Match Day - Ulster Loyalism And The British Far-Right by Tony Simms

Author:Tony Simms
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2016-05-12T22:00:00+00:00

chaPter 18

I

was now ready to get involved with the loyalist paramilitaries but where did I start? I knew they were not openly advertising like the BNP and the NF, and they certainly were not in the Yellow pages. I knew of people in the right-wing movement who were in Orange Lodges in the West Midlands but for the impact they had they may as well have been on the moon. Something more was needed. I knew some NF lads who had visited loyal Ulster, nonetheless, I just did not want to walk up to them and say: “How do you get into contact with the U.D.A”. Not everyone who visits Ulster actually gets involved with the paramilitaries. The majority go for the marches and to take in the proud British culture. However, I wanted to go that step further. Then at one West Midlands NF branch meeting the chance fell my way.

A member from Birmingham NF had invited over a lad from East Belfast and he was selling a loyalist magazine that had just been released. I purchased the magazine from him as you do and took it home to read. I could not believe what was in there – an advert from the Loyalist Prisoners Aid. This was a wing of the Ulster Defence Association. The L.P.A was a fund raising wing for the U.D.A, which raised money by a number of methods for the prisoners inside the Maze who had been imprisoned whilst fighting in the war against the I.R.A. This was exactly what I had been looking for. If this magazine had been in support of the other loyalist paramilitaries – the Ulster Volunteer Force – then I would have contacted them. But I had came across the U.D.A first and this would be the organisation I would be making contact with.

There was a PO Box address in the magazine that you could contact; I instantly wrote a letter to enquire about getting involved to some level. I later found out after all these years that the West Midlands L.P.A had finally decided to come out in the open to try and get more people involved

– which for me was brilliant news. I sent off my letter with my phone number and waited for contact. I told some close friends who said I was taking things too far but my mind had already been made up; fight fire with fire. Then after a short while contact was made. But before I carry on let me give you a little insight into the U.D.A/U.F.F. The Ulster Defence Association is the largest of the loyalist paramilitary groups in Ulster. It was formed in 1971, and it took on an armed struggle for many years against the I.R.A and its republican allies. It used the cover name Ulster Freedom Fighters as for many years the two claimed to be separate organisations. Due to this the U.D.A were somehow able to remain legal until 1992.

The U.D.A/U.F.F position was to defend loyalist areas from Irish republican attacks.

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