The UDA South Belfast Brigade is the section of the Ulster loyalist paramilitary group, the Ulster Defence Association (UDA), based in the southern quarter of Belfast, as well as in surrounding areas. Initially a battalion, the South Belfast Brigade emerged from the local "defence associations" active in the city at the beginning of the Troubles. It subsequently emerged as the largest of the UDA's six brigades and expanded to cover an area much wider than its initial South Belfast borders.
Origins In the first days of the Troubles a number of local "defence associations" were established across Belfast by Protestants, ostensibly to protect against attacks from the IRA. Whilst South Belfast had fewer interface areas than the west or north of the city it nonetheless followed suit. An early example of such a group was the Donegall Road defence committee, although in contrast to the likes of the Shankill Defence Association in the west of the city, this group was loyal to Ian Paisley.McDonald & Cusack, p. 15
According to one unidentified founder member of the group, the meeting that saw the establishment of the UDA at Aberdeen Street Primary School on the Shankill Road in 1971 was not attended by any groups from the south of the city.Bruce, pp. 49-50 Southern representatives however attended two subsequent meetings and came on board as part of the new group.McDonald & Cusack, p. 20 As such when the UDA in Belfast adopted a more formal structure the following year South Belfast was determined as one of the city's four battalions, along with East, North and West Belfast. Each of these areas was promoted to brigade status at an undetermined date soon afterwards.McDonald & Cusack, p. 24 The earliest centre of activity for the UDA in South Belfast was Sandy Row close to Belfast city centre, although it soon spread out to other areas of the city as well as to nearby towns such as Lisburn, Dromara and Ballynahinch.
Sandy Row UDA
Sammy Murphy emerged as the commander in Sandy Row, using the local Orange Hall as his headquarters.Fisk, Robert (1975). The Point of No Return: the strike which broke the British in Ulster. London: Times Books. pp. 145-148 In June 1972 he took the lead in a stand-off with republicans in Lenadoon, an area in the southwest of the city but too far removed from the Shankill Road to be considered part of the West Belfast jurisdiction. With the Provisional IRA (IRA) on ceasefire the UDA hoped to use the incident to force them to break their truce to end negotiations between the IRA and the British government. With Protestant residents intimidated out of Horn Drive in Lenadoon, the IRA wanted to move in Catholics who had suffered a similar fate in other parts of the city. Murphy brought in a force of UDA members to prevent this and a stand-off ensued between the UDA and the Catholic would-be residents, with the British Army also in attendance. After a while the Catholics began throwing stones at the UDA.
Soon IRA snipers entered the fray and a gun battle between the republicans and the British Army ensued. The UDA eventually withdrew. While Murphy believed his plan for bringing down the IRA ceasefire had been a success,McDonald & Cusack, p. 31 the IRA leadership had already warned British government negotiators that the ceasefire would finish if the British Army failed to protect the homeless Catholics in Lenadoon. Provisional IRA Belfast Brigade leaders Seamus Twomey and Brendan Hughes, who were especially eager to end the ceasefire because they believed the British were acting in bad faith, had laid careful plans to end it at Lenadoon if the soldiers entered the fray on the side of the loyalists.Peter Taylor, The Provos: The IRA and Sinn Fein, A&C Black, 2014Ed Moloney, A Secret History of the IRA, Penguin UK, 2007
The UDA in Sandy Row were also involved in "rompering", a nickname given by the UDA to the slow, torture-driven killings of kidnapped victims. On 30 August 1972 members of the group, as well as leading Woodvale Defence Association figure Ernie Elliott, kidnapped Catholic former British soldier Patrick Devaney before taking him to Sandy Row where he was hung upside down from a beam and beaten with hammers before being shot in the back of the head.McDonald & Cusack, p. 42 The same group was responsible for one of the early UDA-on-UDA killings in December 1972 when members of the group shot and killed Ernie Elliott after a drunken argument about weapons that Elliott's men had loaned to the southern contingent.Bruce, p. 67 According to later eyewitness reports Elliott had entered a UDA club in the area and began waving a gun about, with the weapon discharging during a struggle when others attempted to disarm him.McDonald & Cusack, p. 34 Another "rompering" death was also carried out in the area in July 1974 when a 32-year-old Protestant single mother Ann Ogilby was killed by a UDA women's unit based in the area.Elizabeth Douglas, the Sandy Row executioner Ogilby's interned boyfriend William Young was the local commander of the Donegall Pass UDA which came under the South Belfast UDA's auspices. Ogilby had spread rumours about Young's wife, who was a member of the Sandy Row women's UDA, that resulted in her fatal punishment beating."Ann Ogilby was beaten to death by a gang of UDA women - why would they come forward and tell all now?". Belfast Telegraph. Henry McDonald. 1 December 2013 Retrieved 14 June 2015 The commander of the Sandy Row women's UDA unit was Elizabeth "Lily" Douglas of City Street. She was among the ten women convicted of Ogilby's murder. The unit was disbanded by the UDA following the killing."Women Loyalist Paramilitaries in Northern Ireland: Duty, Agency and Empowerment - a Report From the Field". All Academic Research. Sandra McEvoy. 2008. p.16 Retrieved 14 June 2015
The UDA in Sandy Row had garnered a reputation for the unruly and drunken nature of its members with a "day of action" on 7 February 1973 organised by the Ulster Vanguard and the Loyalist Association of Workers descending into chaos in the area. With few becoming involved in a proposed withdrawal of labour, the local UDA undertook a series of assaults and car burnings, before setting fire to a shop on the corner of Sandy Row. They then shot at the fire brigade when they arrived, killing Brian Douglas, a Protestant fireman, and precipitating a night of rioting and violence in both the south and east of the city.McDonald & Cusack, p. 48 The group also attacked nearby Durham Street, killing two Catholics from the area in quick succession in March 1973. Robert Fisk, who worked as the Belfast correspondent for The Times from 1972–75, suggested that the Sandy Row UDA was one of the most bellicose of all the paramilitary units in Belfast during this period. Henry McDonald and Jim Cusack confirmed this, declaring that the Sandy Row and Donegall Pass UDA were almost out of control at the time, with both its men and women inured to killings and beatings.McDonald & Cusack, pp.57-58
Wider emergence Towards the end of 1972 the UDA began to increase in importance in other areas of South Belfast, with the "Village" area of the Donegall Road becoming another centre of activity. A hit team was established here and in January 1973 they carried out four murders of Catholic youths from nearby West Belfast in quick succession. The youngest victim, Peter Watterson (aged 15), was mortally wounded in a drive-by shooting outside his mother's shop on the Falls Road/Donegall Road junction.McDonald & Cusack, pp. 52-53 Soon afterwards however the IRA retaliated by capturing local commander Francis "Hatchet" Smith in Roden Street, close to his home, and fatally shooting him.McDonald & Cusack, p. 53 With Smith dead, the UDA in South Belfast, which by that time was recognised as a brigade, stepped up its activity, kidnapping 14-year-old Philip Rafferty from his home in Andersonstown and taking him to the Giant's Ring, where he was murdered. Gabriel Savage, a seventeen-year-old, was killed in similar circumstances soon afterwards.McDonald & Cusack, p. 54
Other units began to emerge in Taughmonagh and Dunmurry, with the former responsible for killing Daniel Rouse in June 1973, in an attack which saw the 17-year-old beaten severely before being shot.McDonald & Cusack, p. 59 The brigade was also active during the Ulster Workers' Council strike of 1974, with the Village team killing a Catholic university student, Michael Mallon, at the height of strike.McDonald & Cusack, p. 76 Sammy Murphy and the Sandy Row UDA took a belligerent stance during the strike. They almost came to direct confrontation with the British Army over the removal of UDA roadblocks in the area and had made preparations to use force had the British Army smashed them. Murphy, who was described in military press releases as a community leader, successfully negotiated with the soldiers to defuse the explosive situation.
Gerard McWilliams, a young hippy from a Catholic background living in the Lisburn Road, was beaten and stabbed to death in an entry near his home by South Belfast brigade members in September 1974 as he returned from a night out at the Club Bar, a popular student and bohemian venue near Queen's University Belfast.McDonald & Cusack, p. 90 Two months later a unit from Sandy Row shot and killed a bouncer from the same bar, which was Catholic-owned but entertained a mixed clientele.McDonald & Cusack, p. 91 Similar attacks continued into 1975, with a Sandy Row gunman killing a young Catholic builder on nearby Great Victoria Street, before another attack by the Sandy Row unit on 9 February when they entered St Bride's Catholic Church on the Malone Road, a popular target for vandalism attacks by local loyalist youths, and killed two students in attendance.McDonald & Cusack, p. 94 These killings helped to set off a bloody period over the following two years when both republican and loyalist paramilitary groups were highly active in tit-for-tat sectarian killings.
John McMichael 1977-84 With South Belfast formalised as a brigade, Lisburn-based John McMichael emerged as the brigadier and, due to his closeness to UDA leader Andy Tyrie, soon became one of the most prominent figures within the wider movement.McDonald & Cusack, pp. 103-105 Following the heavy activity of the years before, under the guidance of McMichael and Tyrie the UDA slowed down their run of killings. They were responsible for the deaths of three Catholics in 1977 and two in 1978.McDonald & Cusack, p. 115