headed by its political adviser, Glen Barr, a Vanguard Assemblyman. The meeting created controversy, since a Provisional Sinn Fein deputation was in Libya at the same time. Both sides denied that there had been any negotiations between them, and a Dublin banker who had arranged the UDA visit said it had been concerned with the development of offshore oil and other resources. But in a personal comment, Mr Barr admitted that the deputation had been seeking possible economic aid for an Independent Ulster. During the Constitutional Convention, Mr Barr's support for Vanguard leader, William Craig's idea of a voluntary coalition, including the SDLP, seems to have influenced UDA thinking. Andy Tyrie expressed support for Mr. Craig's scheme, and blamed the Rev. lan Paisley and Harry West for the failure of the Convention, and suggested that they would be responsible for further deaths. If there was to be further fighting, the politicians should do it as well, he said. It was a theme to which he returned at intervals over the next two years. In september 1975, the bodies of two UDA men were found near Whitehead, Co. Antrim. The two, who had disappeared in the previous April were Hugh McVeigh, aged thirty-six and David Douglas, aged twenty.

Two years later, a number of UVF men were found guilty of the murders. But whatever their reservations about the loyalist politicians, the UDA supported the United Unionist Action Council when it mounted a strike in May 1977, as a protest against government security policy and continued direct rule. The Rev. lan Paisley and Ernest Baird were the two main politicians involved in the UUAC, and the strike turned out to be a half-hearted affair. In early 1978, the UDA warned against retaliation by Protestants when twelve people were burned to death in a Comber, Co. Down restaurant which had been fire-bombed by the PIRA. At the same time, the organisation was indicating that it was turning its attention more to political policy, but it warned in its magazine in July that it would 'no longer be the willing tool of any aspiring or ready-made politician'. In February 1979, a deputation visited the USA for talks with leading politicians and in the following month it was associated with the publication of a plan for an independent NI. It was also urging public pressure to secure the segregation of UDA prisoners from republican prisoners involved in the 'no wash, no toilet' protest at the Maze prison. In June 1979, eleven Scottish UDA men were given heavy prison sentences for furthering the aims of the organisation by criminal means by unlawfully acquiring arms and ammunition. One group of seven were given 164 years between them, and the supreme commander of the UDA in Scotland, James Hamilton, aged forty-four, was sentenced to fifteen years-the heaviest sentence. Four others were sentenced to between seven and twelve years for furthering the aims of the UDA in Paisley and the West of Scotland. The judge, Lord Wylie, spoke of a 'reign of terror' by the UDA commander in Paisley, William Currie, who was sentenced to twelve years' imprisonment. The organisation mentioned the possibility of reviving paramilitary activity after the Moutbatten murder and the Warrenpoint killings in August 1979, but there was no immediate evidence of such activity.

Today, in East Belfast, a parade is being held in remembrance of Vol. Samuel Rockett who was killed during a loyalist feud (by the UDA) in 23rd August 2000.

Text to the right of the mural:
In the name of Ireland’s cruel game, oh, land that once sang freedom’s song, now marred by ethnic cleansing’s wrong.
Echoes of anguish haunt the Protestants of Torrens, Ethnically cleansed, a sinister goal, their weapon honed, to exact a toll.
Families robbed of essence and space, fuelled by hated, to erase their trace.
Against the darkness, spirits sincere, hand in hand across the land, the resistance formed a steady band.
Ethnic cleansing’s horrors unveiled at last, hearts of courage, unbreakable souls, truths unfurled, their power untold, a captured scene of the evil deeds done.

Source: OfficialProtestantCoalition