The Ulster Defense Association was formed in 1971 as an umbrella organization for the various loyalist factions in Northern Ireland. Such Loyalist paramilitaries are militant groups committed to ensuring that Northern Ireland remains part of the United Kingdom.

Labels commonly used to describe participants in the Northern Ireland conflict are distinctly important. Unionists (overwhelmingly Protestant) make up approximately 60 percent of the population, generally consider themselves British, and want to Northern Ireland remaining part of the UK.  Those unionists willing to use force towards this end are know as Loyalists.  By contrast, Nationalists, who make up most of the rest of the population (and are almost entirely Catholic), tend to regard themselves as Irish and favor Northern Ireland being integrated into the Republic of Ireland.  Nationalists willing to use violence towards this end are generally known as Republicans.

The various ethnic migrations between what is present day Northern Ireland, Ireland, and Great Britain (which comprises England, Scotland, and Wales and, together with Northern Ireland, makes up the UK) have created a multiplicity of conflicting naturalization claims on the land.  Loyalists, like all the factions in ‘the Troubles,’ have a national mythology in their ideology. “Quis Separabit,” the motto of the UDA means: “who shall separate us” in Latin. The motto refers to the knightly Order of St. Patrick established in 1783 by King George III as the Irish counterpoint to the British Order of the Garter. Likely derived from the biblical verse Romans 8:35, this motto signifies the historic ties that bind Northern Ireland to the rest of the United Kingdom.

The UDA was formed to unite the disparate loyalist paramilitaries under one banner and institute a more uniform military training and command structure. The most notable of the paramilitary groups housed under the UDA are the Ulster Freedom Fighters (UFF) and the Ulster Young Militants (UYM). Charles Smith was the first leader of the UDA.

The UDA began with 40,000 members in 1972. The organization is still the largest loyalist group in Northern Ireland but its membership is now between 2,000-5,000 persons. Several hundred members are estimated to be directly associated with the paramilitaries.  The UDA is a proscribed terrorist organization according to the UK Home Office.  They have also been listed as a terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department since 2001.

The UDA played an important role in the street protests in March 1972 against direct rule (whereby Northern Ireland was administered by the central UK government in Westminster) and created “no-go” areas in reaction to similar Provisional Irish Republican Army’s (PIRA) blockades in Nationalist neighborhoods of Derry.  This escalation led to a confrontation between 8,000 UDA supporters and 250 British troops on July 3, 1972. The UDA supporters were attempting to build barriers between the Nationalist/ Republican Springfield neighborhood and the unionist/ loyalist Shankill Road in Belfast. The confrontation ended peacefully, fueling Nationalist suspicions about the intimacy of the relationship between the loyalist paramilitaries and the authorities – although it should be noted that other such stand-offs between loyalists and the security forces would end violently.

The UDA’s mobilization ability proved even more successful during the 1974 strike by the Ulster Workers’ Council. This strike forced the resignation of the local power-sharing government that had been set up by Westminster in an attempt to break the political deadlock in Northern Ireland. The UDA also took part in a supporting capacity to the 1977 United Unionist Action Council, although they did not directly advocate for the demands of the strikers.

1978 saw  the UDA expand into the political sphere with the creation of the New Ulster Political Research Group. The Ulster Loyalist Democratic Party (ULDP) replaced the research group in 1981, and advocated independence for Northern Ireland. The party stood candidates for two elections – the 1981 by-elections in East Belfast and the 1982 Northern Ireland Assembly election. They received just 0.2 percent of the votes at the Assembly election that was also first election in which Sinn Fein participated. The UDA expanded its political objectives in 1987 with the publication of “Common Sense.” This treatise outlined the support of the UDA for a Bill of Rights, a Northern Ireland Assembly with an elected Executive, and a multiparty coalition government. The ULDP became the Ulster Democratic Party in 1989.

The paramilitary activities of the UDA continued despite the steps toward political representation. In the late 1980s to early 1990s, the UDA assassinated Catholics named in British Army intelligence files. The Stevens Inquiry was launched to discover the source of the leaks and determine the nature and extent of the relationship between the security forces and the loyalist paramilitary groups. The inquiry named Brian Nelson as the source of the intelligence files, exposing him as an army spy.  He had been the head of intelligence for the UDA and was instrumental in a large-scale arms deal attempt with the apartheid government of South Africa. The inquiry’s findings brought to light significant questions about the links between the UDA and the security forces in Northern Ireland, many of which remain unanswered.

In 1988, the leadership structure of the UDA changed. Then-leader, Andy Tyrie, was removed from power and command of the group passed into the hands of a six person “inner council.” The UDA existed as a legal organization until August 1992 when the Northern Ireland Secretary Sir Patrick Mayhew declared that the UDA had “clearly been engaged in criminal terrorism.”  The British government outlawed the organization and the UDA renounced it cease-fire. A new cease-fire was observed from 1994 until 1998, when the murder of Billy “King Rat” Wright resuscitated the violence.

Wright, leader of the Loyalist Volunteer Force (LVF), was assassinated in the Maze (formerly Long Kesh) prison in December 1997 by three members of the Republican paramilitary group, the Irish National Liberation Army.  The relative freedom afforded within the Maze  to the paramilitary prisoners for whom it was reserved was said by some to have aided in the murder.  There were also some allegations of security force collusion – albeit with republican elements on this occasion.

On Jan. 4, 1998, loyalist prisoners voted 80-40 for disengagement from the peace process in response to Wright’s murder. Then-UK Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Mo Mowlam paid a surprise visit to the UDA/UFF inmates and succeeded in convincing the prisoners that their organizations should continue with the process. The agreement of the prisoners and the progression of the peace talks did not stop several ‘revenge killings’ against Catholics however. Then, in February 1998, the IRA shot a member of the UDA. The UDA retaliated by fatally shooting two Catholics. The loyalist group admitted to breaking its ceasefire after Northern Ireland’s Chief Constable deemed it responsible for these actions and an additional murder that occurred on January 1, 1998.  In response to the broken ceasefire, the Ulster Democratic Party was suspended for several weeks from the Lancaster House talks that led to the Belfast Agreement (Good Friday Agreement).

Tensions partly brought about by Belfast Agreement led to escalating violence between the UDA and the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF). By 2000, a vicious dispute had broken out between the groups.  The conflict forced hundreds of families from their homes and left seven men dead.  A truce was enacted in December, for the most part ending the fighting. The violence and unresolved hostility was channeled outward in sectarian attacks, with more than 200 blast bomb attacks noted in the months following the truce.

The UDA withdrew its support for the Good Friday Accords in 2001. Secretary of State Dr. John Reid demanded that the UDA cease its attacks against Nationalists. The group ignored the warning and continued hostilities. As a result, the UDA was deemed a current terrorist threat and the authorities declared its ceasefire agreement null and void on Oct. 12, 2001. The Ulster Democratic Party was dissolved soon after. The following year saw the creation of a new vehicle for political participation in the form of the Ulster Political Research Group (UPRG).

The majority of the imprisoned loyalist and republican paramilitary members were freed under the auspices of the Belfast Agreement, including  Johnny “Mad Dog” Adair.  Adair, who led the UDA’s C Company (based in Belfast’s lower Shankill Road  area)  and was behind a reign of terror in the early 1990’s, was one of the prisoners released in 1999. He was popular with the membership of the Loyalist Volunteer Force and the Ulster Freedom Fighters. These groups became friendlier to the point of a speculated merger under Adair’s leadership.  This  created a threat to the established UDA hierarchy and contributed substantially to internecine feuding between the loyalist paramilitaries.  The death of a high-ranking UDA leader in a reprisal killing was the final straw for the UDA, and Adair was offered the choice of exile or execution.   Adair, who had been put back into prison in August 2000 for breaking the conditions of his 1999 release, and again in January 2003 ( after he was released on parole in May 2002) – at the height at the UDA power struggle – chose the former, joining his family in Bolton, England upon his subsequent  release at the start of 2005.  They had fled there after being forced out of the Shankill area by the UDA along with his followers.

In November of 2004, the UDA announced that it would disengage from paramilitary activities and reenter the political peace process. The group also announced its intention to work with the Independent International Commission on Decommissioning as part of its ceasefire activities.  The UDA removed several prominent members from positions of leadership in 2005 in what appeared to be an attempt to clean up an image tarnished with racketeering and drug trafficking.  While these are positive developments, the Ulster Defense Association remains the largest sectarian paramilitary organization in Northern Ireland

Sources

“Terrorism: Terrorist Groups: Proscribed Irish Groups.” UK Home Office website. http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/terrorism/threat/groups/index.html (accessed Apr. 28, 2005)

2003 Patterns of Global Terrorism report. Appendix C.  U.S. Department of State. http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/pgtrpt/2003/31711.htm (accessed Mar. 28, 2005).

“Paramilitaries-Ulster Defense Association/Ulster Freedom Fighters.” British Broadcasting Corp. http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/war/troubles/factfiles/uda.shtml (accessed Mar. 28, 2005).

Dixon, Paul. The Politics of War and Peace, Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2001, p.2. An excerpt from this book can be found online at: http://www.nipolitics.com/

Gordon, David. “Brigadier ‘toppled by a revolt from within,’” Belfast Telegraph, Mar. 31, 2005.

Jellenc, Eli. “In the Spotlight: Loyalist Volunteer Force (LVF)”. http://www.cdi.org/program/issue/document.cfm?
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Lewis, James. “Terror Group Banned,” Manchester Guardian, Aug. 16, 1992.

McKittrick, David. “Doris Day Proves Too Flash For the UDA,” The Independent, Apr. 2, 2005.

 “Ulster Defense Association Initiative,” U.S. Department of State press release. Nov. 17, 2004. http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2004/38305.htm (accessed Mar. 17, 2005).