Alexander "Buck Alec" Robinson (c. 1901 – 1995) was a boxer, loyalist paramilitary and Ulster Special Constabulary

Ulster Special Constabulary

The Ulster Special Constabulary was a reserve police force in Northern Ireland. It was set up in October 1920, shortly before the founding of Northern Ireland. It was an armed corps, organised partially on military lines and called out in times of emergency, such as war or insurgency...

 reservist. Robinson gained notoriety in Northern Ireland for streetfighting, robbery

Robbery

Robbery is the crime of taking or attempting to take something of value by force or threat of force or by putting the victim in fear. At common law, robbery is defined as taking the property of another, with the intent to permanently deprive the person of that property, by means of force or fear....

 and for owning a pet lion. His contemporaries included James "Stormy" Wetherall and Patrick "Silver" McKee.

Early life

Born on York Street in the Sailortown area of Belfast

Belfast

Belfast is the capital of and largest city in Northern Ireland. By population, it is the 14th biggest city in the United Kingdom and second biggest on the island of Ireland . It is the seat of the devolved government and legislative Northern Ireland Assembly...

, Ireland

Ireland

Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...

, around 1901, Robinson's early life in the docks was indicative of his future problems with the law. In 1913 at the age of twelve, he was arrested on a charge of larceny

Larceny

Larceny is a crime involving the wrongful acquisition of the personal property of another person. It was an offence under the common law of England and became an offence in jurisdictions which incorporated the common law of England into their own law. It has been abolished in England and Wales,...

. In 1916 he was arrested three more times for the same offence. He was discharged on three out of four of these first offences, and received probation for the other. He served in the British Merchant Navy towards the end of World War I. On his return to Belfast his criminal career expanded, being charged with assault, riotous behaviour and robbery by 1921.

Career in the Ulster Special Constabulary

In October 1920 the British Government formed the Ulster Special Constabulary

Ulster Special Constabulary

The Ulster Special Constabulary was a reserve police force in Northern Ireland. It was set up in October 1920, shortly before the founding of Northern Ireland. It was an armed corps, organised partially on military lines and called out in times of emergency, such as war or insurgency...

 (USC) after calls from Unionists for protection. This was to reinforce the Royal Irish Constabulary

Royal Irish Constabulary

The armed Royal Irish Constabulary was Ireland's major police force for most of the nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries. A separate civic police force, the unarmed Dublin Metropolitan Police controlled the capital, and the cities of Derry and Belfast, originally with their own police...

 who, along with the Black and Tans

Black and Tans

The Black and Tans was one of two newly recruited bodies, composed largely of British World War I veterans, employed by the Royal Irish Constabulary as Temporary Constables from 1920 to 1921 to suppress revolution in Ireland...

, were fighting the Irish Republican Army in the Irish War of Independence

Irish War of Independence

The Irish War of Independence , Anglo-Irish War, Black and Tan War, or Tan War was a guerrilla war mounted by the Irish Republican Army against the British government and its forces in Ireland. It began in January 1919, following the Irish Republic's declaration of independence. Both sides agreed...

.

The USC was formed on 1 November 1920, and consisted mainly of former Ulster Volunteers and other soldiers of the 36th (Ulster) Division who had served in World War I. Robinson was recruited to the USC's C1 section, which was made up of unpaid, non-uniformed reservists usually only called up in emergencies.

Joe Graham

Joe Graham

Anthony Joseph "Joe" Graham , is a Belfast-based Irish writer and historian. He founded Rushlight: The Belfast Magazine in 1972....

 of Rushlight Magazine has stated that Robinson was given the option of prison or joining up after assaulting a member of the wealthy Thompson family on the Glencairn Road, with Thompson's own hammer. During this time Robinson claimed to have been Dawson Bates' bodyguard, who was Minister for Home Affairs in Sir James Craig's

James Craig, 1st Viscount Craigavon

James Craig, 1st Viscount Craigavon, PC, PC , was a prominent Irish unionist politician, leader of the Ulster Unionist Party and the first Prime Minister of Northern Ireland...

 government.

He won his first significant amateur boxing bout at the King's Hall

King's Hall, Belfast

The King's Hall Complex is a multi-purpose venue located on the Lisburn Road, in Belfast, Northern Ireland. It is the largest exhibition venue in Northern Ireland and prior to the completion of the Odyssey and the Waterfront Hall, was the only large concert venue in Northern Ireland...

 in 1922 representing the USC and would later go on to win the Irish middleweight championship in 1927.

Interned

As well as being a Special Constable, Robinson was also a member of the loyalist paramilitary group, the Ulster Protestant Association. The group's aim, according to a police report of 1923, was "simply the extermination of Catholics by any and every means". The police thought Robinson, who led a UPA group on Andrews street, was, "a dangerous gunman and leader of a murderous gang". In the press he was known as the "Docklands gunman and bomber"

With the end of the Anglo-Irish war and partition

Partition of Ireland

The partition of Ireland was the division of the island of Ireland into two distinct territories, now Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland . Partition occurred when the British Parliament passed the Government of Ireland Act 1920...

 in 1922, Robinson left the USC. After being implicated in several shootings and bombings he was interned

Internment

Internment is the imprisonment or confinement of people, commonly in large groups, without trial. The Oxford English Dictionary gives the meaning as: "The action of 'interning'; confinement within the limits of a country or place." Most modern usage is about individuals, and there is a distinction...

 in October 1922. Several documents on his detention exist, including a letter from the RUC Commissioner recommending his internment:

"The respectable and law-abiding Protestants and Unionists residing in the area want to have these men taken from the locality at any cost, as they truly state there can be no peace so long as they are at large."

Another police report states:

"No matter what part of the City there is fighting in, he goes there to give a hand. He does not know what fear is, and would go any place to shoot and kill with either rifle, revolver or bomb."

The documents also contain other incidents Robinson was implicated in, including several shootings and a bombing. Robinson was released in 1923 and agreed to relocate to Bolton

Bolton

Bolton is a town in Greater Manchester, in the North West of England. Close to the West Pennine Moors, it is north west of the city of Manchester. Bolton is surrounded by several smaller towns and villages which together form the Metropolitan Borough of Bolton, of which Bolton is the...

. He soon returned and was reinterned, and released again in late 1923. His second release may have been secured through the promise that he would move to Chicago where he had relatives. In an interview with the north Belfast playwright Martin Lynch in the 1980s, Robinson claimed he worked for Al Capone

Al Capone

Alphonse Gabriel "Al" Capone was an American gangster who led a Prohibition-era crime syndicate. The Chicago Outfit, which subsequently became known as the "Capones", was dedicated to smuggling and bootlegging liquor, and other illegal activities such as prostitution, in Chicago from the early...

 and Joseph Kennedy. He was later deported from the United States.

Criminal convictions

Robinson was back in Belfast by the late 1920s. Writer Sam McAughtry

Sam McAughtry

Sam McAughtry is a writer and broadcaster who was born in Belfast in 1923, lived in the loyalist Tiger's Bay area and was educated at St Barnabas'. [Date of birth given as 1921 on fly-leaf and also on page one of text of "McAughtry's War" ].He left school at 14 and served in the Royal Air Force...

 recalled a banner reading "Welcome Home Buck Alec" being raised above York Street in the city. His criminal convictions continued through to World War II. Around this time he acquired three lions. Sources vary as to how these were acquired, one that they came from a visiting circus which Robinson allowed to use waste ground he owned at the rear of his house on Back Ship Street. Journalist Seth Linder writes that the lions were acquired from Dublin

Dublin Zoo

Dublin Zoo , in Phoenix Park, Dublin, Ireland is the largest zoo in Ireland and one of Dublin's most popular attractions. Opened in 1831, the zoo describes its role as conservation, study, and education...

 and Belfast Zoo

Belfast Zoo

Belfast Zoological Gardens is a zoo in Belfast, Northern Ireland. It is located in a relatively secluded location on the northeastern slope of Cavehill, overlooking Belfast's Antrim Road, resulting in a uniquely tranquil environment for the animals that the zoo is frequently praised for.-About the...

, with Alec displaying them at a travelling circus throughout Ireland. He kept the toothless lions at his home. Belfast folklore tells of him walking them on the streets of Sailortown. He continued to be known as a streetfighter into his fifties. Local newspapers regularly covered his fights in Belfast, the last known being in 1959. In court Robinson claimed he had knocked a man unconscious as he disagreed with the language he was using.

Death and tributes

Buck Alec continued to live in north Belfast until his death in 1995. Gusty Spence

Gusty Spence

Augustus Andrew "Gusty" Spence was a leader of the Ulster Volunteer Force and a leading loyalist politician. One of the first UVF members to be convicted of murder, Spence was a senior figure in the organisation for over a decade but later renounced violence and joined the Progressive Unionist...

 and Ian Paisley

Ian Paisley

Ian Richard Kyle Paisley, Baron Bannside, PC is a politician and church minister in Northern Ireland. As the leader of the Democratic Unionist Party , he and Sinn Féin's Martin McGuinness were elected First Minister and deputy First Minister respectively on 8 May 2007.In addition to co-founding...

 attended his funeral, the latter carrying the coffin and describing Robinson as "a rare character, a typical Ulsterman, an interesting facet of Ulster's history". A report in the Irish News focused on his paramilitary past. Other reports stated that "his heart was in the right place" and that Catholics attended his funeral alongside Protestants.

In his book Formations of Violence, Allen Feldman

Allen Feldman

Allen Feldman is an anthropologist and professor. Currently he is an associate professor of culture and communication at the New York University Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development...

argues that Robinson was seen as a "hard man" who believed in a fair fight, rather than a common thug.