Another Look At The Belfast UDA

Brandon Sullivan ✍ looks at some of the main characters in the Belfast UDA.

Fear and Loathing Within the Belfast UDA

Brian Nelson’s prison journal is a veritable treasure trove of information. Often mundane and petty, it nevertheless has unique historical value as an insight into the world of loyalist paramilitarism. What is apparent from reading this journal is the breadth and depth of information that the UDA had on republicans. What is also apparent, from looking at historical reports on killings from the period of time covered, is that the UDA usually failed to act decisively and effectively against the republicans.

The journal also reveals the personality clashes endemic within the UDA, and the rampant self-enrichment. Nelson reported meeting Davy Payne in the mid-1980s. Payne was now in charge of “procurement” which usually meant robberies and extortion, but unfortunately for Payne also had a much more dangerous element, of which more later. Payne wanted the UDA to rob the Fisher Body factory in Dundonald, and asked Nelson to do intelligence-gathering work for this, promising Nelson he'd receive 10% of the proceeds of the robbery. Nelson did what he was asked, and provided Payne with the information required. The robbery took place, and Nelson received nothing. Payne never mentioned it again. Payne’s role in procurement meant that he now played a role in the importation of loyalist weapons in January 1988. Nelson himself wrote of the role he had in the procurement of this weaponry, and whilst he doesn’t spell it out, it’s possible that Nelson ensured Payne undertook the risky business of receiving and transporting the consignment. As ever, Balaclava Street describes what happened next brilliantly. Apologies for the lengthy quote, but it captures the nature of events perfectly:

For reasons that are still not entirely clear, on the 8th of January 1988 Davy Payne, the UDA’s north Belfast brigadier, turned up at this location in a hired Maestro accompanied by two others, Thomas Aiken and James McCullough, each driving a hired Ford Granada. To the astonishment of the cache’s caretaker, Payne and his two companions began loading the Granadas with 61 vz. 58s (plus 124 magazines), 30 P9Ms, 150 grenades and fuses, and 11,520 rounds of ammunition – the UDA’s entire share.
As the procession left the farm, the Granadas with their rear bumpers practically scraping the ground, it is difficult to fathom exactly what Payne’s plan – if there even was one – for getting the arms safely to Belfast was. Indeed his thinking and motivation throughout the affair eludes comprehension. For whatever reason he decided to set off not on a direct route to the city but via Portadown. The main A27 road from Tandragee to Portadown was heavily patrolled by the security forces and the main entrance points to the town covered by checkpoints, which makes his decision to use this approach, and not one of the numerous back roads which criss-cross the area, all the more mystifying.
What happened next was virtually inevitable. Just three miles into their journey the UDA team were stopped by the RUC and the arms discovered. Various authors and reports have credited the seizure to a tip-off from an agent or informer, and given the extent to which the UDA was compromised at the time this is quite possible, but the sight of two heavily burdened saloon cars with their rear axles grinding along the asphalt would have immediately alerted even the most unobservant constable or squaddie. The lead Maestro, the supposed scout car, was not even equipped with a CB radio, a vital addition that Payne – evidently never having seen Smokey and the Bandit – had neglected to bring along. Given such a standard of planning the operation was doomed from the start.

Nelson had been shocked at Payne’s physical appearance when they met in 1985, following a gap of many years. Payne, who would have been in his 30s, suffered from a heart complaint and was visibly ill. He died in 2003, at the age of 53 – ironically, the same premature age that Brian Nelson was when he died.

The Curious Case of a UDA Brigadier Leaping Out of a Window

Throughout the Nelson journal are instances of leading UDA figures being advised by RUC sources that specific republican paramilitaries are targeting them. John McMichael was convinced that an INLA member was tracking him, and ordered Nelson to find and set up for assassination his supposed assailant – let’s call him “Bill.” Nelson sent two men, later to be part of Johnny Adair’s inner-circle, to carry out surveillance on Bill. Both men grew bored quickly of their task, and remonstrated with Nelson, saying they’d only do such tasks again if they were armed. Much like he disliked Winkie Dodds, Nelson loathed these UFF members, and considered them low-lives. Tucker Lyttle was utterly terrified, and with justifiable reason, of two specific IRA operatives. One was Dan McCann, who the UFF, in classic Winkie Dodds “Thud & Blunder” style, tried and failed to kill during an attack on his home. Reportedly, McCann had drifted from the IRA but became active following the botched attack. McCann was a particularly effective IRA man, and the UDA hierarchy lived in fear of him. Following his death, another IRA man loomed large in the fears of the UDA upper brass, let’s call him “Graham.” It’s speculation, but one wonders if the UDA leaders were indeed being targeted by specific republicans, or if the RUC were just feeding misinformation to the UDA in the, somewhat optimistic, hope that the UDA would kill them.

In the summer of 1988, an internal power struggle led to the ousting of Andy Tyrie and the subsequent empowering of another UDA figure, Tucker Lyttle. Tucker, perhaps understandably, felt that he was under an enhanced threat from the IRA. Tucker, in fact, had contacts within the RUC’s Special Branch who not only told him that he was under threat, also advised him that the IRA were considering an attack on 275A Shankill Road, where the UDA had an office (later attacked, with devastating civilian losses, by the IRA in 1993). Lyttle was particularly frightened of “Graham” who he considered the most dangerous IRA man in Belfast following Dan McCann’s killing (some say murder) in Gibraltar.

During that summer, according to Nelson’s journal, two senior UDA men, Eric McKee and Nelson, left the UDA Office. As they did, Nelson noticed two men standing outside, one of whom nudged the other. Nelson asked McKee if he had noticed the two men, and McKee confirmed that he had. McKee also agreed with Nelson that they did not recognise either man. Suddenly, the man who nudged the other man turned abruptly and started waving his arm. McKee grabbed Nelson, and both men, sensing an imminent IRA attack, started to run. Nelson saw another three men, none of whom he recognised, and signalled to McKee, and they sought sanctuary behind a beef lorry parked outside of a butcher’s shop, urgently saying to McKee “there’s another three men standing at the corner of Canmore Street.”

Both men ran, until they reached Tennant Street, where they stopped and noted that they had not been pursued. McKee said to Nelson that he was going to collect his car, and instructed Nelson to phone the UDA office and inform them of the ongoing threat outside. Nelson did this, speaking to a UDA man named Ken who answered the phone. "Ken, be very careful about who you let in. We think there's a few fellas from PIRA across the street who might try to get in." Ken reacted with "Holy shit" and dropped the phone. Ken then shouted a warning from the bottom of some stairs, advising Tucker, and a UDA heavy named Campbell, that PIRA "were trying to get in through the front door."

Tucker, whose paranoia about an IRA attacked was all-consuming, ran from his office, picked up a chair and threw it through a window. He then leapt out of the window. Nelson had headed back down the Shankill, and seeing that the coast was clear, went into the office, where he found Ken and Campbell looking for Tucker. Nelson noticed the broken window and looked out, realising that, in his haste to escape an IRA attack, Tucker had jumped out of a window three stories above ground level. In Nelson’s words:

A quick look through the broken window revealed Tucker lying sprawled on the yard below. By the time I got to him, an ambulance had already been summoned. Although he was conscious, he was in shock, and it was clear he had done quote a lot of damage to himself, which was to put him in hospital for a month. Undoubtedly, what had saved him from possible death was the stack of fish trays, belonging to the shop which occupied the ground floor, and which broke his fall.

The following week, McKee and Nelson were on their way to another UDA office, on Gawn Street, when they discussed a news programme which had been on TV the previous evening. The police had described the hijacking of a beef lorry on the Shankill Road – the same beef lorry that McKee and Nelson had sheltered behind thinking that the IRA had come for them. It was not an IRA unit they had seen, but a group of men intent on stealing a lorry of meat. They both decided not to mention this discovery again.

Holed up in the Mater Hospital, Lyttle remained terrified that the IRA would finish him off, and ordered young UDA members to stand guard in and around the hospital. These included a then low-ranking UFF member, Johnny Adair.

The Rise of Johnny Adair

Adair rose through the ranks, and whilst his unit were obsessed with killing “Graham”, they failed, as they failed to kill any active IRA members. They did kill large numbers of nationalist civilians, but significantly fewer than the C Company of the 1970s.

A frequent claim of Adair is that republicans lived in fear of him, and cites the fortifications of their houses as evidence. Adair’s memoir details the fortifications on his own home, and those of the “main men of C Company.” Perhaps Adair compares the evident fear other and prior UDA leaders had for the IRA and compared his own attitudes to theirs. But then again, Adair still took huge precautions, and the IRAalmost killed him on a number of occasions. It also killed and wounded other members of his unit. In fact, in crude death count terms, the Belfast IRA killed more members of the Belfast UDA than vise-versa during the Adair era.

Adair remains, not least through his own efforts, synonymous with violent loyalism. But the truth is that the deeds of him and his unit didn’t match previous UDA units in terms of targeting republican militants, or political figures, or even, in the crudest possible terms, the number of nationalists murdered. Much is written of him elsewhere, and these three articles was an attempt to add to the narrative.

⏩ Brandon Sullivan is a middle aged, middle management, centre-left Belfast man. Would prefer people focused on the actual bad guys.