The geography of loyalist paramilitary feuding in Belfast

Abstract

This paper examines the nature of paramilitary feuding among Ulster Loyalists. The growth in feuding between Loyalist groups has been an evident feature of discord following the 1994 ceasefires. Such feuding is cast as a competition between extensive criminal empires. Such analyses are challenged here. It is contended that the meaning of feuding is varied and responsive to those who wish to destabilise and those who promote the need for conflict transformation.

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to acknowledge the support of ESRC funding (RES-000-22-1013) to carry out this work and the contribution of Dawn Purvis, with aspects of the fieldwork.

Notes

1. The UDA has also murdered people under the name of the Red Hand Defenders (RHD).

2. Fenian is a derogatory term for a Catholic person.

3. The term Lundy means traitor and refers to Lieutenant Colonel Robert Lundy, the governor of Derry who surrendered to the Catholic King James' forces during the siege of Derry.

4. The UDA is the parent group of the UFF and is run via a confederate structure controlled by an Inner Council on which 6 ‘brigadiers’ sit. The UDA has rarely had a central leader, and as a result of this there has been little centralised control over the organisation. There are four ‘brigadiers’ in Belfast (one each for the north, south, east and west of the city) and two others who cover South Antrim and North Antrim. The UDA also has constituent groups in Scotland and England as well as with far-right groups in the US, Israel and the former Yugoslavia. The UDA was formed in 1971 in order to co-join Protestant vigilante groups that patrolled the interface boundaries between Protestant and Catholic places. They aimed to provide a network that could ‘protect’ Protestant communities from Republican and to a lesser extent state violence. In 1973, the UFF was formed as the military wing of the UDA. There are anywhere between 1000 to 2000 + members of the UFF. The UFF became notorious for a series of attacks upon spatially vulnerable Catholics who lived close to the interfaces between Catholic and Protestant communities.

5. When examining the activities of C Company, the press has dedicated most of its analysis to the personality of Johnny Adair—or ‘Mad Dog’ as depicted in the press.

6. Taigs is a derogatory name for Catholics.

7. It is worth noting that these discourses are often expedient rather than ‘heartfelt’. Few if any members of C Company were practising Protestants and their morality was questionable given that they were involved in drug dealing and the exploitation of young women as sex workers.

8. It is worth noting that the image of William III, which was the main form of mural painting up to the mid 1970s, has only recently reappeared in several UFF areas in a manner that suggests that the organisation is attempting to claim this heritage as its own.

9. The LVF signed onto the agreement in 1998, but it did so to encourage a no vote. Indeed, the group's press release began by noting, “The soldiers of the LVF have fought against the Irish peace process and the sell-out of our country” (LVF, 1998). It is also likely that the group signed the peace accord to win the release of its prisoners.

10. Loyalist paramilitaries have been known to expel individual Loyalist families from their turf, but these were usually isolated events. The lower Shankill expulsions in 2000 occurred over a few days and at a scale never before seen.

11. The UVF and the UDA did divide territory for the purposes of racketeering, but these divides would not have affected civilian Loyalists.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Carol Gallaher

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