Irish TimesAs a loyalist paramilitary he was sentenced to life in prison for murder. Now, the UVF leader-turned-politician says Brexit must not lead to more violence in the North.

Freya McClements

Belfast has always had peace lines, says Billy Hutchinson, “but they’re in your head.” 

He was 14 when, in 1969, many of these demarcation lines became real barricades, thrown up along the previously invisible boundaries between Protestant and Catholic areas as the Troubles began.

Hutchinson tells how, as a teenager, he accompanied his father to see a Catholic colleague who lived in Cupar Street; nowadays, it is adjacent to a peace wall which continues to divide the Protestant Shankill and the Catholic Falls.

“When I went into the house there were all these girls. There must have been six or seven girls, and I went in there as someone who was very shy. I had one sister and that was it,” he explains.

Years later, he met their brother, who said his mother wanted to ask him a question. “He says, ‘she felt you were very strange the day you came into our house ... was it because we were Catholics?’ I said no, it was because of all your sisters. 

Continue reading @ Irish Times

Billy Hutchinson ➖ ‘I Justify Everything I Did In The Troubles. To Stay Sane, I Have To.’

Irish TimesAs a loyalist paramilitary he was sentenced to life in prison for murder. Now, the UVF leader-turned-politician says Brexit must not lead to more violence in the North.

Freya McClements

Belfast has always had peace lines, says Billy Hutchinson, “but they’re in your head.” 

He was 14 when, in 1969, many of these demarcation lines became real barricades, thrown up along the previously invisible boundaries between Protestant and Catholic areas as the Troubles began.

Hutchinson tells how, as a teenager, he accompanied his father to see a Catholic colleague who lived in Cupar Street; nowadays, it is adjacent to a peace wall which continues to divide the Protestant Shankill and the Catholic Falls.

“When I went into the house there were all these girls. There must have been six or seven girls, and I went in there as someone who was very shy. I had one sister and that was it,” he explains.

Years later, he met their brother, who said his mother wanted to ask him a question. “He says, ‘she felt you were very strange the day you came into our house ... was it because we were Catholics?’ I said no, it was because of all your sisters. 

Continue reading @ Irish Times

27 comments:

  1. Larry Hughes comments

    That was a terrific read. It has left me with a lot of respect for Billy Hutchinson particularly his attitude regarding the potential for future violence over Brexit or a border poll. Whatever happens in the future lads like Billy on both sides should see to it there's no return to violence fanned by political reptiles. I cannot in all good faith see any reason to diminish Billy's sense of Britishness. Thoroughly enjoyed reading that.

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  2. I understand, acknowledge and appreciate the journey that my fellow Leeds United supporter has taken and that he takes full responsibility for the crimes that he was convicted of and for the actions of the UVF.

    But I have to take issue with his protestations that he had no choices "only options". Where the premeditated taking of any human life is involved; particularly non-combatants which the two Catholic half-brothers on the Falls Road in whose murders Billy was involved then there is always choice.

    Billy's father's comment about Paisley aleays being prepared to sacrifice somebody elses's blood is arguably the most profound statement in the article.

    Should by a very good read.

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    1. Barry, for an atheist you can sound like a god botherer at time.
      There are always choices. And if you live in the Malone road you might see some choices as more rational than you would see them if you lived in the Falls or Shankill. Taking up arms against British troops might make no sense on the Malone but it made a lot of sense on the Falls.

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  3. Glad you enjoyed it Larry. Our book sought to show that Loyalism isn't a ghetto inhabited by sectarian psychopaths - Billy is a pragmatic leader and wants what is best for all people on this island.

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  4. What I don't get is how any of us can justify everything we did during the conflict. I went down to Dublin a few years ago to listen to Billy speak in Liberty Hall. I had known him before that and had a few insightful exchanges with him. He was a speaker at a number of events in West Belfast and always made an interesting contribution. Tommy Gorman introduced me to him. Have the book here so will read and review as soon as I get a chance.

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  5. Tommy gets a good mention in the book Anthony

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    1. I thought he might, given that Billy mentions him in his interview with Suzanne for the Bel Tel.

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  6. AM
    How does Barry sound like a god botherer? Tens of thousands in West Belfast didn't take up arms nor murder innocent people. Weren't the Stoops bigger than SF/IRA for most of the Troubles?

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    1. he sounds like a god botherer because he sounds like a god botherer!
      At times it is like the way a priest or a pastor waffles on in pious fashion, not just in relation to the North. Not that I am overly critical of him. He has his views and stands over them.

      The IRA was always the manifestation of something much stronger and wider than its own discourse. I never figured traditional republican ideology played much of a role in sustaining the Provisional IRA. Lots of people in West Belfast didn't join the IRA but the IRA would never have reproduced itself and been sustained were it not for the state terrorism it was pitched against.

      How many fourteen years olds from the Malone Road are dragged from their home at 6am and beaten by cops in Musgrave Street over a radiator? If you don't think that helps shape how young people would react you would be naive. If state terrorists from say Russia walked onto the Shankill tomorrow and slaughtered 14 people, I would be surprised if the logic on the Shankill would be something other than to fight back.

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  7. It's easier to makes your actions about the collective. It shifts responsibility to a degree. It's hard to look in the mirror and think you know what, you're just a bit of a cunt, ain't you. Anybody, who's had their Mother's door come off the hinges, will never have a respectful relationship with the state. You might be a decent, tax paying robot but there's always a part of you that looks at a uniform with a mixture of fear and hate.

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    1. As someone who has never liked the culture of the Old Firm, I do admire Alex Ferguson for knocking both Glasgow giants of their f___ perches when he was manager of Aberdeen. Scottish football was in a much healthier state when clubs from the East Coast like the Dons, Dundee Utd, Hearts and Hibs provided real alternatives to the Weegie duopoly

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    2. Anthony

      My biggest problem with Billy Hutchinson is when he justified the murders of those two half-brothers on the Falls Road by saying that it made a United Ireland less likely. I actually have met Billy at Elland Road and quite liked him but I cannot ignore that comment.

      Regarding your god-bothering jibe, I have never been ignorant of the forces, circumstances and conditions that drove so many young people into the paramilitaries. It wouldn't be human not to feel the desire for revenge and to hit back if your door was constantly being kicked down and had experienced what you experienced at the hands of the RUC at the age of 14 (that didn't happen to Billy). I get all that. You are so spot on when you say that it was not primarily republican ideology but events on the ground that drew young people into the Pfrovos

      But as a humanist, I believe fundamentally in the agency and autonomy of human beings (except for those with psychosis). Even in the darkest times of the Northern conflict there were always choices available and the fact remains that the majority of the CNR populace did not weight in behind physical force/violdent nationalism/republicanism.

      There were plenty of godbothering, godfathers in the paramilitaries. Think Billy Wright, Billy McKee, Sean MacStifoin, Clifford Peoples for starters. Think Paisley the Pied Piper. Think the nauseating Rosary culture surrounding the hunger-strike protests.

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    3. Barry - the god bothering reference was not made in the sense of you being religious but to your tone which has this ring of "Repent repent" to it.
      I too think he was wrong. I think the best that can be done is to mitigate rather than justify in these circumstances. I think there is an arrogance in pronouncing to the world "it is my right to kill whoever I think should be killed for what I believe." We get a measure of it in today's attempts to justify killings by those of a republican persuasion. It is like the rantings of some evangelical wingnut.
      Of course there are always choices. But if the Russians land where you live tomorrow and slaughter unarmed people on the street, the choice to fight back does not look so appalling. Because you are a humanist does not mean you have to be a pacifist or lay out some black and white moral template that fails to factor in situational logic.
      The vast majority of nationalists did not weigh in behind armed struggle and certainly not an armed struggle that was designed to get a united Ireland. But that a significant body of people did support it invites further reflection. There is very little in the world of research that sustains the suggestion that the IRA was a bunch of misfits who simply could not adjust to society. It was driven by a political circumstance.
      I don't think however, that republicans who make that claim can start dismissing the narrative of people like Hutchinson as bogus and self serving.
      As I have said in the best there were too many bastards on our side for them all to have been on the other side.

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  8. Anthony,
    Unrelated. But I was going to have a wee dig at the Atalanta score, glad I never, fucking 4-1 again. This year, fucking ridiculous

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    1. still laughing at that Barry but as they say he who laughs last, laughs longest. But we are around too long by this point to know that bragging rights are a double edged sword. Not sure what has happened to Leeds. They are a top flight side but have gone off the rails. That manager is too good not to find a solution.

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    2. David - mixed your comment up with Barry's - but I am not surprised at the result. I don't think the Scottish clubs are finetuned enough to cut the mustard in Europe. I think they could hold their own there were they playing quality opposition every week but the Scottish set up is not really conducive to that.

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  9. David
    It has been great for us this season watching Celtic's woes. This week seeing the Unwashed Brigade calling for Popcorn Teeth to get the sack was highly entertaining. Although I still think yous are just about favourites for 10 in a row.

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    1. They are talking about Eddie Howe as a possible replacement. Will he do a Brendan Rodgers? I thought Howe might have been considered for the Man Utd job before Ollie got it.

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  10. While I do have a certain respect for Hutchinson I would still be critical of his actions and decision-making. I do not think that Loyalists were confronted with the same delemma as Nationalists were and for that reason I would not be as sympathetic to Hutchinson's decison to join the UVF as I would be with someone joining the Provies. Unionists/Loyalists creaated their own crisis in trying to maintain absolute oppression of Nationalists. In fact the Unionists/Loyalists were very well represented in the RUC, B-Specials and Britosh Army -whereas Nationalists had only themselves to turn to for help or protection.

    Hutchinsons concept of terrorising the Nationalist community was the same concept loyalists had on the formation of the UVF in 1913. The McMahon Family Massacre 1922 or UVF botched petrol bomb attack in 1966 are examples of Hutchinson's excuse -Loyalists hated and feared nationalists even when there was no threat, but was borne from thier aspirations of Supremacy in the 6 counties and general British insecurities in maintaining imperialism.

    My respect for Hutchinson is only dervived from when he and Irvine confronted some home truths about unionism generally. I also thought that he showed his mettle as a community leader in how he handled the Holy Cross debacle. In trying to keep loyalist respect Hutchinson walked a very difficult line while trying to resolve the matter with Nationalists -were Gerry Kelly came across as intransigent and mouthy.

    Hutchinson has come a long way since he was a teenager -but UVF sectarianism and hatred was never right or justified --he now repressents his community that it is unfortunate he was given better guidance and advice when he was younger.

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    1. Larry Hughes comments

      t's positive on the part of Billy Hutchinson in that ATAT seems to have been replaced with the realisation that in the event of unity, an RC majority in the wee 6 and no British Army and dirty ops to back them up and with an aged unionist population, it would not fare well if it did go the violence route. It would be a fate worse than covid19 for Republicans..like being sent out to kill a grannie. LoL

      As for Peter. Rangers looking good this season. Enjoy. The last nine seasons I've watched your pain and it has been a beautiful thing. I wish Boris would hurry up with that bridge because if there was an old firm on and an All Ireland final same day ... I'm heading for Glasgow! C'mon Boris get it done!!

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    2. "Hutchinsons concept of terrorising the Nationalist community was the same concept loyalists had on the formation of the UVF in 1913. The McMahon Family Massacre 1922 or UVF botched petrol bomb attack in 1966 are examples of Hutchinson's excuse -Loyalists hated and feared nationalists even when there was no threat, but was borne from thier aspirations of Supremacy in the 6 counties and general British insecurities in maintaining imperialism."

      The old Loyalists I know spoke of a general fear that the IRA were rising behind the guise of the Civil Rights movement. I blame a lot of this nonsense on Paisley. Buy justification is redundant, understanding it can stop it starting again.

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  11. Peter,
    C'mon now, you know fine well were not favourites. Rangers are the better team, Gerrard's done well. We're hard to watch.
    Anthony,
    Scottish football is shite, but you support who you support. Still I remember coming to Anfield in 2003 and turning the mighty 'pool over

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    1. A truly awful 60 point fifth place Pool team.
      Watching ⚽ is the equivalent of trying eat a cold dinner in five mins. Too many games. Too little time. Injury pile ups. Scrap internationals.

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  12. Anthony,
    I'd love Howe. Lennon does not know how to influence a football match

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  13. I thought the book was good, well written, absolutely fascinating.

    Hutchinson as a personality is, I suppose like all of us, flawed, interesting and infuriating. But he's unlike most of us in that he founded his own paramilitary outfit, was a prominent member of another, and was involved in terrorism.

    I'm working on another wider piece about loyalism so not going to write too much here, but I'm interested in what other people think about what he wrote about the murders he was convicted of? Personally, I thought it was fucking shameful that he said there was intelligence linking his victims to the IRA and he took a coward's way out by simply saying he didn't know if it was accurate or not. This, of course, leads into perhaps a wider, and quite interesting, conversation about how former paramilitaries could, even should, recall what they were involved in.

    I no longer have my copy of UVF by Henry McDonald - but from memory, there is significant overlap between the experiences of one of McDonald's main sources for that book covering the early 70s, and that which Hutchinson details in My Life in Loyalism.

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  14. I am very much looking forward to reading BH book.

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  15. Ronan,
    That's not our problem. It's in the history books pumped in your own backyard. Liverpool's never won competitively at our bit. See Klopp lost the plot yesterday because var went against him for once

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