Due to the seriousness of the ongoing intra-loyalist feud the PFC felt it necessary to document feud related incidents in a similar way to the documentation of sectarian attacks. We do not intend this to be an ongoing published feature, although such incidents will continue to be documented in our archive. The decision to produce this list was taken in light of the potential for intra-loyalist violence to be redirected towards sectarian violence, (ie at Catholics) as has happened on similar occasions in the past.
Loyalist Feud
1 September, Friday
Four men, ages 23-36, were charged in a Coleraine Court with the attempted murder of 11-year-old Charlene Daly. Charlene Daly suffered a punctured lung and broken ribs when the UDA sprayed her home with bullets on 28 August. (IN, IT, BBC)
2 September, Saturday
Thousands of RUC and British Army personnel were deployed on the Shankill Road to keep UDA and UVF supporters apart during a march to commemorate UVF killer Brian Robinson. Robinson was shot by an undercover British Army unit as he returned from a sectarian murder in Ardoyne. (IN, BBC, G)
3 September, Sunday
A man armed with a shotgun forced his way into a house in Carrickfergus and confronted a woman in an upstairs bedroom. A man who was staying downstairs at the time escaped through the back window. The attacker fired a shot through the living room window as he left. The incident is believed to be linked to the loyalist feud. (RUC)
7 September, Thursday
A meeting between the PUP and UDP to discuss a possible cease-fire was cancelled by the PUP due to continuing attacks on children whose families are allegedly linked to the UVF. The RUC seized a number of weapons, which are believed to have been used in the UFF/UDA show of strength on the Shankill Road two weeks previously. (NBelfN)
The UDP rejected the PUP’s offer of direct dialogue between the PUP’s David Ervine and the UDP’s Davy Adams with a view to setting an agenda for talks. (NBelfN)
11 September, Monday
A pipe bomb was thrown at the home of PUP leader Billy Hutchinson. (NBelfN)
In Coleraine a family escaped uninjured after a pipe bomb was thrown at their home on the Ballysally estate. (RUC)
The RUC arrested Billy Hutchinson for obstruction after he refused to let officers search him. The car he was travelling in is alleged to have avoided an RUC checkpoint. He was later released. Later, at the Stormont Assembly, Gina Adair, wife of the imprisoned UDA/UFF leader, heckled Hutchinson from the public gallery. (G)
13 September, Wednesday
Nineteen families from the Lower Shankill asked the to be moved, bringing the total of families to have asked the Housing Executive to be re-housed as a result of the feud to 158. (NBelfN)
Guns, grenades and pipe bombs were reported to have been used in a week where the ferocity of the feud was said to have increased. Security sources were reported as claiming that both sides had been importing weapons for about a year from the former Eastern Bloc. (NBelfN)
UFF/UDA commanders outside of the lower Shankill area are understood to have instructed their units not to become embroiled in the feud. It is understood that they have reached agreement with their UVF counterparts not to escalate the conflict in their own areas. (NBelfN)
14 September, Thursday
A pipe bomb exploded at a house in Coleraine, although the two occupants were uninjured. The motive for the attack is unclear. (RUC)
A group of women held a protest on the Shankill Road demanding an end to the feud. (BBC)
Stephen Irwin, one of the UDA men convicted of the massacre of six Catholics and one Protestant at the Rising Sun bar in Greysteel on Halloween night in 1993, was reported to have moved to London to join Combat 18. Combat 18 is a British neo-Nazi group associated with racial violence across Europe. The number 18 in the name is a reference to the letters A and H, the initials for Adolf Hitler. It is alleged that Combat 18 in London are engaged in a feud with their former allies, the London UDA. (IE)
15 September, Friday
A man was arrested and charged after the RUC found two handguns during the search of a house in the Shankill area. (RUC)
17 September, Sunday
In Bangor, Sandy Rice, a PUP member described as an anti-drugs campaigner, was seriously injured after a bomb attached to his van exploded. While the UDP claimed the UDA/UFF were responsible and that the attempt on Rice’s life was connected to the feud, the UVF insisted that it was a purely drugs related attack carried out by the LVF. (IN, BBC, IT)
20 September, Wednesday
The RUC found weapons, including firing pistols, machetes and iron bars, during a search of two houses in the Shankill area of Belfast. No arrests were made. (RUC)
UDA sources were reported as admitting they thought NIO chiefs would be keeping jailed UDA leader Johnny Adair behind bars for the full eleven remaining years of his sentence. They can do this by stripping him of his 50% remission. (NBelf N)
21 September, Thursday
A PUP supporter was shot in North Belfast. The 32 year old man, who claims to be an outspoken anti-drugs campaigner, blamed the UFF/UDA for the attack in which he suffered hand and shoulder injuries. (IN)
A pensioner in Newtownabbey, Co Antrim escaped injury after she handled a pipe bomb that had been put through her letterbox. A similar device was put through the letterbox of a house in north Belfast. (IN)
23 September, Saturday
Over 300 Shankill residents marched down the Shankill Road in a Church-organised parade demanding an end to the feud. (IN)
24 September, Sunday
Stephen McKeag (30), believed to be a UFF/UDA commander on the lower Shankill, was found dead in his Florence Court home. His family stressed that his death had nothing to do with the feud, while the RUC were said to be investigating a crossbow bolt which had been fired through the window of his home on the night of his death. It is believed he died of a mixture of prescription drugs and alcohol. Mc Keag, a close associate of Johnny Adair, was cleared in 1994 of the sectarian murder of Sean Hughes, gunned down in his Falls Road hair salon. (IN, IW, BBC)
UVF sources told the Observer that while it was still preoccupied with the on-going loyalist feud, which it described as "far from over", it was prepared to start bombing targets in the Republic of Ireland should the executive fail and joint London-Dublin authority over northern Irish affairs be imposed. By this stage the feud has claimed three lives and caused 200 families, or over 1,000 people, to be put out of their homes. (Obs)
27 September, Tuesday
A truce was rumoured imminent as the leaderships of the UVF/RHC and UDA/UFF were believed to have met. Each of the leaderships was also said to have met its Shankill Road faction, although the warring factions themselves have not met face to face. While the PUP's Billy Hutchinson said he was "in the dark" about the latest moves, it was understood that the revival of the Combined Loyalist Military Command may have been on the agenda. (IN)
28 September, Wednesday
One mourner at the funeral of UFF commander Stephen McKeag laid a wreath bearing the motif: "C-18", meaning Combat 18, the British neo-Nazi group. Combat 18 is thought to have had links in the north of Ireland with the UDA/UFF and with the LVF for some years now. (IN, BBC)
29 September, Thursday
The Irish News published an interview with David Ervine of the PUP, the party associated with the UVF. During the interview he hinted that a solution to the feud could be found by the UDA leadership reasserting control over ‘C-Company’ of the UFF/UDA on the lower Shankill. (IN)
John White of the UFF/UDA linked UDP hinted that there was some kind of de facto cease-fire between the UDA and UVF. His party leader, Gary McMichael, however, described the comments as erroneous and premature. (IT)
The UDA/UFF hate web site went back on line after it had been withdrawn because of possible civil action. The site www.ulisnet.com quotes a solicitor whose name had previously been listed under the heading "know the Provo" among a list of nationalists’ names. Nationalists and human rights campaigners internationally are investigating possible action over what is seen as being tantamount to death threats to nationalists.
The site also features a tribute to former UVF/RHC assassin Frankie ‘Slabface’ Curry, a member of the Red Hand Commando (RHC) faction which split and sided with Billy Wright’s LVF. Curry was assassinated last year by the Belfast UVF/RHC. The tribute ‘credits’ Curry with the murder of Rosemary Nelson on 15 March 1999, two days before his own death. There is an ongoing campaign to get America On Line (AOL) to shut down the site. (AN, PFC)
Sources:
AN: Andersonstown News.
BBC: BBC radio and television news, BBC online, Radio Foyle.
G: Guardian.
IE: Irish Examiner.
IN: Irish News.
IT: Irish Times.
IW: Irish World.
NBelfN: North Belfast News.
Obs: Observer.
PFC: Pat Finucane Centre.
RUC: RUC website.