Ernie Elliott
Encyclopedia
Ernest "Ernie" Elliott nicknamed "Duke", was a Northern Irish
loyalist
activist and a leading member of the Ulster Defence Association
(UDA) during its early days. Unusually for the generally right-wing UDA Elliott expressed admiration for socialism
and communism
and frequently quoted the words of Che Guevara
and Karl Marx
. Elliott was eventually killed in by a fellow UDA member following a drunken brawl, although his death was variously blamed on republicans
and a rival faction within the UDA.
adjacent to the Shankill Road, Elliott was involved in the formation of the vigilante group the Woodvale Defence Association
(WDA) in early 1971. He was appointed as lieutenant to the WDA's deputy leader Davy Fogel
with the pair being already established as close drinking buddies. Elliott, a short but stockily built man, was a notorious "hard man" on the Shankill who was used to meting out physical violence. He became commander of the WDA, which retained an independent existence for a time despite its incorporation into the UDA, in 1972 whilst Charles Harding Smith
was detained in London
on gun-running charges, holding the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel.
(UVF) Gusty Spence
had begun to develop ideas that loyalism should move to a more left-wing position after discussions with Official IRA
members in Crumlin Road Gaol. Spence's ideas were rejected by many within the UVF but some who had been in prison with him took the ideas on board. Some of these Shankill UVF men were friends of Elliott and when they discussed their ideas with him he became impressed. Before long Elliott had become enamoured of Marxism
and sought to apply its theories to the "loyalist struggle". In fact Elliott and Davy Fogel had held meetings with the Official Irish Republican Army in both Dublin and Belfast
in an attempt to seek common ground and explore the possibility of reaching what Fogel described as "a working-class accommodation with our Catholic neighbours". They also met representatives of the British & Irish Communist Organisation which at the time was going through a strongly anti-republican and pro-unionist phase.
Elliott became somewhat notorious in the UDA for expressing the notion that Protestants and Catholics were both equal victims of oppression and that the working class elements of the communities had more in common with each other than their respective middle classes. However despite his avowed conversion to Marxism Elliott remained active in the UDA's campaign of sectarian murder and after his death was identified as having taken part in the torture of Patrick Devaney, a Catholic and former British Army
soldier who was brutally killed on 30 August 1972.
As a consequence the military authorities decided that it was imperative to remove Elliott and so they enlisted loyalist veteran and British agent William McGrath
to lead a whispering campaign designed at blackening Elliott's name. Charles Harding Smith returned to Belfast in December 1972 and was informed by his allies in the WDA that in his absence the UDA in west Belfast had become closely involved in racketeering. They added that not only had Elliott done nothing to stop this crime wave but that he had also reaped financial benefits from activities such as hijacking trucks carrying alcohol and selling the goods in shebeen
s. Harding Smith called a meeting of Shankill commanders, inviting all but Elliott, ordering a cleaning up of UDA activities. Those present, many of whom had themselves been involved in the crimes, all placed the blame on Elliott.
with a cardboard box in the back. Police and the army were called to the scene where they initially treated it as a bomb, carrying out a controlled explosion. However when the box was finally removed from the car it was found to contain not a bomb but rather a corpse, which was soon identified as that of Elliott. He had been blasted in the face with a shotgun.
Another UDA member, who was not identified, was discovered in Ainsworth Avenue on the Woodvale Road with serious injuries and under questioning revealed a story of Elliott's death. He claimed that he and Elliott had been drinking in the UDA clubs of the Shankill Road and had then driven in their official WDA car to Sandy Row
in order to continue drinking. According to his testimony they had taken a short cut past the lower Falls Road where they had been stopped by a Provisional IRA roadblock. The republicans recognised Elliott and separated the two men, beating up Elliott's companion but shooting the WDA leader dead. The Royal Ulster Constabulary
(RUC) rejected the story and publicly declared that they had no faith in the testimony. They claimed that no UDA member would ever drive along the Falls to get to Sandy Row and added that the Provisionals would never have killed one member and let another off with a beating. The police added that they believed Elliott had actually been killed on the Shankill and that his companion had been released after being assaulted with instructions to relay the story he had told them. Within days Joseph Kelly, 47, and James Joseph Reynolds, 16, both Catholic civilians, had been killed by the East Belfast UDA in revenge for the killing of Elliott, after the eastern leadership accepted the PIRA story as truth.
A further story was circulated that Elliott had been killed for being a member of the Ulster Citizens Army, a loyalist paramilitary group that endorsed Marxism but which had actually been made up by British military intelligence in an ultimately successful attempt to strangle at birth the UVF's move to the left. In actual fact Elliott's death had been the result of a drunken brawl that ended in gunfire. Elliott, a notoriously heavy drinker, had gone to Sandy Row to get a gun that he had loaned to a local UDA member. According to witnesses the heavily inebriated Elliott entered the UDA club in the area and began waving a gun around. A patron of the club grabbed the weapon and punched Elliott with the fight spilling outside. An unidentified Sandy Row UDA man pointed a shotgun at Elliott outside but the weapon went off and hit Elliott. The gunman left for England
soon afterwards only to return in 1983 after feeling remorseful, and confessed his part in the killing. Despite this no convictions were made after the case against this man and two associates collapsed. As a result Elliott was the first Protestant who was not a member of the security forces to be killed by a fellow Protestant during the course of the Troubles
.
Elliott's funeral a few days after his killing was a big event on the Shankill. His coffin was removed from his Leopold Street home draped in a UDA flag, his badges of rank and his Orange Order sash with shots fired by a guard of honour and thousands of uniformed UDA members marching with the coffin down the Shankill Road. Elliott is commemorated by a mural on Ohio Street off the Woodvale/Upper Shankill roads.
Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland is one of the four countries of the United Kingdom. Situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, it shares a border with the Republic of Ireland to the south and west...
loyalist
Ulster loyalism
Ulster loyalism is an ideology that is opposed to a united Ireland. It can mean either support for upholding Northern Ireland's status as a constituent part of the United Kingdom , support for Northern Ireland independence, or support for loyalist paramilitaries...
activist and a leading member of the Ulster Defence Association
Ulster Defence Association
The Ulster Defence Association is the largest although not the deadliest loyalist paramilitary and vigilante group in Northern Ireland. It was formed in September 1971 and undertook a campaign of almost twenty-four years during "The Troubles"...
(UDA) during its early days. Unusually for the generally right-wing UDA Elliott expressed admiration for socialism
Socialism
Socialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy; or a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises,...
and communism
Communism
Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...
and frequently quoted the words of Che Guevara
Che Guevara
Ernesto "Che" Guevara , commonly known as el Che or simply Che, was an Argentine Marxist revolutionary, physician, author, intellectual, guerrilla leader, diplomat and military theorist...
and Karl Marx
Karl Marx
Karl Heinrich Marx was a German philosopher, economist, sociologist, historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. His ideas played a significant role in the development of social science and the socialist political movement...
. Elliott was eventually killed in by a fellow UDA member following a drunken brawl, although his death was variously blamed on republicans
Irish Republicanism
Irish republicanism is an ideology based on the belief that all of Ireland should be an independent republic.In 1801, under the Act of Union, the Kingdom of Great Britain and the Kingdom of Ireland merged to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland...
and a rival faction within the UDA.
Woodvale Defence Association
A native of the Woodvale Road, an area of BelfastBelfast
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...
adjacent to the Shankill Road, Elliott was involved in the formation of the vigilante group the Woodvale Defence Association
Woodvale Defence Association
The Woodvale Defence Association was a loyalist vigilante group in the Woodvale district of Belfast.The organisation grew from a few smaller vigilante groups. It initially met in a pigeon fancier's club on Leopold Street, a location found on the initiative of Charles Harding Smith, who kept some...
(WDA) in early 1971. He was appointed as lieutenant to the WDA's deputy leader Davy Fogel
Davy Fogel
David "Davy" Fogel also known as "Big Dave" , was a former loyalist and a leading member of the loyalist vigilante Woodvale Defence Association which later merged with other groups becoming the Ulster Defence Association...
with the pair being already established as close drinking buddies. Elliott, a short but stockily built man, was a notorious "hard man" on the Shankill who was used to meting out physical violence. He became commander of the WDA, which retained an independent existence for a time despite its incorporation into the UDA, in 1972 whilst Charles Harding Smith
Charles Harding Smith
Charles Harding Smith was a loyalist leader in Northern Ireland and the first effective leader of the Ulster Defence Association...
was detained in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
on gun-running charges, holding the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel.
Marxism
At the time the leader of the Ulster Volunteer ForceUlster Volunteer Force
The Ulster Volunteer Force is a loyalist paramilitary group in Northern Ireland. It was formed in late 1965 or early 1966 and named after the Ulster Volunteer Force of 1913. The group's volunteers undertook an armed campaign of almost thirty years during The Troubles...
(UVF) 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...
had begun to develop ideas that loyalism should move to a more left-wing position after discussions with Official IRA
Official IRA
The Official Irish Republican Army or Official IRA is an Irish republican paramilitary group whose goal was to create a "32-county workers' republic" in Ireland. It emerged from a split in the Irish Republican Army in December 1969, shortly after the beginning of "The Troubles"...
members in Crumlin Road Gaol. Spence's ideas were rejected by many within the UVF but some who had been in prison with him took the ideas on board. Some of these Shankill UVF men were friends of Elliott and when they discussed their ideas with him he became impressed. Before long Elliott had become enamoured of Marxism
Marxism
Marxism is an economic and sociopolitical worldview and method of socioeconomic inquiry that centers upon a materialist interpretation of history, a dialectical view of social change, and an analysis and critique of the development of capitalism. Marxism was pioneered in the early to mid 19th...
and sought to apply its theories to the "loyalist struggle". In fact Elliott and Davy Fogel had held meetings with the Official Irish Republican Army in both Dublin and 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...
in an attempt to seek common ground and explore the possibility of reaching what Fogel described as "a working-class accommodation with our Catholic neighbours". They also met representatives of the British & Irish Communist Organisation which at the time was going through a strongly anti-republican and pro-unionist phase.
Elliott became somewhat notorious in the UDA for expressing the notion that Protestants and Catholics were both equal victims of oppression and that the working class elements of the communities had more in common with each other than their respective middle classes. However despite his avowed conversion to Marxism Elliott remained active in the UDA's campaign of sectarian murder and after his death was identified as having taken part in the torture of Patrick Devaney, a Catholic and former British Army
British Army
The British Army is the land warfare branch of Her Majesty's Armed Forces in the United Kingdom. It came into being with the unification of the Kingdom of England and Scotland into the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707. The new British Army incorporated Regiments that had already existed in England...
soldier who was brutally killed on 30 August 1972.
Fall from grace
Some of his underlings took to his new found ideas but for most within the arch-conservative UDA, including the leadership, Elliott's flirtation with Marxism was dangerously subversive. British Military Intelligence, which considered the UDA no threat to their interests, were also deeply worried by Elliott's new interests. In particular they feared the possibility of a relationship developing between elements of the UDA and the Official IRA.As a consequence the military authorities decided that it was imperative to remove Elliott and so they enlisted loyalist veteran and British agent William McGrath
William McGrath (loyalist)
William McGrath was a loyalist from Northern Ireland who founded the far-right organisation Tara in the 1960s, having also been prominent in the Orange Order until his expulsion due to his paedophilia...
to lead a whispering campaign designed at blackening Elliott's name. Charles Harding Smith returned to Belfast in December 1972 and was informed by his allies in the WDA that in his absence the UDA in west Belfast had become closely involved in racketeering. They added that not only had Elliott done nothing to stop this crime wave but that he had also reaped financial benefits from activities such as hijacking trucks carrying alcohol and selling the goods in shebeen
Shebeen
A shebeen was originally an illicit bar or club where excisable alcoholic beverages were sold without a licence.The term has spread far from its origins in Ireland, to Scotland, Canada, the United States, England,...
s. Harding Smith called a meeting of Shankill commanders, inviting all but Elliott, ordering a cleaning up of UDA activities. Those present, many of whom had themselves been involved in the crimes, all placed the blame on Elliott.
Death
On 7 December 1972 a car was found abandoned near the Village area of the Donegall RoadDonegall Road
The Donegall Road runs from Shaftesbury Square in Belfast city centre to the Falls Road in west Belfast. It is bisected by the Westlink, and the largest part of the road, prior to the Westlink junction, is predominantly unionist...
with a cardboard box in the back. Police and the army were called to the scene where they initially treated it as a bomb, carrying out a controlled explosion. However when the box was finally removed from the car it was found to contain not a bomb but rather a corpse, which was soon identified as that of Elliott. He had been blasted in the face with a shotgun.
Another UDA member, who was not identified, was discovered in Ainsworth Avenue on the Woodvale Road with serious injuries and under questioning revealed a story of Elliott's death. He claimed that he and Elliott had been drinking in the UDA clubs of the Shankill Road and had then driven in their official WDA car to Sandy Row
Sandy Row
Sandy Row is a Protestant working-class community in south Belfast, Northern Ireland. It has a population of about 3,000. It is a staunchly loyalist area of Belfast, being a traditional heartland for affiliation with the paramilitary Ulster Defence Association and the Orange Order.-Location:Sandy...
in order to continue drinking. According to his testimony they had taken a short cut past the lower Falls Road where they had been stopped by a Provisional IRA roadblock. The republicans recognised Elliott and separated the two men, beating up Elliott's companion but shooting the WDA leader dead. The Royal Ulster Constabulary
Royal Ulster Constabulary
The Royal Ulster Constabulary was the name of the police force in Northern Ireland from 1922 to 2000. Following the awarding of the George Cross in 2000, it was subsequently known as the Royal Ulster Constabulary GC. It was founded on 1 June 1922 out of the Royal Irish Constabulary...
(RUC) rejected the story and publicly declared that they had no faith in the testimony. They claimed that no UDA member would ever drive along the Falls to get to Sandy Row and added that the Provisionals would never have killed one member and let another off with a beating. The police added that they believed Elliott had actually been killed on the Shankill and that his companion had been released after being assaulted with instructions to relay the story he had told them. Within days Joseph Kelly, 47, and James Joseph Reynolds, 16, both Catholic civilians, had been killed by the East Belfast UDA in revenge for the killing of Elliott, after the eastern leadership accepted the PIRA story as truth.
A further story was circulated that Elliott had been killed for being a member of the Ulster Citizens Army, a loyalist paramilitary group that endorsed Marxism but which had actually been made up by British military intelligence in an ultimately successful attempt to strangle at birth the UVF's move to the left. In actual fact Elliott's death had been the result of a drunken brawl that ended in gunfire. Elliott, a notoriously heavy drinker, had gone to Sandy Row to get a gun that he had loaned to a local UDA member. According to witnesses the heavily inebriated Elliott entered the UDA club in the area and began waving a gun around. A patron of the club grabbed the weapon and punched Elliott with the fight spilling outside. An unidentified Sandy Row UDA man pointed a shotgun at Elliott outside but the weapon went off and hit Elliott. The gunman left for England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
soon afterwards only to return in 1983 after feeling remorseful, and confessed his part in the killing. Despite this no convictions were made after the case against this man and two associates collapsed. As a result Elliott was the first Protestant who was not a member of the security forces to be killed by a fellow Protestant during the course of the Troubles
The Troubles
The Troubles was a period of ethno-political conflict in Northern Ireland which spilled over at various times into England, the Republic of Ireland, and mainland Europe. The duration of the Troubles is conventionally dated from the late 1960s and considered by many to have ended with the Belfast...
.
Elliott's funeral a few days after his killing was a big event on the Shankill. His coffin was removed from his Leopold Street home draped in a UDA flag, his badges of rank and his Orange Order sash with shots fired by a guard of honour and thousands of uniformed UDA members marching with the coffin down the Shankill Road. Elliott is commemorated by a mural on Ohio Street off the Woodvale/Upper Shankill roads.