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Shankill Defence Association
The Shankill Defence Association was a loyalist vigilante group formed in May 1969 for the defence of the loyalist Shankill Road area of Belfast, Northern Ireland during the communal disturbances that year. The Shankill Defence Association was formed by John McKeague, with the intention of defending the Shankill from Irish Republican rioters at the start of the Troubles in Northern Ireland. William "Plum" Smith was a leading member.Peter Taylor, ''Loyalists'', Bloomsbury, 2000, p. 45 In the 1969 Northern Ireland riots, the SDA was involved in providing what coordination there was of violence on the Protestant side. Although McKeague had been close to Ian Paisley the dissident unionist leader issued a statement when the SDA was formed repudiating any connection between McKeague and the SDA and his own groups the Ulster Protestant Volunteers and the Ulster Constitution Defence Committee.Steve Bruce, ''Paisley: Religion and Politics in Northern Ireland'', Oxford University Press ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ulster Loyalism
Ulster loyalism is a strand of Unionism in Ireland, Ulster unionism associated with working class Ulster Protestants in Northern Ireland. Like other unionists, loyalists support the continued existence of Northern Ireland (and formerly all of Ireland) within the United Kingdom, and oppose a united Ireland independent of the UK. Unlike other strands of unionism, loyalism has been described as an ethnic nationalism of Ulster Protestants and "a variation of British nationalism". Loyalists are often said to have a conditional loyalty to the British state so long as it defends their interests.Smithey, Lee. ''Unionists, Loyalists, and Conflict Transformation in Northern Ireland''. Oxford University Press, 2011. pp. 56–58 They see themselves as loyal primarily to the Protestant Monarchy of the United Kingdom, British monarchy rather than to British governments and institutions, while Garret FitzGerald argued they are loyal to 'Ulster' over 'the Union'. A small minority of loyalists ha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shankill Road
The Shankill Road () is one of the main roads leading through West Belfast, in Northern Ireland. It runs through the working-class, predominantly loyalist, area known as the Shankill. The road stretches westwards for about from central Belfast and is lined, to an extent, by shops. The residents live in the many streets which branch off the main road. The area along the Shankill Road forms part of the Court district electoral area. In Ulster-Scots it is known as either ''Auld Kirk Gate'' ("Old Church Way"), or as ''Auld Kirk Raa'' ("Old Church Road"). In Irish, it is known as "" ("the road of the old church"). History The first Shankill residents lived at the bottom of what is now known as Glencairn: a small settlement of ancient people inhabited a ring fort, built where the Ballygomartin and Forth rivers meet. A settlement around the point at which the Shankill Road becomes the Woodvale Road, at the junction with Cambrai Street, was known as Shankill from the Irish ''Sean ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Belfast
Belfast (, , , ; from ) is the capital city and principal port of Northern Ireland, standing on the banks of the River Lagan and connected to the open sea through Belfast Lough and the North Channel (Great Britain and Ireland), North Channel. It is the second-largest city in Ireland (after Dublin), with an estimated population of in , and a Belfast metropolitan area, metropolitan area population of 671,559. First chartered as an English settlement in 1613, the town's early growth was driven by an influx of Scottish people, Scottish Presbyterian Church in Ireland, Presbyterians. Their descendants' disaffection with Kingdom of Ireland, Ireland's Protestant Ascendancy, Anglican establishment contributed to the Irish Rebellion of 1798, rebellion of 1798, and to the Acts of Union 1800, union with Kingdom of Great Britain, Great Britain in 1800—later regarded as a key to the town's industrial transformation. When granted City status in the United Kingdom#Northern Ireland, city s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland ( ; ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, part of the United Kingdom in the north-east of the island of Ireland. It has been #Descriptions, variously described as a country, province or region. Northern Ireland shares Republic of Ireland–United Kingdom border, an open border to the south and west with the Republic of Ireland. At the 2021 United Kingdom census, 2021 census, its population was 1,903,175, making up around 3% of the Demographics of the United Kingdom#Population, UK's population and 27% of the population on the island of Ireland#Demographics, Ireland. The Northern Ireland Assembly, established by the Northern Ireland Act 1998, holds responsibility for a range of Devolution, devolved policy matters, while other areas are reserved for the Government of the United Kingdom, UK Government. The government of Northern Ireland cooperates with the government of Ireland in several areas under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement. The Republic of Ireland ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John McKeague
John Dunlop McKeagueWD Flackes & Sydney Elliott, ''Northern Ireland A Political Directory 1968–1993'', The Blackstaff Press, 1994, p. 222 (1930 – 29 January 1982) was a Northern Irish loyalist and one of the founding members of the paramilitary group the Red Hand Commando in 1970.Martin Dillon, ''The Dirty War'', p. 200 A number of authors on the Troubles in Northern Ireland have accused McKeague, a homosexual paederast, of involvement in the Kincora Boys' Home scandal but he was never convicted. He was shot dead by the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) in Belfast in January 1982. McKeague and Ian Paisley A native of Bushmills, County Antrim, McKeague, who long had a reputation for anti-Catholicism, became a member of Ian Paisley's Free Presbyterian Church in 1966.Ed Moloney, ''Paisley: From Demagogue to Democrat?'', Poolbeg, 2008, p. 152 McKeague and his mother moved to east Belfast in 1968, where he became a regular at Paisley's own Martyrs' Memorial Church on the Ra ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Troubles
The Troubles () were an ethno-nationalist conflict in Northern Ireland that lasted for about 30 years from the late 1960s to 1998. Also known internationally as the Northern Ireland conflict, it began in the late 1960s and is usually deemed to have ended with the Good Friday Agreement of 1998. Although the Troubles mostly took place in Northern Ireland, at times violence spilled over into parts of the Republic of Ireland, England, and mainland Europe. Sometimes described as an Asymmetric warfare, asymmetric or Irregular warfare, irregular war or a low-intensity conflict, the Troubles were a political and nationalistic struggle fueled by historical events, with a strong Ethnic conflict, ethnic and sectarian dimension, fought over the Partition of Ireland, status of Northern Ireland. Unionism in Ireland, Unionists and Ulster loyalism, loyalists, who for Plantation of Ulster, historical reasons were mostly Ulster Protestants, wanted Northern Ireland to remain within the United Ki ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Smith (loyalist)
William Smith (sometimes erroneously spelt Smyth) (26 January 1954William Smith, ''Inside Man, Loyalists of Long Kesh – The Untold Story'', 2014, p. 19 – 8 June 2016) was a Northern Irish loyalist, paramilitary, and politician. He had been involved in Ulster loyalism in various capacities for at least forty years. Early life Smith was born in Mountjoy Street on Belfast's Shankill Road into a poor Ulster Protestant family, the son of shipyard worker Charles William Smith and his wife Isobel. He had three older sisters, Margaret, Elizabeth and Nan (the latter dying in infancy before he was born), a younger brother Gordon and a younger sister Jean. There was rumoured Native American ancestry in his family; therefore in his youth he acquired the lifelong nickname "Plum" after ''The Beano'' character Little Plum.Peter Taylor, ''Loyalists'', Bloomsbury, 2000, p. 45 He was raised in a working class home where his parents sent him to Sunday school and taught him to respect the law. L ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1969 Northern Ireland Riots
During 12–16 August 1969, there was an outbreak of political and sectarian violence throughout Northern Ireland, which is often seen as the beginning of the thirty-year conflict known as the Troubles. There had been sporadic violence throughout the year arising out of the Northern Ireland civil rights campaign, which demanded an end to discrimination against Catholics and Irish nationalists. Civil rights marches had been attacked by Protestant loyalists, and protesters often clashed with the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC), the overwhelmingly Protestant police force. On 12 August, the Battle of the Bogside erupted in Derry: three days of fierce clashes between the RUC and thousands of Catholic/nationalist residents of Derry's Bogside district. The besieged residents built barricades and set up first aid posts and workshops for making petrol bombs. Police fired CS gas at rioters for the first time in the history of the UK. In support of the Bogsiders, on 13 August Catholic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ian Paisley
Ian Richard Kyle Paisley, Baron Bannside, (6 April 1926 – 12 September 2014) was a loyalist politician and Protestant religious leader from Northern Ireland who served as leader of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) from 1971 to 2008 and First Minister of Northern Ireland from 2007 to 2008. Paisley became a Protestant evangelical minister in 1946 and remained one for the rest of his life. In 1951 he co-founded the Reformed fundamentalist Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster and was its leader until 2008. Paisley became known for his fiery sermons and regularly preached anti-Catholicism, anti-ecumenism and against homosexuality. He gained a large group of followers who were referred to as Paisleyites. Paisley became involved in Ulster unionist/loyalist politics in the late 1950s. In the mid-late 1960s he led and instigated loyalist opposition to the Catholic civil rights movement in Northern Ireland. This contributed to the outbreak of the Troubles in the late 1960s, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ulster Protestant Volunteers
The Ulster Protestant Volunteers (UPV) were a loyalist and Reformed fundamentalist paramilitary group in Northern Ireland. They were active between 1966 and 1969 and closely linked to the Ulster Constitution Defence Committee (UCDC) and Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF). The UPV were led by Noel Doherty under the overall control of the Rev. Ian Paisley. The organisation's inaugural meeting took place in Belfast's Ulster Hall. In the spring of 1966, members bombed an all-girls primary school in Ardoyne, where talks to better relations between Protestants and Catholics were to take place. In May of that year the group murdered a 70-year-old, Matilda Gould, a Protestant whom UPV men mistook for a Catholic living next door. Shortly after this, the UVF and UPV took part in the killings of two Catholic men not far from the scene of the first attack. Following the 1967 trial of the UVF's leader Gusty Spence, the two groups were classified as illegal organisations. Paisley split from ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ulster Constitution Defence Committee
The Ulster Constitution Defence Committee (UCDC) was a body established in Northern Ireland by the Rev. Ian Paisley in April 1966 as the governing organ of the loyalist Ulster Protestant Volunteers (UPV). It coordinated parades, counter-demonstrations and paramilitary activities against the reforms of prime minister Terence O'Neill and any gestures made to the civil rights movement. Background The fourth Prime Minister of Northern Ireland, Terence O'Neill, who began his term in 1963, was trying to modernize industry to stave off an economic depression. This process brought foreign industry to Northern Ireland and threatened the Protestant, Unionist, powerbase: the Unionists held 90% of jobs but foreign industries were hiring Catholics, thus reducing Protestant strength. In 1965, Terence O'Neill also invited and met with Sean Lemass, the Prime Minister of the Republic of Ireland, to promote economic cooperation. Unionists often regarded Ireland as the enemy and a report from ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ulster Defence Association
The Ulster Defence Association (UDA) is an Ulster loyalist paramilitary group in Northern Ireland. It was formed in September 1971 as an umbrella group for various loyalist groups and undertook an armed campaign of almost 24 years as one of the participants of the Troubles. Its declared goal was to defend Ulster Protestant loyalist areas and to combat Irish republicanism, particularly the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA). In the 1970s, uniformed UDA members openly patrolled these areas armed with batons and held large marches and rallies. Within the UDA was a group tasked with launching paramilitary attacks that used the cover name Ulster Freedom Fighters (UFF) so that the UDA would not be outlawed. The British government proscribed the UFF as a terrorist group in November 1973, but the UDA itself was not proscribed until August 1992. The UDA/UFF were responsible for more than 400 deaths. The vast majority of its victims were Irish Catholic civilians, – choose "o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
