UVF Mid-Ulster Brigade
Encyclopedia
UVF Mid-Ulster Brigade formed part of the loyalist
paramilitary Ulster Volunteer Force in Northern Ireland
. The brigade was established in Lurgan
, County Armagh
in 1972 by its first commander Billy Hanna
. The unit operated mainly around the Lurgan and Portadown
areas. Subsequent leaders of the brigade were Robin Jackson
, known as "The Jackal", and Billy Wright
. The Mid-Ulster Brigade carried out many attacks, mainly in Northern Ireland, especially in the South Armagh area, but it also extended its operational reach into the Republic of Ireland. Two of the most notorious attacks in the history of The Troubles
were carried out by the Mid-Ulster Brigade: the 1974 Dublin and Monaghan bombings
and the Miami Showband killings
in 1975. Members of the Mid-Ulster Brigade were part of the Glenanne gang
which the Pat Finucane Centre
has since linked to at least 87 lethal attacks in the 1970s.
The brigade was active from 1972 until the present day. The Portadown unit along with the brigade's leader Billy Wright was officially stood down on 2 August 1996 by the UVF's Brigade Staff (Belfast leadership) following the brigade's killing of a Catholic taxi driver during a UVF ceasefire. The brigade, however, continued to function in the mid-Ulster area. In 2000-2001 the Mid-Ulster brigade was involved in an acrimonious feud with the Loyalist Volunteer Force
(LVF), the group set up by Billy Wright. It was during this feud that Mid-Ulster brigadier Richard Jameson
was shot dead by the LVF.
(UVF) member William Henry Wilson Hanna
, known as "Billy", who sat on its Brigade Staff, which was the UVF's Belfast ruling council based on the Shankill Road. Hanna served as a captain and staff instructor in the Ulster Defence Regiment
(UDR), and was a decorated war hero having won the Military Medal
for gallantry in the Korean War
when he served in the Royal Irish Fusiliers
. Hanna started the brigade in his home town of Lurgan
in 1972 with the full endorsement of the UVF's leader Gusty Spence
who was imprisoned. Spence had spent four months out of prison in 1972 when his false kidnapping was staged by the UVF in July after he had been given leave by prison authorities to attend his daughter's wedding. During his period of freedom he had restructured the UVF on its original 1913 lines by adding brigades, battalions, companies, platoons, and sections. He also managed to procure weaponry. On 23 October 1972 an armed UVF gang raided a UDR/Territorial Army
depot in Lurgan and stole a large cache of sophisticated guns and ammunition. He was caught and sent back to prison in November. By 1972 the Provisional IRA
's bombing campaign had escalated in its intensity, which triggered a militant response from loyalist paramilitary groups such as the UVF and Ulster Defence Association
(UDA). When the religious and political conflict known as "The Troubles" had broken out in the late 1960s, Northern Irish Protestants had immediately formed vigilante groups to protect loyalist areas from nationalist
attacks. These had gone on to merge into larger umbrella paramilitary organisations.
Hanna, who held the rank of brigadier, appointed himself the brigade's commander, and personally recruited and trained young men from the Portadown
and Lurgan areas who were "prepared to defend Ulster at any cost". These included Robin "the Jackal" Jackson
, Harris Boyle
, Wesley Somerville
, David Alexander Mulholland
, and William Fulton, among others. When a new member was sworn in to the Ulster Volunteer Force, he was brought before a table, which was flanked by two masked men and presided over by another; on the table rested the Ulster banner
and a gun. Under Hanna's leadership the Mid-Ulster Brigade became the deadliest loyalist paramilitary group in the Mid-Ulster and South Armagh area. According to journalist Joe Tiernan, at least 100 Catholics and a number of Protestants lost their lives at the hands of this brigade. Tiernan also suggested that Hanna carried out bank and post office robberies and intimidated local businessmen into paying protection money to the Mid-Ulster UVF. The Mid-Ulster UVF had always operated as a semi-autonomous, self-contained group maintaining its distance from the Belfast leadership, even if Hanna did have a seat on the Brigade Staff. Irish journalist Brendan O'Brien stated that the UVF had derived its greatest strength as well as the organisation's most ruthless members from its Mid-Ulster Brigade. Author Don Mullan described the brigade as one of the most ruthless battalions operating in the 1970s. A 2011 RTE
documentary Bombings called it an "efficient sectarian killing machine". It covered a wide area of operations, drawing membership from Portadown, southern County Londonderry
, Dungannon
, Armagh
, Lurgan, Cookstown
, and rural settlements near these towns, although it had little or no membership in County Fermanagh
, where loyalist paramilitaries never supplanted the police and army as the defenders of choice in the eyes of local Unionists
.
The Mid-Ulster Brigade was part of the Glenanne gang
, a notorious group of loyalist extremist who carried out a series of killings and attacks against the Catholic nationalist community, mainly in the South Armagh area, in the 1970s. The Pat Finucane Centre maintained that at least 87 violent attacks have been traced to this gang, which comprised rogue members of the UDR, Royal Ulster Constabulary
(RUC), regular Army
, as well as the Mid-Ulster UVF and Ulster Defence Association
(UDR). It was allegedly directed by British Military Intelligence and/or RUC Special Branch
. Its name derived from a farm in Glenanne, County Armagh which was owned by RUC reservist James Mitchell
. It was Hanna who first approached Michell and obtained permission to use the farm as a UVF arms dump and bomb-making site.
The UVF was a proscribed paramilitary organisation since its formation in 1966; however the ban was lifted on 4 April 1974 by Secretary of State for Northern Ireland
, Merlyn Rees in an effort to bring the group into the democratic process. The UVF was once more outlawed by the British Government in October 1975.
Organised and led by Billy Hanna, with Robin Jackson of the Lurgan unit playing a key role, the Mid-Ulster Brigade, along with a team from Belfast, planted three car bombs in Dublin. The devices exploded minutes apart in the city centre during evening rush hour causing the deaths of 26 people - mostly young women - and almost 300 injuries. The bombs had been so well constructed that 100 per cent of each bomb had exploded upon detonation. Hanna had been the mastermind behind the building and planning of the bombings, and Jackson had transported the bombs across the Republic of Ireland border in his poultry lorry accompanied by Hanna, who then primed them at the Coachman's Inn pub carpark on the Swords Road. Hanna and Jackson subsequently loaded the devices inside the boots of the three allocated cars, and the former instructed the three drivers to park the car bombs in Parnell Street
, Talbot Street
, and South Leinster Street. Ninety minutes after the three Dublin blasts, a fourth car bomb went off in Monaghan
, killing another seven people, bringing the total of deaths to 33.
No warnings were given for these attacks which brought about the greatest loss of life in a single day in the history of the Troubles. Another Mid-Ulster unit from Portadown, allegedly led by local commander Stewart Young, had carried out the Monaghan attack. Nobody was ever charged with the four bombings.
RUC Special Patrol Group
officer, John Weir
, who was associated with the Mid-Ulster UVF, stated in an affidavit that Hanna and Jackson had led one of the Dublin bombing teams. Weir's statement was published in the 2003 Barron Report, which was the findings of a judicial inquiry into the 1974 bombings commissioned by Irish Supreme Court Justice Henry Barron
In 1993 Yorkshire Television aired a documentary about the Dublin and Monaghan bombings The Hidden Hand: The Forgotten Massacre. The narrator named Billy Hanna and belatedly Robin Jackson as two of the Dublin bomb team. The two men were also alleged to have had links with British Military Intelligence and Captain Robert Nairac
. Weir stated in his affidavit that Robin Jackson was an RUC Special Branch agent and therefore "untouchable". Former British soldier and psychological warfare
operative Major Colin Wallace
confirmed this stating in a letter he had written to a friend in 1975 that he had been told the previous year that Jackson worked as an agent for the RUC's Special Branch. Journalist Joe Tiernan confirmed in his book The Dublin Bombings and the Murder Triangle that Hanna was a British Military Intelligence agent and that middle-ranking officers of the Intelligence Corps based at Army Headquarters in Lisburn
were frequent visitors to his Houston Park home in the Mourneville estate in Lurgan. They supplied him with weapons and petrol for his car. Hanna also regularly invited British soldiers to his house for "cups of tea".
On 27 July 1975, Billy Hanna was shot dead outside his home in Lurgan, allegedly by Robin Jackson, who assumed command of the Mid-Ulster Brigade. Four days later under the auspices of Robin Jackson, the Mid-Ulster Brigade carried out an attack against The Miami Showband
, one of the most popular cabaret bands in Ireland at the time. As the showband was returning to Dublin on 31 July at about 2.30 a.m. after a performance in Banbridge
, they were flagged down at a bogus vehicle checkpoint on the main road at Buskill outside Newry
by armed members of the Mid-Ulster Brigade wearing British Army uniforms. The band members were ordered out of their minibus and told to line up facing a ditch by the roadside. As one of the gunmen took down their names and addresses, two members of the brigade, Harris Boyle and Wesley Somerville planted a bomb in the rear of the bus. Martin Dillon
suggested that the plan was for the device to explode across the border, wiping out the band as well as making it appear as if the Miami Showband was smuggling bombs on behalf of the Provisional IRA
(PIRA). The bomb, however, went off just as the two men closed the door. They were blown to pieces, and the remaining UVF gunmen opened fire on the dazed band members, killing three (trumpeter Brian McCoy, lead singer Fran O'Toole, and guitarist Tony Geraghty) and wounding two (bassist Stephen Travers and saxophonist Des McAlea). The UVF's Brigade Staff issued a statement twelve hours after the killings in an attempt to justify the attack. It was published in the August 1975 edition of Combat, the UVF's journal.
Three men out of the ten-man UVF unit were later convicted of the murders; Thomas Crozier and James McDowell were serving soldiers of the 11th Battalion UDR
, and John James Somerville (brother of Wesley) was a former member of the regiment. An international panel headed by Professor Douglass Cassel was commissioned by the Pat Finucane Centre to investigate alleged collusion by loyalist paramilitaries and the security forces in a series of sectarian attacks and killings in the 1970s. This panel concluded that there was "credible evidence that the principal perpetrator [of the Miami Showband attack] was a man who was not prosecuted - alleged RUC Special Branch agent Robin Jackson" The Pat Finucane Centre and John Weir have both implicated Jackson in at least 100 killings.
Other attacks carried out by Jackson's brigade included the killing of high-ranking PIRA member John Francis Green
in 1975, and the double shooting of the Reavey and O'Dowd families
in 1976. Robin Jackson was arrested in October 1979 for possession of weapons, ammunition and hoods. On 20 January 1981, he was sentenced to seven years imprisonment after being convicted of possession of guns and ammunition. He was released a little over two years later in May 1983. This was his only conviction.
became the centre of UVF activity. Nevertheless the brigade was not silent and continued to launch attacks. One such attack occurred in Coagh
on 29 November 1989 when a unit of the Mid-Ulster Brigade entered the Battery Bar and opened fire. Two men were killed in the attack, Michael Devlin, a civilian and Liam Ryan, an important figure in the Provisional IRA East Tyrone Brigade
. A series of tit for tat shootings began between the Mid-Ulster Brigade and the Provisional IRA with Martin Byrne and Sam Marshall killed in two separate attacks in Lurgan in early 1990. Three more murders followed, including one Protestant shot in a case of mistaken identity, before 19 year old Denis Carville was killed in Portadown on 6 October. In each case the IRA responded by killing Protestants as the sectarian killings on both sides spiralled.
An ambitious attack
was attempted on 3 March 1991 when a unit from the Mid-Ulster Brigade went to the village of Cappagh
, County Tyrone intent on killing an entire Provisional IRA unit based in the village. Taking up a position outside Boyle's Bar, the gunmen waited for a car to pull up containing republicans and opened fire on them as they exited the vehicle. The UVF men succeeded in killing IRA volunteers John Quinn, Dwayne O'Donnell and Malcolm Nugent before entering the bar and opening fire. One more man, Thomas Armstrong, was killed in the pub but he was not a member of the IRA, while their intended target, Brian Arthurs, survived by crouching behind the bar. A member of the Mid-Ulster Brigade staff would later claim that the Cappagh attack was "one of the best things we did militarily in thirty years" as it proved they could strike directly at the Provisional IRA in an area which was a seemingly impenetrable republican stronghold.
According to journalist and author Ed Moloney
the UVF campaign in Mid Ulster in this period "indisputably shattered Republican morale", and put the leadership of the republican movement under intense pressure to "do something".
, known as "King Rat". Wright became a figure widely covered in the press where he was portrayed as a ruthless killer involved in virtually every action undertaken by the Mid-Ulster Brigade. However, it was certain that Wright's unit became the most active in Mid-Ulster with the killing of two teenage girls and a civilian at a mobile shop on a Catholic housing estate in Craigavon
on 28 March 1991; one of their more ferocious acts. At this stage Mid-Ulster's continuing policy of random sectarian attacks meant that it had diverged from the policies being undertaken by their Belfast counterparts where an attempt was made to lessen such attacks in favour of targeting known and active republicans.
At some point during the early 1990s Wright took over command of the brigade from Jackson and as a result another spate of violent attacks by the Mid-Ulster Brigade erupted. Wright's UVF gang, who called themselves "The Brat Pack", was prominent in the Drumcree standoff
. According to the Northern Ireland security forces, Wright directed up to 20 sectarian killings, although he was never convicted in connection with any killing. Wright, along with the Portadown unit of the Mid-Ulster Brigade, was officially stood down by the UVF's Brigade Staff on 2 August 1996. This came about after members of the group had killed a Catholic taxi driver, Michael McGoldrick outside Lurgan during the Drumcree disturbances while the UVF were on ceasefire. Wright, who was expelled from the UVF, ordered to leave Northern Ireland, and threatened with execution, defied the Belfast leadership. He publicly denounced the Brigade Staff as "communists", and went on to form the Loyalist Volunteer Force
(LVF), taking a significant number of Mid-Ulster Brigade members with him including his deputy Mark "Swinger" Fulton
.
Wright was killed on 27 December 1997 inside the Maze Prison where he was imprisoned for having made threats against a woman. Three members of the Irish National Liberation Army
(INLA)
shot Wright dead inside a prison van in the forecourt outside H Block 6 as it was transporting him and another LVF prisoner, Norman Green to the visitors' complex. Five months after Wright's assassination, Robin Jackson died of lung cancer at his home in the village of Donaghcloney
, near Lurgan.
-wearing Mid-Ulster Brigade member even appeared at a rally on Belfast's Shankill Road on 2 September 1996 to read out a statement in which the remnants of the Mid-Ulster Brigade described the Wright-LVF issue as being "about internal discipline within the UVF" and denounced Wright for breaking the UVF's code. The feud re-ignited in 2000 and 2001 when the Mid-Ulster Brigade effectively eliminated the LVF. It was during this feud that brigadier Richard Jameson
, leader of the Mid-Ulster Brigade, was shot dead by the LVF outside his home near Portadown on 10 January 2000. A month later, members of the Mid-Ulster Brigade beat and stabbed Protestant teenagers, Andrew Robb and David McIlwaine
to death on a country road outside Tandragee, County Armagh after one of them had made disparaging comments about Jameson's killing earlier on at a drinking party. Neither of the boys was a member of the LVF or any other loyalist paramilitary organisation.
The brigade was a centre of opposition to leadership plans to decommission weapons in 2007, leading to sixty members being stood down by the Belfast leadership. Subsequently a group in the area calling itself the "Real UVF" issued a series of threats against Sinn Féin
members in 2008 and against dissident republicans in 2010. What connection, if any, exists between the Mid-Ulster Brigade and the Real UVF is however unknown.
The Mid-Ulster UVF was blamed for a series of attacks and disturbances in Portadown during The Twelfth
's "marching season" in July 2011.
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...
paramilitary Ulster Volunteer Force in Northern Ireland
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...
. The brigade was established in Lurgan
Lurgan
Lurgan is a town in County Armagh, Northern Ireland. The town is near the southern shore of Lough Neagh and in the north-eastern corner of the county. Part of the Craigavon Borough Council area, Lurgan is about 18 miles south-west of Belfast and is linked to the city by both the M1 motorway...
, County Armagh
County Armagh
-History:Ancient Armagh was the territory of the Ulaid before the fourth century AD. It was ruled by the Red Branch, whose capital was Emain Macha near Armagh. The site, and subsequently the city, were named after the goddess Macha...
in 1972 by its first commander Billy Hanna
Billy Hanna
William Henry Wilson "Billy" Hanna MM was a high-ranking Northern Irish loyalist who founded and led the Mid-Ulster Brigade of the Ulster Volunteer Force until he was killed, allegedly by Robin Jackson, who took over command of the brigade.According to RUC Special Patrol Group officer John Weir,...
. The unit operated mainly around the Lurgan and Portadown
Portadown
Portadown is a town in County Armagh, Northern Ireland. The town sits on the River Bann in the north of the county, about 23 miles south-west of Belfast...
areas. Subsequent leaders of the brigade were Robin Jackson
Robin Jackson
Robert John "Robin" Jackson, known as the Jackal was a Northern Irish loyalist who held the rank of brigadier in the Ulster Volunteer Force during the period of violent religious and political conflict in Northern Ireland known as the Troubles.From his home in the small village of Donaghcloney,...
, known as "The Jackal", and Billy Wright
Billy Wright (loyalist)
William Stephen "Billy" Wright was a prominent Ulster loyalist during the period of violent religious/political conflict known as "The Troubles". He joined the Ulster Volunteer Force in 1975 and became commander of its Mid-Ulster Brigade in the early 1990s...
. The Mid-Ulster Brigade carried out many attacks, mainly in Northern Ireland, especially in the South Armagh area, but it also extended its operational reach into the Republic of Ireland. Two of the most notorious attacks in the history 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...
were carried out by the Mid-Ulster Brigade: the 1974 Dublin and Monaghan bombings
Dublin and Monaghan Bombings
The Dublin and Monaghan bombings of 17 May 1974 were a series of car bombings in Dublin and Monaghan in the Republic of Ireland. The attacks killed 33 civilians and wounded almost 300 – the highest number of casualties in any single day during the conflict known as The Troubles.A loyalist...
and the Miami Showband killings
Miami Showband killings
The Miami Showband killings was a paramilitary attack at Buskhill, County Down, Northern Ireland, in the early morning of 31 July 1975. It left five people dead at the hands of Ulster Volunteer Force gunmen, including three members of The Miami Showband...
in 1975. Members of the Mid-Ulster Brigade were part of the Glenanne gang
Glenanne gang
The Glenanne gang was a name given, since 2003, to a loose alliance of Northern Irish loyalist extremists who carried out sectarian killings and bomb attacks in the 1970s against the Irish Catholic and Irish nationalist community. Most of its attacks took place in the area of County Armagh and mid...
which the Pat Finucane Centre
Pat Finucane Centre
The Pat Finucane Centre is a human rights advocacy and lobbying entity in Northern Ireland. Named in honour of murdered solicitor Pat Finucane, it operates advice centres in Derry and Newry, dealing mainly with complaints from nationalists and republicans...
has since linked to at least 87 lethal attacks in the 1970s.
The brigade was active from 1972 until the present day. The Portadown unit along with the brigade's leader Billy Wright was officially stood down on 2 August 1996 by the UVF's Brigade Staff (Belfast leadership) following the brigade's killing of a Catholic taxi driver during a UVF ceasefire. The brigade, however, continued to function in the mid-Ulster area. In 2000-2001 the Mid-Ulster brigade was involved in an acrimonious feud with the Loyalist Volunteer Force
Loyalist Volunteer Force
The Loyalist Volunteer Force is a loyalist paramilitary group in Northern Ireland. It was formed by Billy Wright in 1996 when he and the Portadown unit of the Ulster Volunteer Force's Mid-Ulster Brigade was stood down by the UVF leadership. He had been the commander of the Mid-Ulster Brigade. The...
(LVF), the group set up by Billy Wright. It was during this feud that Mid-Ulster brigadier Richard Jameson
Richard Jameson (loyalist)
Richard Jameson , was a Northern Irish businessman and loyalist, who served as the leader of the paramilitary Ulster Volunteer Force's Mid-Ulster Brigade...
was shot dead by the LVF.
Beginnings
The Mid-Ulster Brigade was established by senior 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) member William Henry Wilson Hanna
Billy Hanna
William Henry Wilson "Billy" Hanna MM was a high-ranking Northern Irish loyalist who founded and led the Mid-Ulster Brigade of the Ulster Volunteer Force until he was killed, allegedly by Robin Jackson, who took over command of the brigade.According to RUC Special Patrol Group officer John Weir,...
, known as "Billy", who sat on its Brigade Staff, which was the UVF's Belfast ruling council based on the Shankill Road. Hanna served as a captain and staff instructor in the Ulster Defence Regiment
Ulster Defence Regiment
The Ulster Defence Regiment was an infantry regiment of the British Army which became operational in 1970, formed on similar lines to other British reserve forces but with the operational role of defence of life or property in Northern Ireland against armed attack or sabotage...
(UDR), and was a decorated war hero having won the Military Medal
Military Medal
The Military Medal was a military decoration awarded to personnel of the British Army and other services, and formerly also to personnel of other Commonwealth countries, below commissioned rank, for bravery in battle on land....
for gallantry in the Korean War
Korean War
The Korean War was a conventional war between South Korea, supported by the United Nations, and North Korea, supported by the People's Republic of China , with military material aid from the Soviet Union...
when he served in the Royal Irish Fusiliers
Royal Irish Fusiliers
The Royal Irish Fusiliers was an Irish infantry regiment of the British Army, formed by the amalgamation of the 87th Regiment of Foot and the 89th Regiment of Foot in 1881. The regiment's first title in 1881 was Princess Victoria's , changed in 1920 to The Royal Irish Fusiliers...
. Hanna started the brigade in his home town of Lurgan
Lurgan
Lurgan is a town in County Armagh, Northern Ireland. The town is near the southern shore of Lough Neagh and in the north-eastern corner of the county. Part of the Craigavon Borough Council area, Lurgan is about 18 miles south-west of Belfast and is linked to the city by both the M1 motorway...
in 1972 with the full endorsement of the UVF's leader 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...
who was imprisoned. Spence had spent four months out of prison in 1972 when his false kidnapping was staged by the UVF in July after he had been given leave by prison authorities to attend his daughter's wedding. During his period of freedom he had restructured the UVF on its original 1913 lines by adding brigades, battalions, companies, platoons, and sections. He also managed to procure weaponry. On 23 October 1972 an armed UVF gang raided a UDR/Territorial Army
Territorial Army
The Territorial Army is the part time volunteer force of the British Army. With around 35,500 members, the TA forms about a quarter of the overall manpower strength of the British Army. TA members regularly volunteer to serve overseas on operations, either with TA units, or as individuals...
depot in Lurgan and stole a large cache of sophisticated guns and ammunition. He was caught and sent back to prison in November. By 1972 the Provisional IRA
Provisional Irish Republican Army
The Provisional Irish Republican Army is an Irish republican paramilitary organisation whose aim was to remove Northern Ireland from the United Kingdom and bring about a socialist republic within a united Ireland by force of arms and political persuasion...
's bombing campaign had escalated in its intensity, which triggered a militant response from loyalist paramilitary groups such as the UVF and 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). When the religious and political conflict known as "The Troubles" had broken out in the late 1960s, Northern Irish Protestants had immediately formed vigilante groups to protect loyalist areas from nationalist
Irish nationalism
Irish nationalism manifests itself in political and social movements and in sentiment inspired by a love for Irish culture, language and history, and as a sense of pride in Ireland and in the Irish people...
attacks. These had gone on to merge into larger umbrella paramilitary organisations.
Hanna, who held the rank of brigadier, appointed himself the brigade's commander, and personally recruited and trained young men from the Portadown
Portadown
Portadown is a town in County Armagh, Northern Ireland. The town sits on the River Bann in the north of the county, about 23 miles south-west of Belfast...
and Lurgan areas who were "prepared to defend Ulster at any cost". These included Robin "the Jackal" Jackson
Robin Jackson
Robert John "Robin" Jackson, known as the Jackal was a Northern Irish loyalist who held the rank of brigadier in the Ulster Volunteer Force during the period of violent religious and political conflict in Northern Ireland known as the Troubles.From his home in the small village of Donaghcloney,...
, Harris Boyle
Harris Boyle
Harris Boyle was a Ulster Defence Regiment soldier and a high-ranking member of the Ulster Volunteer Force , a Northern Irish loyalist paramilitary organisation. Boyle was implicated in the 1974 Dublin and Monaghan bombings which left a total of 33 people dead...
, Wesley Somerville
Wesley Somerville
Wesley Somerville was a Northern Irish loyalist, who held the rank of lieutenant in the Ulster Volunteer Force's Mid-Ulster Brigade during the period of religious-political conflict known as "The Troubles". He also served as a member of the Ulster Defence Regiment...
, David Alexander Mulholland
David Alexander Mulholland
David Alexander Mulholland was a Northern Irish loyalist paramilitary, known to the security forces for his alleged involvement in bombing attacks. He was a member of the Ulster Volunteer Force's Mid-Ulster Brigade and was a prime suspect in the 1974 Dublin car bombings...
, and William Fulton, among others. When a new member was sworn in to the Ulster Volunteer Force, he was brought before a table, which was flanked by two masked men and presided over by another; on the table rested the Ulster banner
Ulster Banner
The Ulster Banner, more commonly known as the Ulster flag, Northern Ireland flag or the Red Hand of Ulster flag, was the flag of the Government of Northern Ireland between 1953 and 1972. Since that government was abolished in 1972, the flag has become a symbol of Ulster loyalism and is not...
and a gun. Under Hanna's leadership the Mid-Ulster Brigade became the deadliest loyalist paramilitary group in the Mid-Ulster and South Armagh area. According to journalist Joe Tiernan, at least 100 Catholics and a number of Protestants lost their lives at the hands of this brigade. Tiernan also suggested that Hanna carried out bank and post office robberies and intimidated local businessmen into paying protection money to the Mid-Ulster UVF. The Mid-Ulster UVF had always operated as a semi-autonomous, self-contained group maintaining its distance from the Belfast leadership, even if Hanna did have a seat on the Brigade Staff. Irish journalist Brendan O'Brien stated that the UVF had derived its greatest strength as well as the organisation's most ruthless members from its Mid-Ulster Brigade. Author Don Mullan described the brigade as one of the most ruthless battalions operating in the 1970s. A 2011 RTE
RTE
RTÉ is the abbreviation for Raidió Teilifís Éireann, the public broadcasting service of the Republic of Ireland.RTE may also refer to:* Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, 25th Prime Minister of Turkey...
documentary Bombings called it an "efficient sectarian killing machine". It covered a wide area of operations, drawing membership from Portadown, southern County Londonderry
County Londonderry
The place name Derry is an anglicisation of the old Irish Daire meaning oak-grove or oak-wood. As with the city, its name is subject to the Derry/Londonderry name dispute, with the form Derry preferred by nationalists and Londonderry preferred by unionists...
, Dungannon
Dungannon
Dungannon is a medium-sized town in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland. It is the third-largest town in the county and a population of 11,139 people was recorded in the 2001 Census. In August 2006, Dungannon won Ulster In Bloom's Best Kept Town Award for the fifth time...
, Armagh
Armagh
Armagh is a large settlement in Northern Ireland, and the county town of County Armagh. It is a site of historical importance for both Celtic paganism and Christianity and is the seat, for both the Roman Catholic Church and the Church of Ireland, of the Archbishop of Armagh...
, Lurgan, Cookstown
Cookstown
Cookstown may refer to either of the following:*Cookstown, County Tyrone, Northern Ireland*Cookstown, Ontario, Canada*Cookstown, New Jersey, United States...
, and rural settlements near these towns, although it had little or no membership in County Fermanagh
County Fermanagh
Fermanagh District Council is the only one of the 26 district councils in Northern Ireland that contains all of the county it is named after. The district council also contains a small section of County Tyrone in the Dromore and Kilskeery road areas....
, where loyalist paramilitaries never supplanted the police and army as the defenders of choice in the eyes of local Unionists
Unionism in Ireland
Unionism in Ireland is an ideology that favours the continuation of some form of political union between the islands of Ireland and Great Britain...
.
The Mid-Ulster Brigade was part of the Glenanne gang
Glenanne gang
The Glenanne gang was a name given, since 2003, to a loose alliance of Northern Irish loyalist extremists who carried out sectarian killings and bomb attacks in the 1970s against the Irish Catholic and Irish nationalist community. Most of its attacks took place in the area of County Armagh and mid...
, a notorious group of loyalist extremist who carried out a series of killings and attacks against the Catholic nationalist community, mainly in the South Armagh area, in the 1970s. The Pat Finucane Centre maintained that at least 87 violent attacks have been traced to this gang, which comprised rogue members of the UDR, 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), regular 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...
, as well as the Mid-Ulster UVF and 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"...
(UDR). It was allegedly directed by British Military Intelligence and/or RUC Special Branch
Special Branch
Special Branch is a label customarily used to identify units responsible for matters of national security in British and Commonwealth police forces, as well as in the Royal Thai Police...
. Its name derived from a farm in Glenanne, County Armagh which was owned by RUC reservist James Mitchell
Glenanne gang
The Glenanne gang was a name given, since 2003, to a loose alliance of Northern Irish loyalist extremists who carried out sectarian killings and bomb attacks in the 1970s against the Irish Catholic and Irish nationalist community. Most of its attacks took place in the area of County Armagh and mid...
. It was Hanna who first approached Michell and obtained permission to use the farm as a UVF arms dump and bomb-making site.
The UVF was a proscribed paramilitary organisation since its formation in 1966; however the ban was lifted on 4 April 1974 by Secretary of State for Northern Ireland
Secretary of State for Northern Ireland
The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, informally the Northern Ireland Secretary, is the principal secretary of state in the government of the United Kingdom with responsibilities for Northern Ireland. The Secretary of State is a Minister of the Crown who is accountable to the Parliament of...
, Merlyn Rees in an effort to bring the group into the democratic process. The UVF was once more outlawed by the British Government in October 1975.
Attacks
The Mid-Ulster Brigade carried out two of the most notorious attacks in the history of the Troubles. The first took place on 17 May 1974.Organised and led by Billy Hanna, with Robin Jackson of the Lurgan unit playing a key role, the Mid-Ulster Brigade, along with a team from Belfast, planted three car bombs in Dublin. The devices exploded minutes apart in the city centre during evening rush hour causing the deaths of 26 people - mostly young women - and almost 300 injuries. The bombs had been so well constructed that 100 per cent of each bomb had exploded upon detonation. Hanna had been the mastermind behind the building and planning of the bombings, and Jackson had transported the bombs across the Republic of Ireland border in his poultry lorry accompanied by Hanna, who then primed them at the Coachman's Inn pub carpark on the Swords Road. Hanna and Jackson subsequently loaded the devices inside the boots of the three allocated cars, and the former instructed the three drivers to park the car bombs in Parnell Street
Parnell Street
Parnell Street is located on Dublin's Northside and runs from Capel Street in the west to Gardiner Street and Mountjoy Square in the east, and is at the north end of O'Connell Street, where it provides the south side of Parnell Square....
, Talbot Street
Talbot Street
Talbot Street is a city-centre street located on Dublin's Northside and is one of the principal shopping streets of Dublin, running from Connolly station and the IFSC at Amiens Street in the east to Marlborough Street in the west. The street is named after Charles Chetwynd, 3rd Earl of Talbot,...
, and South Leinster Street. Ninety minutes after the three Dublin blasts, a fourth car bomb went off in Monaghan
Monaghan
Monaghan is the county town of County Monaghan in Ireland. Its population at the 2006 census stood at 7,811 . The town is located on the main road, the N2 road, from Dublin north to both Derry and Letterkenny.-Toponym:...
, killing another seven people, bringing the total of deaths to 33.
No warnings were given for these attacks which brought about the greatest loss of life in a single day in the history of the Troubles. Another Mid-Ulster unit from Portadown, allegedly led by local commander Stewart Young, had carried out the Monaghan attack. Nobody was ever charged with the four bombings.
RUC Special Patrol Group
Special Patrol Group (RUC)
The Special Patrol Group in the Royal Ulster Constabulary was a police unit tasked with counter terrorism. Each SPG had 30 members. Many of the SPG units were accused of collusion with the illegal paramilitary group the Ulster Volunteer Force, particularly the actions of a unit based in Armagh.-A...
officer, John Weir
John Weir (loyalist)
John Oliver Weir , is an Ulster loyalist born in the Republic of Ireland. He served as an officer in Northern Ireland's Royal Ulster Constabulary's Special Patrol Group , and was a volunteer in the illegal Ulster Volunteer Force...
, who was associated with the Mid-Ulster UVF, stated in an affidavit that Hanna and Jackson had led one of the Dublin bombing teams. Weir's statement was published in the 2003 Barron Report, which was the findings of a judicial inquiry into the 1974 bombings commissioned by Irish Supreme Court Justice Henry Barron
Henry Barron
Henry Barron was an Irish judge. He sat on the Irish Supreme Court from 1997 until his retirement in 2000. He was the first Jew to hold this position....
In 1993 Yorkshire Television aired a documentary about the Dublin and Monaghan bombings The Hidden Hand: The Forgotten Massacre. The narrator named Billy Hanna and belatedly Robin Jackson as two of the Dublin bomb team. The two men were also alleged to have had links with British Military Intelligence and Captain Robert Nairac
Robert Nairac
Captain Robert Laurence Nairac GC was a British Army officer who was abducted from a pub in south County Armagh during an undercover operation and killed by the Provisional Irish Republican Army on his fourth tour of duty in Northern Ireland as a Military Intelligence Liaison Officer...
. Weir stated in his affidavit that Robin Jackson was an RUC Special Branch agent and therefore "untouchable". Former British soldier and psychological warfare
Psychological warfare
Psychological warfare , or the basic aspects of modern psychological operations , have been known by many other names or terms, including Psy Ops, Political Warfare, “Hearts and Minds,” and Propaganda...
operative Major Colin Wallace
Colin Wallace
John Colin Wallace is a former British soldier and psychological warfare operative who was one of the members of the 'Clockwork Orange' project, which is alleged to have been an attempt to smear a number of British politicians in the early 1970s.-Early life:...
confirmed this stating in a letter he had written to a friend in 1975 that he had been told the previous year that Jackson worked as an agent for the RUC's Special Branch. Journalist Joe Tiernan confirmed in his book The Dublin Bombings and the Murder Triangle that Hanna was a British Military Intelligence agent and that middle-ranking officers of the Intelligence Corps based at Army Headquarters in Lisburn
Lisburn
DemographicsLisburn Urban Area is within Belfast Metropolitan Urban Area and is classified as a Large Town by the . On census day there were 71,465 people living in Lisburn...
were frequent visitors to his Houston Park home in the Mourneville estate in Lurgan. They supplied him with weapons and petrol for his car. Hanna also regularly invited British soldiers to his house for "cups of tea".
On 27 July 1975, Billy Hanna was shot dead outside his home in Lurgan, allegedly by Robin Jackson, who assumed command of the Mid-Ulster Brigade. Four days later under the auspices of Robin Jackson, the Mid-Ulster Brigade carried out an attack against The Miami Showband
The Miami Showband
The Miami Showband were one of the most successful and popular showbands in Ireland in the 1960s and 1970s. Led at first by singer Dickie Rock, and later by Fran O'Toole, they had seven number one records on the Irish singles chart...
, one of the most popular cabaret bands in Ireland at the time. As the showband was returning to Dublin on 31 July at about 2.30 a.m. after a performance in Banbridge
Banbridge
Banbridge is a town in County Down, Northern Ireland. It lies on the River Bann and the A1 road. It was named after a bridge built over the Bann in 1712. The town grew as a coaching stop on the road from Belfast to Dublin and thrived from Irish linen manufacturing...
, they were flagged down at a bogus vehicle checkpoint on the main road at Buskill outside Newry
Newry
Newry is a city in Northern Ireland. The River Clanrye, which runs through the city, formed the historic border between County Armagh and County Down. It is from Belfast and from Dublin. Newry had a population of 27,433 at the 2001 Census, while Newry and Mourne Council Area had a population...
by armed members of the Mid-Ulster Brigade wearing British Army uniforms. The band members were ordered out of their minibus and told to line up facing a ditch by the roadside. As one of the gunmen took down their names and addresses, two members of the brigade, Harris Boyle and Wesley Somerville planted a bomb in the rear of the bus. Martin Dillon
Martin Dillon
Martin Dillon is an author and journalist from Northern Ireland. He worked for eighteen years at the BBC and has written a number of plays and novels, but he is best known for his non-fiction books about the Troubles....
suggested that the plan was for the device to explode across the border, wiping out the band as well as making it appear as if the Miami Showband was smuggling bombs on behalf of the Provisional IRA
Provisional Irish Republican Army
The Provisional Irish Republican Army is an Irish republican paramilitary organisation whose aim was to remove Northern Ireland from the United Kingdom and bring about a socialist republic within a united Ireland by force of arms and political persuasion...
(PIRA). The bomb, however, went off just as the two men closed the door. They were blown to pieces, and the remaining UVF gunmen opened fire on the dazed band members, killing three (trumpeter Brian McCoy, lead singer Fran O'Toole, and guitarist Tony Geraghty) and wounding two (bassist Stephen Travers and saxophonist Des McAlea). The UVF's Brigade Staff issued a statement twelve hours after the killings in an attempt to justify the attack. It was published in the August 1975 edition of Combat, the UVF's journal.
Three men out of the ten-man UVF unit were later convicted of the murders; Thomas Crozier and James McDowell were serving soldiers of the 11th Battalion UDR
11th Battalion Ulster Defence Regiment
The 11th Battalion, Ulster Defence Regiment was formed from companies of the 2nd Battalion Ulster Defence Regiment and the 3rd Battalion Ulster Defence Regiment in 1972...
, and John James Somerville (brother of Wesley) was a former member of the regiment. An international panel headed by Professor Douglass Cassel was commissioned by the Pat Finucane Centre to investigate alleged collusion by loyalist paramilitaries and the security forces in a series of sectarian attacks and killings in the 1970s. This panel concluded that there was "credible evidence that the principal perpetrator [of the Miami Showband attack] was a man who was not prosecuted - alleged RUC Special Branch agent Robin Jackson" The Pat Finucane Centre and John Weir have both implicated Jackson in at least 100 killings.
Other attacks carried out by Jackson's brigade included the killing of high-ranking PIRA member John Francis Green
John Francis Green
John Francis Green , was a leading member of the North Armagh Brigade of the Provisional IRA, holding the rank of Staff Captain and Intelligence Officer. He was killed in a farmhouse outside Castleblayney, County Monaghan, by members of the Mid-Ulster Brigade of the Ulster Volunteer Force...
in 1975, and the double shooting of the Reavey and O'Dowd families
Reavey and O'Dowd killings
The Reavey and O'Dowd killings took place on 4 January 1976 in County Armagh, Northern Ireland. Volunteers from the Ulster Volunteer Force , a loyalist paramilitary group, shot dead five Catholic civilians – two from the Reavey family and three from the O'Dowd family – in two co-ordinated attacks....
in 1976. Robin Jackson was arrested in October 1979 for possession of weapons, ammunition and hoods. On 20 January 1981, he was sentenced to seven years imprisonment after being convicted of possession of guns and ammunition. He was released a little over two years later in May 1983. This was his only conviction.
Tit-for-tat killings
During the 1980s the Mid-Ulster Brigade became somewhat less prominent as 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...
became the centre of UVF activity. Nevertheless the brigade was not silent and continued to launch attacks. One such attack occurred in Coagh
Coagh
Coagh is a small village in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland, situated five miles east of Cookstown. Part of the village also extends into County Londonderry. It had a population of 545 people in the 2001 Census...
on 29 November 1989 when a unit of the Mid-Ulster Brigade entered the Battery Bar and opened fire. Two men were killed in the attack, Michael Devlin, a civilian and Liam Ryan, an important figure in the Provisional IRA East Tyrone Brigade
Provisional IRA East Tyrone Brigade
The East Tyrone Brigade of the Provisional Irish Republican Army , also known as the Tyrone/Monaghan Brigade was one of the most active republican paramilitary groups in Northern Ireland during "the Troubles"...
. A series of tit for tat shootings began between the Mid-Ulster Brigade and the Provisional IRA with Martin Byrne and Sam Marshall killed in two separate attacks in Lurgan in early 1990. Three more murders followed, including one Protestant shot in a case of mistaken identity, before 19 year old Denis Carville was killed in Portadown on 6 October. In each case the IRA responded by killing Protestants as the sectarian killings on both sides spiralled.
An ambitious attack
1991 Cappagh killings
The 1991 Cappagh killings was a gun attack by the loyalist Ulster Volunteer Force on 3 March 1991 in the village of Cappagh, County Tyrone, Northern Ireland...
was attempted on 3 March 1991 when a unit from the Mid-Ulster Brigade went to the village of Cappagh
Cappagh
Cappagh is a small village in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland. It is between Pomeroy, Ballygawley, Galbally and Carrickmore, with the hamlet of Galbally about one mile to the east...
, County Tyrone intent on killing an entire Provisional IRA unit based in the village. Taking up a position outside Boyle's Bar, the gunmen waited for a car to pull up containing republicans and opened fire on them as they exited the vehicle. The UVF men succeeded in killing IRA volunteers John Quinn, Dwayne O'Donnell and Malcolm Nugent before entering the bar and opening fire. One more man, Thomas Armstrong, was killed in the pub but he was not a member of the IRA, while their intended target, Brian Arthurs, survived by crouching behind the bar. A member of the Mid-Ulster Brigade staff would later claim that the Cappagh attack was "one of the best things we did militarily in thirty years" as it proved they could strike directly at the Provisional IRA in an area which was a seemingly impenetrable republican stronghold.
According to journalist and author Ed Moloney
Ed Moloney
Ed Moloney is an Irish journalist and author best known for his coverage of the Troubles in Northern Ireland and particularly the activities of the Provisional IRA. Ed worked for the Hibernia magazine and Magill before going on to serve as Northern Ireland editor for The Irish Times and...
the UVF campaign in Mid Ulster in this period "indisputably shattered Republican morale", and put the leadership of the republican movement under intense pressure to "do something".
Billy Wright
Despite the fact that senior UVF figures consistently claimed he was not involved in the Cappagh attack, the media blamed the killings on the charismatic leader of the Portadown unit, Billy WrightBilly Wright (loyalist)
William Stephen "Billy" Wright was a prominent Ulster loyalist during the period of violent religious/political conflict known as "The Troubles". He joined the Ulster Volunteer Force in 1975 and became commander of its Mid-Ulster Brigade in the early 1990s...
, known as "King Rat". Wright became a figure widely covered in the press where he was portrayed as a ruthless killer involved in virtually every action undertaken by the Mid-Ulster Brigade. However, it was certain that Wright's unit became the most active in Mid-Ulster with the killing of two teenage girls and a civilian at a mobile shop on a Catholic housing estate in Craigavon
Craigavon
Craigavon is a settlement in north County Armagh, Northern Ireland. It was a planned settlement that was begun in 1965 and named after Northern Ireland's first Prime Minister — James Craig, 1st Viscount Craigavon. It was intended to be a linear city incorporating Lurgan and Portadown, but this plan...
on 28 March 1991; one of their more ferocious acts. At this stage Mid-Ulster's continuing policy of random sectarian attacks meant that it had diverged from the policies being undertaken by their Belfast counterparts where an attempt was made to lessen such attacks in favour of targeting known and active republicans.
At some point during the early 1990s Wright took over command of the brigade from Jackson and as a result another spate of violent attacks by the Mid-Ulster Brigade erupted. Wright's UVF gang, who called themselves "The Brat Pack", was prominent in the Drumcree standoff
Drumcree conflict
The Drumcree conflict or Drumcree standoff is an ongoing dispute over a yearly parade in the town of Portadown, Northern Ireland. The dispute is between the Orange Order and local residents. The residents are currently represented by the Garvaghy Road Residents Coalition ; before 1995 they were...
. According to the Northern Ireland security forces, Wright directed up to 20 sectarian killings, although he was never convicted in connection with any killing. Wright, along with the Portadown unit of the Mid-Ulster Brigade, was officially stood down by the UVF's Brigade Staff on 2 August 1996. This came about after members of the group had killed a Catholic taxi driver, Michael McGoldrick outside Lurgan during the Drumcree disturbances while the UVF were on ceasefire. Wright, who was expelled from the UVF, ordered to leave Northern Ireland, and threatened with execution, defied the Belfast leadership. He publicly denounced the Brigade Staff as "communists", and went on to form the Loyalist Volunteer Force
Loyalist Volunteer Force
The Loyalist Volunteer Force is a loyalist paramilitary group in Northern Ireland. It was formed by Billy Wright in 1996 when he and the Portadown unit of the Ulster Volunteer Force's Mid-Ulster Brigade was stood down by the UVF leadership. He had been the commander of the Mid-Ulster Brigade. The...
(LVF), taking a significant number of Mid-Ulster Brigade members with him including his deputy Mark "Swinger" Fulton
Mark Fulton (loyalist)
Mark "Swinger" Fulton was a Northern Irish loyalist. He was the leader of the Loyalist Volunteer Force , having taken over its command following the killing of the paramilitary organisation's founder, Billy Wright, in the Maze Prison in 1997 by members of the Irish National Liberation Army .Fulton...
.
Wright was killed on 27 December 1997 inside the Maze Prison where he was imprisoned for having made threats against a woman. Three members of the Irish National Liberation Army
Irish National Liberation Army
The Irish National Liberation Army or INLA is an Irish republican socialist paramilitary group that was formed on 8 December 1974. Its goal is to remove Northern Ireland from the United Kingdom and create a socialist united Ireland....
(INLA)
shot Wright dead inside a prison van in the forecourt outside H Block 6 as it was transporting him and another LVF prisoner, Norman Green to the visitors' complex. Five months after Wright's assassination, Robin Jackson died of lung cancer at his home in the village of Donaghcloney
Donaghcloney
Donaghcloney or Donacloney is a small village and townland in County Down, Northern Ireland. It lies on the River Lagan between Lurgan, Dromore and Banbridge. In the 2001 Census it had a population of 972.-Linen industry:...
, near Lurgan.
Subsequent activity
Whilst the entire Portadown UVF defected to the LVF, other important Mid-Ulster Brigade units based in Lurgan, Donaghcloney, Richill and Banbridge instead swore loyalty to the Belfast leadership. A balaclavaBalaclava
A balaclava , also known as a balaclava helmet or ski mask, is a form of cloth headgear that covers the whole head, exposing only part of the face. Often only the eyes or eyes and mouth are left exposed...
-wearing Mid-Ulster Brigade member even appeared at a rally on Belfast's Shankill Road on 2 September 1996 to read out a statement in which the remnants of the Mid-Ulster Brigade described the Wright-LVF issue as being "about internal discipline within the UVF" and denounced Wright for breaking the UVF's code. The feud re-ignited in 2000 and 2001 when the Mid-Ulster Brigade effectively eliminated the LVF. It was during this feud that brigadier Richard Jameson
Richard Jameson (loyalist)
Richard Jameson , was a Northern Irish businessman and loyalist, who served as the leader of the paramilitary Ulster Volunteer Force's Mid-Ulster Brigade...
, leader of the Mid-Ulster Brigade, was shot dead by the LVF outside his home near Portadown on 10 January 2000. A month later, members of the Mid-Ulster Brigade beat and stabbed Protestant teenagers, Andrew Robb and David McIlwaine
2000 Tandragee killings
The Tandragee killings took place in the early hours of Saturday 19 February 2000 on an isolated country road outside Tandragee, County Armagh, Northern Ireland...
to death on a country road outside Tandragee, County Armagh after one of them had made disparaging comments about Jameson's killing earlier on at a drinking party. Neither of the boys was a member of the LVF or any other loyalist paramilitary organisation.
The brigade was a centre of opposition to leadership plans to decommission weapons in 2007, leading to sixty members being stood down by the Belfast leadership. Subsequently a group in the area calling itself the "Real UVF" issued a series of threats against Sinn Féin
Sinn Féin
Sinn Féin is a left wing, Irish republican political party in Ireland. The name is Irish for "ourselves" or "we ourselves", although it is frequently mistranslated as "ourselves alone". Originating in the Sinn Féin organisation founded in 1905 by Arthur Griffith, it took its current form in 1970...
members in 2008 and against dissident republicans in 2010. What connection, if any, exists between the Mid-Ulster Brigade and the Real UVF is however unknown.
The Mid-Ulster UVF was blamed for a series of attacks and disturbances in Portadown during The Twelfth
The Twelfth
The Twelfth is a yearly Protestant celebration held on 12 July. It originated in Ireland during the 18th century. It celebrates the Glorious Revolution and victory of Protestant king William of Orange over Catholic king James II at the Battle of the Boyne...
's "marching season" in July 2011.