David Ervine (21 July 1953 – 8 January 2007) was a

Northern Irish The people of Northern Ireland are all people born in Northern Ireland and having, at the time of their birth, at least one parent who is a British Nationality Law, British citizen, an Irish nationality law, Irish citizen or is otherwis ...

Ulster Loyalist 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 I ...

and politician who served as leader of the Progressive Unionist Party (PUP) from 2002 to 2007 and was also a

Member of the Northern Ireland Assembly Members of the Legislative Assembly (MLAs; ; ) are representatives elected by the voters to the Northern Ireland Assembly. About The Northern Ireland Assembly has 90 elected members – five from each of 18 constituencies, the boundaries o ...

(MLA) for Belfast East from 1998 to 2007. During his youth Ervine was a member of the

Ulster Volunteer Force The Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) is an Ulster loyalism, Ulster loyalist paramilitary group based in Northern Ireland. Formed in 1965, it first emerged in 1966. Its first leader was Gusty Spence, a former Royal Ulster Rifles soldier from North ...

(UVF) and was imprisoned for possessing bomb-making equipment, and planting a bomb on the Lisburn Road. Whilst in jail he became convinced of the benefits of a more political approach for loyalism and became involved with the PUP. As a leading PUP figure, Ervine helped to deliver the loyalist ceasefire of 1994.

Early life

David Ervine was the youngest of five children born to Walter and Elizabeth Ervine. He was raised in a

Protestant Protestantism is a branch of Christianity that emphasizes Justification (theology), justification of sinners Sola fide, through faith alone, the teaching that Salvation in Christianity, salvation comes by unmerited Grace in Christianity, divin ...

working-class area of east

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 ...

between the Albertbridge and Newtownards roads. His household was not loyalist at all: his father Walter described himself as a socialist, had no time for

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 ...

and didn't attend church. When Ervine joined the

Orange Order The Loyal Orange Institution, commonly known as the Orange Order, is an international Protestant fraternal order based in Northern Ireland and primarily associated with Ulster Protestants. It also has lodges in England, Grand Orange Lodge of ...

aged 18, he said he was the first member of his family to ever be a member. His membership, however, did not last long. Like many in his situation, he grew up closely identifying with his community and absorbed its unionist ideals and opinions. Ervine left Orangefield High School (Orangefield Boys Secondary School) at 14 and, aged 19, joined the UVF, believing this step to be the only way to ensure the defence of the Protestant community after the events of Bloody Friday. A neighbour of Ervine's, William Irvine, who was a member of the

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 t ...

(UDA), had died in one of the bomb blasts on that day. Before joining the UVF Ervine had attempted to join the

Royal Ulster Constabulary The Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) was the police force in Northern Ireland from 1922 to 2001. It was founded on 1 June 1922 as a successor to the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) Richard Doherty, ''The Thin Green Line – The History of the ...

(RUC), but due to a misdemeanour in his childhood involving a stolen bicycle he was refused entry.

Arrest and imprisonment

Ervine was arrested in November 1974, while an active member of the UVF. He was driving a stolen car containing five pounds of commercial explosives, a detonator and fuse wire. After seven months on remand in Crumlin Road Gaol, he was found guilty of possession of explosives with intent to endanger life. He was sentenced to 11 years and imprisoned in The Maze. While in prison, Ervine came under the influence of

Gusty Spence Augustus Andrew Spence (28 June 1933
. '' Billy Hutchinson while in prison.

Release

Ervine was released from prison in 1980. He owned a newsagents' in Belfast for several years before taking up full-time politics. He stood in local council elections as a Progressive Unionist Party (PUP) candidate in

1985 The year 1985 was designated as the International Youth Year by the United Nations. Events January * January 1 ** The Internet's Domain Name System is created. ** Greenland withdraws from the European Economic Community as a result of a n ...

. In 1998, he was elected to the

Northern Ireland Assembly The Northern Ireland Assembly (; ), often referred to by the metonym ''Stormont'', is the devolved unicameral legislature of Northern Ireland. It has power to legislate in a wide range of areas that are not explicitly reserved to the Parliam ...

to represent Belfast East and was re-elected in 2003. He was also a member of

Belfast City Council Belfast City Council () is the Local government in Northern Ireland, local authority with responsibility for part of Belfast, the largest city of Northern Ireland. The council serves an estimated population of (), the largest of any district c ...

from

1997 Events January * January 1 – The Emergency Alert System is introduced in the United States. * January 11 – Turkey threatens Cyprus on account of a deal to buy Russian S-300 missiles, prompting the Cypriot Missile Crisis. * January 1 ...

Loyalist ceasefire

Ervine played a pivotal role in bringing civil disorder to the loyalist ceasefire of October 1994. He was part of a delegation to Downing Street in June 1996 that met then British Prime Minister

John Major Sir John Major (born 29 March 1943) is a British retired politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party (UK), Leader of the Conservative Party from 1990 to 1997. Following his defeat to Ton ...

to discuss the loyalist ceasefire.

Forum

In 1996 Ervine was elected to the

Northern Ireland Forum The Northern Ireland Forum for Political Dialogue was a body set up in 1996 as part of a process of negotiations that eventually led to the Good Friday Agreement in 1998. The forum was elected, with five members being elected for each List o ...

from the regional list, having been an unsuccessful candidate in the East Belfast constituency.

Progressive

Ervine was considered to be one of the most progressive unionists in Northern Ireland politics. He had been a strong supporter of the

Good Friday Agreement The Good Friday Agreement (GFA) or Belfast Agreement ( or ; or ) is a pair of agreements signed on 10 April (Good Friday) 1998 that ended most of the violence of the Troubles, an ethno-nationalist conflict in Northern Ireland since the la ...

and was one of the few unionist politicians actively to support the Agreement. At a Labour Party meeting in 2001, then

Northern Ireland Secretary The secretary of state for Northern Ireland (; ), also referred to as Northern Ireland Secretary or SoSNI, is a secretary of state in the Government of the United Kingdom, with overall responsibility for the Northern Ireland Office. The offi ...

, John Reid, described him as "one of the most eloquent politicians in Northern Ireland". Some of his political peers, such as John Reid, made references to him having swallowed a dictionary, in reference to coming more informative and educated. In ''Landscapes of Defense'', Ervine was seen as one of the few politicians actively engaged with conflict resolution. In the

, he was seen as a Unionist sympathetic to the short-term demands of

Sinn Féin Sinn Féin ( ; ; ) is an Irish republican and democratic socialist political party active in both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. The History of Sinn Féin, original Sinn Féin organisation was founded in 1905 by Arthur Griffit ...

, resisting attempts by the

Democratic Unionist Party The Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) is a Unionism in Ireland, unionist, Ulster loyalism, loyalist, British nationalist and national conservative political party in Northern Ireland. It was founded in 1971 during the Troubles by Ian Paisley, who ...

(DUP) to exclude Sinn Féin from office in July 2000 and October 2001. In April 2001, he provoked a direct political attack from the DUP over being the only unionist to vote against a motion condemning the display of lilies commemorating the 1916

Easter Rising The Easter Rising (), also known as the Easter Rebellion, was an armed insurrection in Ireland during Easter Week in April 1916. The Rising was launched by Irish republicans against British rule in Ireland with the aim of establishing an ind ...

at Parliament Buildings. Ervine also expressed support for the right of Sinn Féin members to make speeches in Irish on the floor of the Assembly. Later, editors and political commentators such as John Laverty noted how he sat next to Sinn Féin's

Martin McGuinness James Martin Pacelli McGuinness (; 23 May 1950 – 21 March 2017) was an Irish republican politician and statesman for Sinn Féin and a leader within the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) during The Troubles. He was the deputy First Minist ...

at the funeral of Northern Ireland football legend

George Best George Best (22 May 1946 – 25 November 2005) was a Northern Irish professional association football, footballer who played as a winger (association football), winger, spending most of his club career at Manchester United F.C., Manchester Un ...

in December 2005 as a sign of how Northern Ireland had moved on.

Independent Monitoring Commission

In May 2005, the Independent Monitoring Commission (IMC) recommended a continuation of the financial sanctions on Ervine's Assembly salary imposed following its report of April 2004. The IMC was of the opinion that the UVF and the PUP maintained strong links while the former was heavily involved in criminality such as drug dealing and tobacco and fuel smuggling. It further noted that the UVF was responsible for a number of acts of violence (including murder) and was actively maintaining its capacity to wage a terrorist campaign. It concluded that, 12 months after the sanctions were originally imposed, the PUP leadership was still not doing enough to address the UVF's criminal and paramilitary activities. Ervine appealed the IMC's recommendation to newly appointed

Peter Hain Peter Gerald Hain, Baron Hain, (born 16 February 1950), is a British politician who served as Secretary of State for Northern Ireland from 2005 to 2007, Secretary of State for Work and Pensions from 2007 to 2008 and twice as Secretary of State ...

on the basis that he could not be held directly responsible for the UVF's actions and thus it was wrong to penalise him personally. Hain accepted his representations and his Assembly salary was fully restored. The IMC again recommended financial sanctions against Ervine and the PUP. These came in a special report of September 2005 on the violent feud that had erupted between the UVF and the

Loyalist Volunteer Force The Loyalist Volunteer Force (LVF) was an Ulster loyalism, Ulster loyalist paramilitary group in Northern Ireland. It was formed by Billy Wright (loyalist), Billy Wright in 1996 when he and his unit split from the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) a ...

(LVF) that summer, in which a number of murders and attempted murders had been committed. It argued that the PUP leadership was still in a position significantly to influence the UVF: the party could not have it both ways by associating with an active paramilitary organisation without facing political consequences. In its final regular reports of Ervine's life in April and October 2006, the IMC concluded that it was satisfied the PUP leadership had taken appropriate action to de-escalate UVF's violence and criminality, and it withdrew its punitive recommendations.

Links with Ulster Unionists

On 13 May 2006, it was announced that when the

reconvened, Ervine would join the Ulster Unionist assembly group, while remaining leader of the Progressive Unionist Party. Under the

D'Hondt method The D'Hondt method, also called the Jefferson method or the greatest divisors method, is an apportionment method for allocating seats in parliaments among federal states, or in proportional representation among political parties. It belongs to ...

used for allocating places on the Northern Ireland Executive, this would entitle the Ulster Unionists to an additional place. The Presiding Officer (Speaker) of the Assembly,

Eileen Bell Eileen Bell Order of the British Empire, CBE (born 15 August 1943) is a retired Alliance Party of Northern Ireland, Alliance Party politician from Dromara, Northern Ireland. She was a member of the Northern Ireland Assembly (MLA) for North Dow ...

MLA indicated at the first meeting of the 'shadow' Assembly (15 May 2006) that she would take legal advice before ruling on whether Mr Ervine could be treated as a member of the UUP group. On 11 September 2006 Ms Bell announced that the Ulster Unionist Party Assembly Group did not have a headquarters, at least one party leader and a scheme for financial support; thus it did not qualify as a political party. This meant that the UUPAG could not sit in the Assembly, so the alliance was deemed as invalid.

Identity

Ervine was a

and identified himself as both Irish and British. He once exclaimed "why can't I be an Irish citizen of the UK?" and remarked: "I am profoundly both British and Irish and those who have to deal with me have to take me on those terms."

Allegations of collusion with security forces

Ervine dismissed allegations of collusion between loyalists and British security forces as "sheer unadulterated nonsense", saying, "there comes a point when the concept insults me, insomuch as that a Provo could lie in bed and with a crystal ball... could pick their targets but a Prod could only do the same if there was an SAS man driving the car".Moloney, Ed (2010). ''Voices From the Grave: Two Men's War in Ireland''. Faber & Faber. p.349 Ervine cited his own arrest, and the number of UVF members in prison at the time, as evidence that widespread collusion did not exist:

"The Royal Ulster Constabulary arrested me on possession of explosives; now why did they do that if we lived in a process of collusion? When I went into jail there were 240 UVF men in three compounds, packed in like sardines, and the UVF were a relatively small organisation in comparison to some of the others, but they made up a hell of a percentage of that jail. Where’s collusion there?"

Illness and death

Ervine was reported as having suffered two massive heart attacks and a stroke after attending a football match between

Glentoran Glentoran Football Club is a professional football club based in East Belfast, Northern Ireland, that plays in the NIFL Premiership. The club was founded in 1882 and has since won more than 130 major honours. They are one of three Northern Iris ...

and Armagh City at

The Oval The Oval, currently named for sponsorship reasons as the Kia Oval, is an international cricket ground in Kennington, located in the borough of Lambeth, in south London. The Oval has been the home ground of Surrey County Cricket Club sinc ...

on Saturday 6 January 2007. It was later confirmed that he had one heart attack, a stroke and brain haemorrhage. He was taken to the Ulster Hospital in Dundonald and was later admitted to the Royal Victoria Hospital in Belfast. Ervine died on Monday 8 January 2007. RTÉ News at 9pm and its website had reported the previous evening that he had died that day. This incorrect reporting led RTÉ's Northern Editor, Tommie Gorman, to apologise for his error. Ervine's body was cremated at Roselawn Crematorium after a funeral service on 12 January in East Belfast. It was attended by

Mark Durkan Mark Durkan (born 26 June 1960) is a retired Irish nationalist politician from Northern Ireland. Durkan was the deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland from November 2001 to October 2002, and the Leader of the Social Democratic and Labour Pa ...

, George Cassidy,

Gerry Adams Gerard Adams (; born 6 October 1948) is a retired Irish Republican politician who was the president of Sinn Féin between 13 November 1983 and 10 February 2018, and served as a Teachta Dála (TD) for Louth from 2011 to 2020. From 1983 to 19 ...

, Dermot Ahern, Hugh Orde and

David Trimble William David Trimble, Baron Trimble, (15 October 1944 – 25 July 2022) was a Northern Irish politician who was the inaugural First Minister of Northern Ireland from 1998 to 2002 and leader of the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) from 1995 to 20 ...

, among others.

Tributes

* Brian Ervine, Ervine's elder brother: "''He had the guts and the courage to climb out of the traditional trenches, meet the enemy in no-man's land and play ball with him''." *

Bertie Ahern Bartholomew Patrick "Bertie" Ahern (born 12 September 1951) is an Irish former Fianna Fáil politician who served as Taoiseach from 1997 to 2008, and as Leader of Fianna Fáil from 1994 to 2008. A Teachta Dála (TD) from 1977 to 2011, he served ...

(Taoiseach): ''"(Ervine) was a courageous politician who sought to channel the energies of loyalism in a positive political direction."'' *

Reg Empey Reginald Norman Morgan Empey, Baron Empey, (born 26 October 1947), best known as Reg Empey, is a Northern Irish politician who served as the acting First Minister of Northern Ireland in 2001. He was the Leader of the Ulster Unionist Party, lea ...

MLA: ''"Northern Ireland has today lost a unique, charismatic and uncharacteristically spin-free politician."'' *

MLA/MP: ''"He made a valuable and important contribution to moving our society away from conflict."'' * George Mitchell (Former US Senator): ''"His legacy is that he has led loyalism out of the Dark Ages."''Stormont silent in Ervine tribute
BBC (9 January 2007) *

MLA/MP: ''"David emerged from a paramilitary past to pursue a peaceful future. Throughout the talks he played a positive role and worked always to keep loyalism onboard for the Good Friday Agreement." (...) "He also championed a more constructive unionism and argued that we can all gain from political accommodation."'' * Trevor Sargent TD: ''"His death leaves a major vacuum in terms of the quality of political representatives in Northern Ireland. I hope that the legacy of Mr Ervine's bravery will be taken up by others after him."'' *

Tony Blair Sir Anthony Charles Lynton Blair (born 6 May 1953) is a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1997 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party (UK), Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007. He was Leader ...

(British Prime Minister): ''"David was a man who, whatever his past, played a major part in this last 10 years in trying to bring peace to Ulster."''

Legacy

A memorial for David Ervine was erected on the Albertbridge Road, East Belfast. In 2023, Robert Niblock wrote a play about David Ervine, named ''The Man Who Swallowed a Dictionary''. Niblock said attendees ranged from republicans to ex-prisoners and politicians, all of whom had praised the play. It premiered in the Lyric Theatre in August of that year.

References

Bibliography

*''David Ervine: Uncharted Waters'' by Henry Sinnerton (2003), *''Loyalists'' by Peter Taylor (1999),

External links

PUP Websiteobituary
from The Belfast Telegraph * Ervine Foundation http://davidervine.com/ {{DEFAULTSORT:Ervine, David 1953 births 2007 deaths Northern Ireland politicians convicted of crimes Leaders of political parties in Northern Ireland Members of Belfast City Council Members of the Northern Ireland Forum Northern Ireland MLAs 1998–2003 Northern Ireland MLAs 2003–2007 Politicians from Belfast Progressive Unionist Party MLAs Ulster Volunteer Force members Ulster loyalists imprisoned on terrorism charges