[125] Historically, the number of active UVF members in July 1971 was stated by one source to be no more than 20. [142] Its main benefactors have been in central Scotland,[143] Liverpool,[144] Preston[144] and the Toronto area of Canada. Spence's biographer Roy Garland said he had formed unlikely relationships and challenged conventional loyalist thinking. Spence said loyalists offered "abject and true remorse" to the loved ones of all the innocent victims of the Troubles. [43] Jackson was allegedly the hitman who shot Hanna dead outside his home in Lurgan. [37], The IRA had split into the Provisional IRA and Official IRA in December 1969. Two UVF men were accidentally blown up in this attack. What's he waiting for? [32][33] There were further attacks in the Republic between October and December 1969. . [36] Catholic churches were also attacked. He will be buried in Bangor after a funeral service on the Shankill Road. This building had been an important training centre for members of Edward Carson's original UVF. [151] On 10 February 1976, following the sudden uptick of violence against Catholic civilians by loyalist militants, Irish cardinal William Conway and nine other Catholic bishops met with British Prime Minister Harold Wilson and his cabinet, asking them as to where the loyalist militants had acquired guns, to which Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Merlyn Rees replied "Canada". Adair's men forced their way into Spence's Shankill home but found it empty, as Spence tended to spend much of the summer at a caravan he owned in Groomsport. Video, At the crash site of 'no hope' - BBC reporter in Greece, Record numbers of guide dog volunteers after BBC story. [44] In 1977, he publicly condemned the use of violence for political gain, on the grounds that it was counter-productive. An article published by the newspaper fingered Wright as a drug lord and sectarian murderer. 2023 BBC. Its name was taken from . Leading public figures were among the mourners, including former senior civil servant Maurice Hayes, former head of the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission Monica McWilliams, and trade unionist Peter Bunting. [126] Later, in September 1972, Gusty Spence said in an interview that the organisation had a strength of 1,500. What's he waiting for? The Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) is an Ulster loyalist paramilitary group. The community centre hosting the event and 25 nearby homes were evacuated and a funeral was disrupted. She told mourners that he had made friends among republicans and socialists and among people from Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. Hundreds of mourners have attended the funeral of the former loyalist leader Gusty Spence. In January 2000 UVF Mid-Ulster brigadier Richard Jameson was shot dead by a LVF gunman which led to an escalation of the UVF/LVF feud. The UVF stated that the attempted attack was a protest against the Irish Army units "still massed on the border in County Donegal". [41] Furthermore, the VPP suffered a heavy defeat in West Belfast in the October 1974 general election, when the DUP candidate John McQuade captured six times as many votes as the VPP's Ken Gibson. Gusty Spence announced the loyalist paramilitary ceasefires in 1994, At the crash site of 'no hope' - BBC reporter in Greece. [19] On 26 June, the same gang shot dead Catholic civilian Peter Ward (18) and wounded two others as they left a pub on Malvern Street in the lower Shankill. [12] Due to his later involvement in a murder, Spence was expelled from the Orange Order and the Royal Black Institution. Henry McDonald. The crowds included a leader of the loyalist Ulster Defence Association Jackie McDonald. [39], The following year, 1972, was the most violent of the Troubles. The 78-year-old died in hospital at the weekend after a long illness. Save up to 70% with our image packs Pre-pay for multiple images and download on demand. [29], On 12 August 1969, the "Battle of the Bogside" began in Derry. During the riot, UVF members shot dead RUC officer Victor Arbuckle. The UVF very clearly have involvement in drug dealing, all forms of gangsterism, serious assaults, intimidation of the community. It comprises high-ranking officers under a Chief of Staff or Brigadier-General. The 78-year-old died in hospital at the weekend after a long illness. [149] It is estimated that the UVF nevertheless received hundreds of thousands of pounds in donations to its Loyalist Prisoners Welfare Association. The biggest of these was the 1974 Dublin and Monaghan bombings, which killed 34 civilians, making it the deadliest terrorist attack of the conflict. [58][59][105] Graham has held the position since he assumed office in 1976. The group undertook an armed campaign of almost thirty years during The Troubles. Blood and rage: a cultural history of terrorism, "Granddaughter of victim says Gusty Spence was not a peacemaker", "Shankill shuts to pay its respects to UVF chief Gusty Spence", BBC News, Thursday, 3 May 2007, "Loyalist veteran's path to peace", Murders of Andrew Robb and David McIlwaine, Ulster Loyalist Central Co-ordinating Committee, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Gusty_Spence&oldid=1136743955, Loyalists imprisoned during the Northern Ireland conflict, People convicted of murder by Northern Ireland, People from Northern Ireland convicted of murder, Prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment by Northern Ireland, Short description is different from Wikidata, All Wikipedia articles written in Hiberno-English, Pages using infobox person with multiple parents, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 31 January 2023, at 22:44. Augustus Spence was born in a Protestant area of Belfast, not far from Shankill Road. It began carrying out gun attacks to kill random Catholic civilians and using car bombs to attack Catholic-owned pubs. [38] By this time Spence polarised opinion within the UVF, with some members fiercely loyal to a man they saw as a folk hero and others resenting his draconian leadership and increasing emphasis on politics, with one anonymous member even labelling him "a cunt in a cravat". ", "UVF orders removal of Catholic families from Carrickfergus housing estate in '21st century form of ethnic cleansing'. Thousands of families, mostly Catholics, were forced to flee their homes and refugee camps were set up in the Republic of Ireland. [16] Because of his military experience, Spence was chosen as the military commander and public face of the UVF when the group was established. [45], Released from prison in 1984, Spence soon became a leading member of the UVF-linked Progressive Unionist Party (PUP) and a central figure in the Northern Ireland peace process. Gusty was a man of war, he was also a man of peace, she said. On the basis of that, we as a federation have called for the respecification of the UVF [stating that its ceasefire is over]. Along with the newly formed Ulster Defence Association (UDA), the UVF started an armed campaign against the Catholic population of Northern Ireland. [38] This came to a climax on 4 December, when the UVF bombed McGurk's Bar, a Catholic-owned pub in Belfast. Ontario is to Ulster Protestants what Boston is to Irish Catholics." VideoAt the crash site of 'no hope' - BBC reporter in Greece, Why Covid lab-leak theory is now being taken seriously, Blackpink lead top stars back on the road in Asia, Exploring the rigging claims in Nigeria's elections, 'Wales is in England' gaffe sparks TikToker's trip, Ukraine war casts shadow over India's G20 ambitions, Record numbers of guide dog volunteers after BBC story. Wednesday, 15 February 2023 | 10.2 . They were blamed by the PSNI on members of the UVF, who also said UVF guns had been used to try to kill police officers. [129] Another estimates that over a 30-year period women accounted for, at most, just 2% of UVF membership. He added: "He formed a relationship with Cardinal O'Fiach and that was in some of our ways of thinking in those days a big step because the Catholic church in particular were the enemy. On 7 May 1966, loyalists petrol bombed a Catholic-owned pub in the loyalist Shankill area of Belfast. [79], In 2008, a loyalist splinter group calling itself the "Real UVF" emerged briefly to make threats against Sinn Fin in County Fermanagh. He also directed a significant restocking of the group's arsenal, with guns mostly taken from the security forces. [150] The Northern Ireland Affairs Select Committee noted in its report that "in 1992 it was estimated that Scottish support for the UDA and UVF might amount to 100,000 a year. In October, UVF and UPV member Thomas McDowell was killed by the bomb he was planting at Ballyshannon power station. [64] Republicans responded to the attacks by assassinating senior UVF members John Bingham, William "Frenchie" Marchant and Trevor King[65] as well as Leslie Dallas, whose purported UVF membership was disputed both by his family and the UVF. It claimed the pubs were used for republican fundraising. The gunmen shot dead six people and injured five. The loyalist leader always denied responsibility and his family are now challenging the conviction. He was jailed for life for the murder of a Catholic barman in 1966 and served 18 years in prison. [140][141], In contrast to the IRA, overseas support for loyalist paramilitaries including the UVF has been limited. Correspondence includes Spence's correspondence with leaders and imprisoned members of the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) and letters concerning his imprisonment originally . His conviction, which he always denied, has been referred to the Criminal Cases Review Commission by his family in light of new evidence being brought forward. [83], The UVF was blamed for the shotgun killing of expelled RHC member Bobby Moffett on the Shankill Road on the afternoon of 28 May 2010, in front of passers-by including children. Mr Lynch's widow, Norma, recollected last night that the late Catholic primate of Ireland, Cardinal O Fiaich, had said that "if there was a hope for peace in Ireland it would come through Gusty". A former leader of the UVF's political wing, the Progressive Unionist Party, described him as "one of the pivots on which a page of Irish history turned". [18] Shortly after, Spence and three others were arrested. Although O'Neill was a unionist, they saw him as being too 'soft' on the civil rights movement and too friendly with the Republic of Ireland. The Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) is an Ulster loyalist paramilitary group. [citation needed] The arms were divided between the UVF, the UDA (the largest loyalist group) and Ulster Resistance.[61]. Of course, the UVF had a big role to play, with a masked Geordie Orr (another pivotal UVF figure notable by his absence from the book) and others . "He also sent a letter of condolence to the widow of Joe McCann, an IRA man, praising him as a soldier of Ireland.". [151][152] These shipments were considered enough for the UVF/UDA to wage its campaign, most of which were used to kill its victims. They shot dead John Scullion (28), a Catholic civilian, as he walked home. Gusty Spence (1933-2011) was a Loyalist paramilitary volunteer, a founding member and early leader of the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF). The weapons were Palestine Liberation Organisation arms captured by the Israelis and sold to Armscor, the South African state-owned company which, in defiance of a 1977 United Nations arms embargo, set about making South Africa self-sufficient in military hardware. The UVF carried out dozens of sectarian murderers and it was while he was serving a sentence in Long Kesh prison for his role in the murder of a Catholic that Mr Spence began to change his views about the use of violence. [2] He initially worked solely for the PUP but after a spell also set up the Shankill Activity Centre, a government-supported scheme to provide training and leisure opportunities for unemployed youths. "He also sent a letter of condolence to the widow of Joe McCann, an IRA man, praising him as a soldier of Ireland.". Tributes were paid to former leading loyalist paramilitary turned peacemaker Gusty Spence at his funeral in Belfast today. In 1984, Gusty was released from prison, and became a leading figure in the Progressive Unionist Party and . The first British soldier to be killed by the Provisional IRA died in February 1971. 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