Kenneth McClinton (born 1947) is a Northern Irish loyalist and self-styled pastor. During his early years McClinton was an active member of the Ulster Defence Association (UDA/UFF) and was jailed for murder in the late 1970s. He was a close friend of Loyalist Volunteer Force (LVF) leader Billy Wright and was the main orator at his funeral following his killing by the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) in December 1997.
Early years McClinton was born in the Shankill Road area of Belfast and raised initially in a Nissen hut. His father, a coalman, was an alcoholic and frequently spent time in prison.Martin Dillon, God and the Gun, London: Orion Books, 1997, p. 20 His parents' marriage broke up whilst he was a child and as a result of the ensuing poverty his mother moved around a lot with the children whilst McClinton himself spent three years in a Park Lodge State Welfare Home.Dillon, God and the Gun, p. 22
He left school in 1962 and briefly worked as a labourer before enlisting for twelve years in the Merchant Navy. McClinton was regularly involved in violence during his time away at sea and left the Merchant Navy with 200 stitches in his body from the knife fights in which he had participated.Dillon, God and the Gun, p. 24 Following his return to Belfast McClinton found himself involved in further street-fighting until in 1972 he enlisted with the Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR). McClinton lasted only the six months basic training in the UDR, feeling that the regiment was too restricted in what it was allowed to do. In particular, he complained that he had to fill in sixteen reports if he shot at rioters. He was released from the UDR after hitting a sergeant over the head with a bottle, during a fight.Dillon, God and the Gun, p. 25
Ulster Defence Association McClinton joined the UDA after leaving the UDR and, with his military background, was soon added to the ranks of their Ulster Freedom Fighters (UFF), its branch responsible for committing violent attacks.Dillon, God and the Gun, p. 26 He became commander of several UFF active service units and through these was involved in a series of what he later admitted were particularly brutal attacks. McClinton has refused to reveal any details of these events, despite admitting his involvement in this type of activity, as he has never been charged for them.Dillon, God and the Gun, p. 27 After becoming a committed born-again Christian in the H Blocks, McClinton, led by his faith, wrote sixteen statements of full responsibility for very serious UFF terrorist offences, got the RUC/C.I.D. officers to the Maze Prison, and gave them the signed statements of guilt. These charges were sent to the Director of Public Prosecution with recommendations from Tennent Street RUC that there be 'no prosecution', since McClinton was already serving life sentences. This recommendation was accepted by the DPP.
McClinton was ultimately charged with two murders. In March 1977 McClinton murdered Catholic civilian Daniel Carville.Susan McKay, Northern Protestants: An Unsettled People, Belfast: The Blackstaff Press, 2005, p. 79 The attack took place as Carville was driving his son down Cambrai Street, which links the Shankill and Crumlin Roads, on St Patrick's Day. During the failed second strike by the Ulster Workers' Council later that year, McClinton boarded a busand shot dead Harry Bradshaw, the Protestant driver of the bus. Following the killing, the UDA, unknown to McClinton, wrote to his widow Sheila Bradshaw, stating that they were sorry for the murder and that they believed her husband to be a Catholic. A ten-pound note was included with the letter. Following pressures from politicians frustrated that workers were ignoring the Paisley-led strike and using public transport to get to their workplaces - the UFF had ordered McClinton to kill a bus driver in order to take all public transport off the Belfast streets. All transport was taken off following this assassination.
Following this killing McClinton went to work on a plan to send hollowed-out books containing bombs through the post to IRA Brigade Staff targets.Dillon, God and the Gun, p. 29 McClinton admitted in later life that at this time he wished to behead IRA terrorists and place the severed heads on the railings of the Shankill's Woodvale Park, in order to 'terrorise the terrorists', as was UFF policy. Jim Craig, however, began to fear that McClinton, with his extreme suggestions about murder, was becoming too dangerous and a possible rival to him as leader of C Company UFF . Therefore, he contacted members of the police he knew to give McClinton up to them.Dillon, God and the Gun, p. 30
Arrest and imprisonment On 29 August 1977 McClinton's home, 59 Roseleigh Street, off Rosapenna Street, was raided and he was taken into police custody, where he eventually confessed to the murders of Carville and Bradshaw.Dillon, God and the Gun, p. 31 However, when he came to trial McClinton retracted his confession and changed his plea to not guilty, appearing in court naked in what he claimed was a display of contempt for the trial.Dillon, God and the Gun, p. 32 He was convicted of both killings.
Initially held in Crumlin Road Gaol, McClinton's successive violent outbursts saw him transferred to the Maze Prison, where he went 'on the blanket' to protest for political status for politically motivated offences.Dillon, God and the Gun, p. 33 He retained his reputation for violence in the Maze although he also took to writing poetry, which generally dealt with the theme of anger at his and other loyalists' incarceration when he felt they were simply supporting British rule through their actions against the IRA.Dillon, God and the Gun, pp. 33–34
McClinton was tried at the High Court, Belfast, before a Diplock court chaired by Lord Justice O'Donnell in February 1979. He argued that his confession had been extracted under duress, but after seventeen days the judge found him guilty. Describing McClinton as a "ruthless cold-blooded assassin", he gave him two life sentences with a minimum of twenty years.Dillon, God and the Gun, p. 35
Conversion McClinton spent almost two years initially on solitary confinement for fighting the prison system. During the blanket protest he fought fifteen prison officers who beat him badly, hanging him upside down and kicking him until he could not breathe. Twenty-six serious injuries were recorded by prison medical officer Joe Martin and McClinton was given 22 days solitary confinement. After reading the prison-issue KJV Bible, on 12 August 1979 McClinton called upon God and told him that he believed His word - 'Whosoever calleth on the Name of the Lord, shall be saved' (Romans 10:13).Dillon, God and the Gun, pp. 37–38 As a result, McClinton became a born-again Christian.Henry McDonald and Jim Cusack, UDA – Inside the Heart of Loyalist Terror, Dublin: Penguin Ireland, 2004, p. 282 He announced his conversion, and his renunciation of violence, to fellow inmates the next day, a move which initially earned him scorn and saw his reputation pllummet.Dillon, God and the Gun, p. 39 Seeking to change his ways, he undertook various programmes of study, obtaining a degree in criminology and social sciences from the Open University as well as years of correspondence courses in theology from the Emmaus Bible School in Liverpool.
During his time in prison, McClinton started his own Christian Fellowship and converted 24 inmates to evangelical Christianity, including Robert "Basher" Bates of the Shankill Butchers. However, eight of the converts would later drift away. According to McClinton, he and Bates even performed baptisms in a tub in prison. Many of those who converted to Christ at that dark time in the Maze Prison, are serving God, many of them as formally ordained ministers, pastors, bible-teachers and missionaries.
McClinton's conversion made him vulnerable to being used to spearhead an NIO/POA integration project, and in 1983 he was sent to work in a Compound 22 containing 40 segregated republicans. The experiment was abandoned on 24 March 1983 when McClinton, who had been ostracised by the republican prisoners for ten weeks, was attacked and buckets of boiling water were poured over his back. He was who beaten with hammers; and lengths of planed redwood. McClinton was taken to the prison hospital by prison officers who had, he believed, left him in a situation where they knew he would be killed by his enemies. McClinton had extensive burns and almost died. He spent three months in hospital and received extensive skin grafts and plastic surgery to his arm and back.Dillon, God and the Gun, pp. 41–42
Ministry McClinton was released from prison in 1993 and was soon ordained as a pastor in a Missions Ministry by a Texas-based Christian Ministry presided over by Pastor Jack Hetzel.Dillon, God and the Gun, p. 43 Even at this stage, McClinton was preaching fundamentalist Bible-based Protestantism.
Following his release, the "saved" McClinton became a regular on Northern Irish television discussing his conversion. He established Higher Force Challenge, a youth scheme that sought to initiate dialogue and positive interaction between Catholic and Protestant young people (18 to 25-year-old high-risk category). He initially returned to the Shankill, where he worked in a voluntary capacity for the Stadium youth project.McKay, Northern Protestants, p. 80
McClinton also established his own Ulster American Christian Fellowship to provide funding for his own ministry and preaching engagements in the USA. At one point he preached in President Bush's own home church at Highland Park, Dallas, and teaching young student pastors at Southern Methodist University (SMU).
McClinton holds three unaccredited postgraduate qualifications: a Master's in Theology (gained in 2002), a PhD in Philosophy, which he was awarded in 2003, and a further doctorate in literature – as submitted as accumulated studies and teachings in Bible Theology – which he was awarded in 2004. These are all from the unaccredited Birmingham-based European Theological Seminary and College of the Bible International. Believing, as most Bible-believing Christians do, in the complete separation of church and state - the Board of Governors of Christian Bible Seminaries have the right to examine the written thesis of students and pastors, and 'having fulfilled the requirements of the Governing Board and after due examination...' Students and Pastors can be '...admitted to the degrees...of this Seminary,' McClinton's further degrees, fulfilled at the European Theological Seminary, are legitimate degrees and recorded as written thesis at the library of same. McClinton has successfully participated in a number of Evangelical bible-teaching missions to America, until 9/11, after which he was refused entry due to his past. He continued on in India. In recent years he has taken missions to the Czech Republic. His five-module course in Basic Christian Homiletics has been widely used internationally in bible colleges, churches and mission-fields in America, India and Nigeria. He has been a born again Christian consistently.
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