SAOIRSE32 - Archives

Webshots Community - CREATING POLITICAL ART

Check out what happened to the new Belfast mural under cover of darkness.

SATURDAY 11/10/2003 08:45:21 UTV
SF: Ministers set to revive elections

Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble and Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams were preparing today for arguably their most important face-to-face meeting in the current efforts to revive devolution. By: Press Association

With speculation hardening that the British government may announce next week plans for a November or December Assembly election, the two leaders were expected to meet in Belfast for discussions which could map out efforts to restore devolution.

As parties in Northern Ireland prepared their rank-and-file for an Assembly poll to begin within days, Sinn Fein claimed it believed the British government was extremely close to announcing the election would go ahead.

A party source said: ``We believe the argument for an election has been won.

``Parties expect the government to announce a polling date.

``However, given the bitter experience of the Spring, we are not counting our chickens.``

Earlier this year, British Prime Minister Tony Blair pulled plans for a Stormont election four days into the campaign.

He did so because he was dissatisfied with public assurances from the IRA and Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams that republicans would not do anything inconsistent with the Good Friday Agreement.

Devolution in Northern Ireland has been suspended since October last year when the power-sharing executive threatened to collapse over allegations of IRA spying.

Northern Ireland has for the past year been ruled by a team of Northern Ireland Office ministers from Westminster.

Republicans have resisted pressure for the IRA to make an historic declaration that it is ending all recruiting, training, targeting, intelligence gathering, weapons procurement and involvement in all violence.

Over the past week the belief among most participants is that the Republican Movement will fall short again.

However, there is a belief that the IRA or Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams could go further than before in trying to reassure unionists.

There has also been a belief that the IRA is planning a more transparent act of arms decommissioning in a bid to create the conditions for an election.

Sinn Fein leaders Mr Adams and Martin McGuinness were in Downing Street yesterday to meet the Prime Minister and his chief of staff Jonathan Powell.

US president George W Bush`s special advisor on Northern Ireland Richard Haass is also due to travel to the province on Monday for two days of talks with Northern Ireland parties.

If an Assembly election takes place before Christmas, talks insiders believe the most likely date would be November 13, which would mean that the government would have to declare it before Thursday.

Two other dates have also been considered - November 27 and December 4.

Participants in the negotiations were also placing great emphasis on a proposed photocall tomorrow involving members of a new monitoring body which would scrutinise paramilitary cease-fires in Northern Ireland and the implementation of the Good Friday Agreement.

With the head of the Independent International Commission on decommissioning, General John de Chastelain also in Belfast, a source said: ``All the various elements appear to be there for some choreography in the run up to an election.

``We still have to see if all the moves fall into place.``

ic NorthernIreland - Bombings Blamed For Epidemic Of Deafness

Bombings Blamed For Epidemic Of Deafness Oct 10 2003

By Sandra Murphy Health Correspondent

THE deadly noise of bombs exploding and guns firing during the Troubles was blamed for the silent epidemic sweeping Northern Ireland, a leading Ulster charity said yesterday.

IrelandClick.com

Escape from the Crum
----------------------------------

From the grisly past that hangs over the walls of Crumlin Road Jail like a winter fog to a future that has yet to be decided – Crumlin Road prison has had its fair share of dramas.
Enough to script a dozen Hollywood blockbusters, except this is not the work of the scriptwriter – the experiences of the men both on remand and interned in the prison during the present phase of the North’s conflict are very real.
Every man has a story to tell, each one fascinating, heartbreaking, humorous, horrendous, awe-inspiring and infuriating in its own very unique and personal way.
Having witnessed at first hand the living conditions inside the ageing Victorian prison, listening to the former prisoners’ stories has taken on a new significance.
Republican Terence ‘Cleaky’ Clarke, who later died of cancer, described the Crum as, “the dirtiest prison in Europe” adding, “The Crum’s so bad it would put you off going to jail.”
On close inspection I have to agree with him. The jail was built in such a way that very little natural light gets through to the main building.
The sun never shines in Crumlin Road jail.
Narrow corridors, with cells so small that the feeling of claustrophobia is intense, protrude from the centre circle. You can stand in a cell and touch both facing walls – but during the height of the troubles the jail was so over-crowded that the men were doubled up two and sometimes three to a cell.
Each of the four wings – A,B,C and D – is more or less identical apart from being painted in slightly different insipid shades of paint. The three-tier landings are divided by what is known as anti-suicide wire to stop anyone jumping – or being pushed – from the top tier to the concrete floor below.
The prison hospital, a slightly later addition, opened in 1898, is perhaps one of the vilest places I have ever set foot in. More of an asylum than a place where you could expect to receive any type of care or attention.
Over the years the hospital was home to some of the conflict’s most famous prisoners. Tom Williams spent time there in the 40s before his execution and his remains were buried at the rear of the hospital building.
The ‘Padded Cell’, a place where prisoners deemed to be ‘a danger to themselves’ were kept, is still there, albeit in a dilapidated state. For anyone like myself who’s not all that comfortable with small spaces, this is probably one of the worst places I can ever imagine being locked in. The cell is absolutely tiny and completely lined in leather-type fabric with only a tiny slit at roof level for light.
A dead bird lies on the floor of one of the hospital cells, a cupboard in a former medics room contains lice lotion and ointment for scabies – essential tools of the hospital doctor’s trade.
Veteran republican Martin Meehan is just one of the prisoners whose time in Crumlin Road jail is now a part of history and folklore.
The 1971-72 period of internment became noted for the number of successful escapes from the Crum. This was a source of great anger and embarrassment for the then unionist Stormont government.
For the republican internees, of course, this had the opposite effect and morale on the wings was at an all-time high.
Just weeks after the ‘Crumlin Kangaroo’ escape, when nine republican prisoners went over the wall on rope ladders, Martin Meehan, Tony Doherty and Hugh McCann also made a successful bid for freedom.
The escape was the final straw for then Prime Minister Brian Faulkner. Security at the jail had been tightened after the first escape and unionists were reassured that the jail was infallible.
Martin Meehan spent several periods of imprisonment in Crumlin Road during the early Troubles. He recalls: “For republicans, it was our duty to escape.
“Republican prisoners were always plotting new ways to escape, and as well as the successful escapes there were numerous attempted escape plans hatched.
“I was first sent to Crumlin Road Jail in 1969 following the Ardoyne Pogroms. I was sentenced to two months for orchestrating a riot.
“You did your time hard. We wore brown suits with a yellow star on the arm, it was like a concentration camp and it was hard labour. When I was released I swore I would never set foot inside a jail again. I lived to eat those words.
“In 1971 I was remanded in the Crum on a trumped-up weapons charge and planned an escape with my cellmate. He wasn’t a republican but a radical student who was arrested for causing disturbances at some student demonstration. We sawed through the bars on our windows.
“Just before the date we planned to escape Billy McKee came to me and said, you can beat this charge and you are mad to escape. My cellmate went as planned and got away, that was June 10, 1971.
“I went to court on June 29 and sure enough I did beat the charge, not that it did me much good as by November 9 I was interned and back inside Crumlin Road Jail.”
Martin Meehan was interned with Tony Doherty. The two were arrested by the Green Howards and taken to Palace Barracks, where they were beaten and tortured to within an inch of their lives. When Martin Meehan was eventually transferred to Crumlin Road Jail he had 47 stitches in his head.
“I can remember very little about being taken to the Crum, I was totally out of it. We had been given a serious beating. They carried me in laughing and joking. They had put a British army uniform on me, the blood was dripping from my face.
“I remember a screw called William Wilson tried to help me. He told the British army and the RUC to stand back and helped me to the bath.
“He was killed by the IRA in 1979 as he walked from the Crum to the Royal Ancient Order of Buffaloes Club in Century Street. His son went on to become a governor in Long Kesh.”
By December a plan to escape had already been hatched.
Martin remembers it all clearly: “Just after the so-called Kangaroo escape, security at the jail was supposed to be at its height. It was just the second day that we were allowed back on to the football pitch that we escaped.
“The three of us covered ourselves in butter to protect us from the water and during half-time climbed down a manhole. It was a Thursday afternoon and the screws got paid so they were more interested in counting their money than counting heads – they never even noticed we were gone.
“We stayed down there up to our necks in freezing water for six hours. We had made a rope out of sheets with a hook made from the leg of a chair with more sheets wrapped around it so it wouldn’t clink when it hit the wall. By this time a thick fog had fallen.
“I remember we thought there was a Brit with a gun pointing at us through the fog, it turned out to be a cement mixer with a brush pole sticking out.
“We got to the wall and tried to climb up the rope, but we were covered in butter, and kept slipping back down again.
“When we eventually got over the wall there was an old green Avenger car waiting for us in Cliftonpark Avenue with the keys under the mat. But because it was winter the car wouldn’t start. After 10 minutes we got it going and drove down Agnes Street and through the Shankill on to the Falls to a house in O’Donnell Street.
“From there we were taken to another house. I remember the man of the house gave me a pair of shoes to put on. I was to walk to a house in Beechmount and on the way the sole fell off the shoes.
“The escape was a source of great embarrassment for the government at the time. Ian Paisley demanded an inquiry.
“You see, the prison authorities only realised we had escaped after the British army phoned to tell them that people were lighting bonfires in Ardoyne because Meehan and Doherty had escaped.
“That was at about eight in the evening, they weren’t able to do a head count until 9.30 – that was when they discovered we were missing.
“My cellmate at the time, Tommy Muldoon, told me when they came in to search the cell they lifted the piss pot and looked underneath.”
When Martin Meehan was finally recaptured and charged with unlawful escape from Crumlin Road Jail he managed to turn the historic escape into a landmark court case.
He had initially been arrested and interned by the British Army, but the Special Powers Act at the time stated that only the RUC had the authority to charge anyone. Martin Meehan argued in court that his arrest was unlawful, therefore his escape was lawful.
Justice McGonagle conceded the argument and Martin Meehan was released.
“I had no defence lawyers and argued my own case. The judgement was unprecedented and within two days the government rushed through emergency legislation to prevent the other detainees from using the loophole.
“In fact I was awarded £800 compensation for being held illegally. So not only did I escape but I also set a precedent and was compensated into the bargain, not a bad day’s work!”
Falls Road republican Fra McCann’s memories of the imposing Victorian jail are different but no less vivid.
Along with three other republicans – Gerard Murray, Jimmy Duffy and Joe Maguire – Fra was on the blanket protest in Crumlin Road Jail for 16 months.
The four men became known as the ‘Forgotten Blanketmen.’
At the time, what were termed short-term prisoners – those sentenced to less than four years – were left to serve out their sentence in Crumlin Road Jail.
After the removal of Special Category Status, the four men were ordered to put on a prison uniform and conform – make themselves available for prison work. The four refused and joined the blanket protest.
They went on to endure appalling treatment. In fact so much so that the ‘number one diet’ issued to all the men as punishment for not conforming was deemed illegal by the European Court of Human Rights.
Without the camaraderie the other blanket men had within the H-Blocks, Fra and his colleagues found the going tough. “The isolation was one of the worst parts of our time in the Crum – when we were moved to the Kesh it was almost a relief.
“The four of us were kept in solitary, an empty cell between us so we couldn’t talk to each other. Billy Moore and Basher Bates – the Shankill Butchers – were our orderlies.
“Every 14 days we were given three days punishment for not conforming. They would come in to your cell and remove your bed and blankets and leave you naked in the freezing cell for 12 hours.
“You were also issued with what was called the number one diet – black tea and bread in the morning, strained soup at lunch, and black tea and bread for dinner.
“It was a severe regime, but to put on a prison uniform would have been unthinkable.
“A screw once said to a blanketman, ‘I wouldn’t live like you for a million pounds.’ The blanketman replied, ‘Neither would I.’
“That sort of sums it up.”
• Don’t miss Thursday’s Andersonstown News for the conclusion of our three-part series on the Crum.



Journalist:: Allison Morris

CAJ condemns PSNI decision to hold back documents from Mallon inquest
------------------------------------------------
The Committee on the Administration of Justice today expressed grave disquiet at the decision of the PSNI and the MOD not to disclose documents to Coroner Roger McLernon.
The decision was announced in a hearing into the cases of Roseanne Mallon and nine other people who were killed either by the army or by loyalists, in circumstances where there is credible evidence of collusion.
To date some (but not all) material has been supplied to the Coroner but it has been redacted.
Three weeks ago the Coroner ordered that the PSNI and the MOD hand over all material in un-redacted form.
Representatives of the PSNI and MOD made clear in correspondence to the Coroner disclosed at Dungannon court house today that the material would not be disclosed.
A spokesperson for CAJ said the decision to ignore the ruling raised serious concerns about the applicability of the rule of law and the extent to which the PSNI takes its duties under the Human Rights Act seriously.
"When the police simply ignore court orders it hardly augurs well for a new dispensation in policing based on respect for human rights."
For further information please contact Paul Mageean or Martin O'Brien at CAJ 028 90961122 or on their respective mobile numbers 07703 564467 and 07802434769.


Journalist:: Seán Mag Uidhir


IrelandClick.com

Northern Ireland News



I'll Make A Lot Of Noise If Anyone Interferes Oct 8 2003




By Alan Erwin


THE Government was warned yesterday that it should not interfere with a report into controversial murders involving alleged security force collusion in Northern Ireland and the Republic.



Canadian judge Peter Cory, who revealed that his exhaustive examination of six killings has uncovered new lines of inquiry, also pledged to hold the Government to its commitment to carry out public inquiries in any cases he recommended.

He said that any bid to alter the 500-page dossier would be resisted.

''I have one younger grandson who expresses it very well. He says 'I'm going down to my room and I'm going to kick and scream and turn blue'.

"I don't think I would kick and scream and I don't think I would turn blue but I would make a lot of noise.''

Receiving the reports in London, Northern Ireland Secretary Paul Murphy said that he would consider their contents speedily and carefully.

He said: ''The two governments are determined that, where there are allegations of collusion, the truth should emerge.

"We will consider the reports urgently and undertake to publish them as soon as possible, in line with the terms of reference.''

He paid tribute to the retired Canadian judge, saying he had put in long hours examining each case.

Irish premier Bertie Ahern said that Minister for Justice Michael McDowell will publish the findings, depending on security aspects.

Mr Ahern said: ''We have not yet finalised the arrangements with the British government on when we will get access to their reports and when they will get access to ours but, certainly, we will exchange information once they are examined by the departments.

"They have an interest in ours and we have an interest in the cases that they put forward.''

The retired Canadian Supreme Court Judge has spent the last 14 months investigating each of the cases after being appointed by the authorities in London and Dublin.

The murders include the loyalist assassinations of lawyers Pat Finucane and Rosemary Nelson, the killings of a high court judge and two senior RUC officers by the IRA, and the shooting of jailed terror boss Billy Wright.

Prime Minister Tony Blair is committed to setting up public tribunals similar to the hearing on the Bloody Sunday shootings if Justice Cory believes any are needed.

It could be two months before his findings are published.

The judge said that the six cases agreed by the two governments and political parties during talks on the peace process at Weston Park in Staffordshire in 2001 were based on calling public inquiries if needed.

"To do anything else might be something that was demeaning of the Weston Park agreement,'' Mr Justice Cory said.

"There are other ways and other situations that can take the place of a public inquiry.

"As I understand the agreement and what was done, there's no alternative to a public inquiry and what would be understood as a public inquiry in 2001 in these six cases selected at that time in which a public inquiry was recommended.''

Fears have been expressed that his independence could be compromised as legal chiefs trawl through the document to blank out any names or information relevant to criminal investigations.

The judge said: ''To some extent, the report is going to demonstrate that independence.''

He has worked closely with detectives, including Scotland Yard chief Sir John Stevens' team investigating collusion claims surrounding the 1989 murder of Belfast lawyer Pat Finucane.

The judge also disclosed that his work had uncovered details not previously known to the detectives.

He said: ''I have seen things that, because of the routes followed, are additional to some of the police investigations.

"I have had tremendous cooperation from Sir John Stevens and his team and I like to think I co-operated with him in the same way''.

It is understood that Mr Justice Cory will return to the UK in mid-November to check on any amendments made to his report.

With the document having to pass through parliament and then be printed, the publication date is likely to be early December.

Mr Justice Cory accepted that the attorney generals faced a difficult task in balancing any criminal prosecutions against public inquiries, if any were needed.

"Very often it's extremely difficult to hold both at the same time.

"In other instances, it's not.

"It depends on the situation and the nature of the evidence and direction the public inquiry is taking.

"I have written concerning it in the reports.''

With the allegations refusing to go away, Mr Justice Cory said: '' Sometimes myths and legends grow up.

"It's important they be shown to be false.

"Sometimes, you can only do that with public inquiries and exploring what has happened.

"Collusion is, in effect, conniving with those who committed the murder by turning a blind eye and secretly encouraging.

"If there's to be confidence, there has be public inquiries if there is collusion.''


icNorthernIreland.co.uk

Omagh families demand Dublin hands over informer

Henry McDonald, Ireland editor
Sunday October 5, 2003
The Observer

Families of the Omagh bomb victims challenged the Irish government last night to hand over an informer who is living abroad under a Garda witness protection programme. Relatives of those killed in the biggest atrocity of the Northern Ireland Troubles said the republic must allow detectives investigating the Real IRA murder of 29 men, women and children to interview the informant.

They were 'shocked and dismayed' that the Irish authorities had not informed the PSNI and the families that a key potential witness had been in protective custody abroad for several years.

The Observer knows the identity of the informer, who is from the Finglas area of north Dublin. At the time of the Omagh bomb he stole cars on behalf of the car dealer for the Real IRA. He knew about the plot to transport a large explosive device into Northern Ireland just prior to the massacre on 15 August, 1998. A heroin addict who fed his habit through crime, the thief told his handlers that the Real IRA planned to put a bomb in a northern town days before the blast.

The informer told his Garda contact that the Real IRA was seeking a Vauxhall Cavalier, the model used to transport the bomb to Omagh. The Real IRA asked him to approach a used car dealer in the republic for a Cavalier. When the dealer was unable to do so, the Real IRA used two other criminals, including a northerner known as 'Belfast Jim', to steal a Cavalier in Co Monaghan, 24 hours before the bombing. None of this intelligence was sent to the RUC.

'Bells should have started ringing the moment the Vauxhall was stolen, given the information the car thief had passed on to his handlers,' one Garda officer admitted yesterday.

The Finglas man was arrested two months after the bombing for car theft, but all charges were dropped and he was spirited out of the republic

Last night Michael Gallagher, whose son Aidan died in Omagh, said: 'If this man has vital information on the Omagh bomb, then the PSNI should be allowed to interview him.

'There have been a number of important sources of intelligence the Garda were running who have never been allowed to be interviewed by the Omagh investigations team. It begs the question as to why this man was moved out of the republic, and where is he now?'

Sunday Business Post

Anniversary of march into chaos

By Tom McGurk
All of 35 years ago this very afternoon, a crowd of demonstrators gathered at Duke Street in Derry.

They were relatively small in number and, apart from some nationalist politicians, including Gerry Fitt and the late Eddie McAteer, and a handful of socialist and left-wing agitators, most were what could be described as the ordinary people of Derry.

In all, a crowd of about 400 were intending to march across Craigavon Bridge and into the centre of the city.

The previous day, October 4, 1968, the then Home Affairs Minister, William Craig, had banned the march and the RUC were present in large numbers intent on enforcing his order. Among the marchers themselves there was some dispute about whether they should defy the ban, but a group led by the Derry Young Socialists would wait no longer and began to move towards the police lines.They had a blue civil rights banner and a collection of badly printed posters demanding votes, jobs, houses and fair employment.

What happened next was quite extraordinary. The RUC, who by now had sandwiched the marchers front and rear, suddenly attacked with batons and water cannon.To the astonishment of the demonstrators, who were still standing waiting to march, the police ran among them, belting people around the heads and arms. One RUC District Inspector was even wielding his blackthorn stick, the official symbol of his authority.

Something else quite extraordinary happened. In those days when television news on this side of the Atlantic consisted mainly of formal, static reporting, the RUC seemed to forget that there were cameramen present. Or perhaps, more significantly given the political climate of the times, they didn't seem to care. Among the cameramen was the late Gay O'Brien of RTE who worked calmly amid the chaos, finger on the button.

His 12-minute reel of black and white film was shown that night on RTE, and subsequently, all across the globe. O'Brien's footage was a defining moment in the coverage of the troubles and instantly established the unparalleled impact television images would play over the next decades in the North.

Because of O'Brien's images, nothing in Ireland would ever be the same again. The RTE coverage of that moment in Duke Street was like a starting pistol fired across the sleeping landscape of an Ireland then a mere two generations into partition. There could hardly have been a more articulate expression for the then state of Northern society than the casual brutality of the RUC, which was, of course, defended by the Stormont government.

Looking back,the irony is that, in the immediate years preceding the outrage in Derry, the North had actually begun to drag itself out of its one-party state torpor.

Terence O'Neill's brand of unionism had begun to melt the political ice and a generation of post eleven-plus nationalists had begun to produce a new middle class. In those rock 'n' roll years,young Catholics and Protestants had even begun to mix as never before.

Of course, the sectarian structures of the one-party unionist state were still firmly in place, but a rising tide of economic progress, education and opportunity had served for the moment to camouflage the old barriers.

That summer of '68, as discos endlessly played the Beatles' Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, there was even a sense of hope in the air. Even the Orange State, it seemed, couldn't resist the Swinging Sixties. But those violent events in Derry proved how how ephemeral all this was.

Perhaps the most ironic and subse-quently, tragic, moment of all was to come in the virulent reaction of unionism to the civil rights movement itself. If, just for a moment, unionists had stepped back and looked more carefully at what the new political phenomenon actually represented we might all have avoided the abyss that was to follow.

In realpolitik,what the civil rights movement demonstrated was that two generations into partition, there was a formidable movement among nationalists to accept the Northern state provided they could be guaranteed equal rights and status. What nationalists were demanding - at that moment anyway - was full British rights within a British state. Perhaps it was only a tactic, but it was the furthest a nationalist hand had ever reached out towards acceptance of the Six Counties as a political entity.

There is no doubt that their continuing political powerlessness in contrast to their emerging economic and educational power, was primarily responsible for this shift. With militant republicanism hibernating since the failed 1950s campaign, with their political representatives (who had actually then become the official opposition at Stormont) still left powerless and with mostly indifference, apart from rhetoric coming from Dublin, nationalism had now discovered a third, extra-parliamentary and peaceful strategy.

Tragically, mainstream political unionism, with Paisley's ranting off stage ringing in their ears, remained true to type. As the demand for civil rights was met by the resurgence of the anti-Catholic conservative evangelical tradition as represented by Paisley, mainstream unionism fell in behind.

Even O'Neill's initial steps to meet the civil rights agenda were used by unionism as weapons to destroy him.Within avery short time those nationalists who had originally withdrawn their consent from the state because it treated them as second-class citizens, and had then tried the experiment of civil rights, were once again withdrawing consent because the state had now proved itself to be unreformable. And it was into this new catharsis that militant republicans eagerly stepped.

`What ifs' are mere historical parlour games, but had that October 5 march not been banned, and had O'Neill been allowed by mainstream unionism to respond to the civil rights campaign, maybe a perilous corner might have been negotiated safely.

But such was the determining power of sectarianism within unionism, that the potential politics of the crisis was rendered invisible - simply be caus e they were Catholics. As ever, anti-Catholicism was used as a mobilisation to defend the socioeconomic and political position of Protestants and as a rationalisation to legitimise all consequent discrimination.

Those drawn police batons of October 5, 1968 - 35 years ago today - slammed shut a tiny window of opportunity that had unexpectedly opened.

comment@sbpost.ie



They were relatively small in number and, apart from some nationalist politicians, including Gerry Fitt and the late Eddie McAteer, and a handful of socialist and left-wing agitators, most were what could be described as the ordinary people of Derry.

In all, a crowd of about 400 were intending to march across Craigavon Bridge and into the centre of the city.

The previous day, October 4, 1968, the then Home Affairs Minister, William Craig, had banned the march and the RUC were present in large numbers intent on enforcing his order. Among the marchers themselves there was some dispute about whether they should defy the ban, but a group led by the Derry Young Socialists would wait no longer and began to move towards the police lines.They had a blue civil rights banner and a collection of badly printed posters demanding votes, jobs, houses and fair employment.




What happened next was quite extraordinary. The RUC, who by now had sandwiched the marchers front and rear, suddenly attacked with batons and water cannon.To the astonishment of the demonstrators, who were still standing waiting to march, the police ran among them, belting people around the heads and arms. One RUC District Inspector was even wielding his blackthorn stick, the official symbol of his authority.

Something else quite extraordinary happened. In those days when television news on this side of the Atlantic consisted mainly of formal, static reporting, the RUC seemed to forget that there were cameramen present. Or perhaps, more significantly given the political climate of the times, they didn't seem to care. Among the cameramen was the late Gay O'Brien of RTE who worked calmly amid the chaos, finger on the button.

His 12-minute reel of black and white film was shown that night on RTE, and subsequently, all across the globe. O'Brien's footage was a defining moment in the coverage of the troubles and instantly established the unparalleled impact television images would play over the next decades in the North.

Because of O'Brien's images, nothing in Ireland would ever be the same again. The RTE coverage of that moment in Duke Street was like a starting pistol fired across the sleeping landscape of an Ireland then a mere two generations into partition. There could hardly have been a more articulate expression for the then state of Northern society than the casual brutality of the RUC, which was, of course, defended by the Stormont government.

Looking back,the irony is that, in the immediate years preceding the outrage in Derry, the North had actually begun to drag itself out of its one-party state torpor.

Terence O'Neill's brand of unionism had begun to melt the political ice and a generation of post eleven-plus nationalists had begun to produce a new middle class. In those rock 'n' roll years,young Catholics and Protestants had even begun to mix as never before.

Of course, the sectarian structures of the one-party unionist state were still firmly in place, but a rising tide of economic progress, education and opportunity had served for the moment to camouflage the old barriers.

That summer of '68, as discos endlessly played the Beatles' Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, there was even a sense of hope in the air. Even the Orange State, it seemed, couldn't resist the Swinging Sixties. But those violent events in Derry proved how how ephemeral all this was.

Perhaps the most ironic and subse-quently, tragic, moment of all was to come in the virulent reaction of unionism to the civil rights movement itself. If, just for a moment, unionists had stepped back and looked more carefully at what the new political phenomenon actually represented we might all have avoided the abyss that was to follow.

In realpolitik,what the civil rights movement demonstrated was that two generations into partition, there was a formidable movement among nationalists to accept the Northern state provided they could be guaranteed equal rights and status. What nationalists were demanding - at that moment anyway - was full British rights within a British state. Perhaps it was only a tactic, but it was the furthest a nationalist hand had ever reached out towards acceptance of the Six Counties as a political entity.

There is no doubt that their continuing political powerlessness in contrast to their emerging economic and educational power, was primarily responsible for this shift. With militant republicanism hibernating since the failed 1950s campaign, with their political representatives (who had actually then become the official opposition at Stormont) still left powerless and with mostly indifference, apart from rhetoric coming from Dublin, nationalism had now discovered a third, extra-parliamentary and peaceful strategy.

Tragically, mainstream political unionism, with Paisley's ranting off stage ringing in their ears, remained true to type. As the demand for civil rights was met by the resurgence of the anti-Catholic conservative evangelical tradition as represented by Paisley, mainstream unionism fell in behind.

Even O'Neill's initial steps to meet the civil rights agenda were used by unionism as weapons to destroy him.Within avery short time those nationalists who had originally withdrawn their consent from the state because it treated them as second-class citizens, and had then tried the experiment of civil rights, were once again withdrawing consent because the state had now proved itself to be unreformable. And it was into this new catharsis that militant republicans eagerly stepped.

`What ifs' are mere historical parlour games, but had that October 5 march not been banned, and had O'Neill been allowed by mainstream unionism to respond to the civil rights campaign, maybe a perilous corner might have been negotiated safely.

But such was the determining power of sectarianism within unionism, that the potential politics of the crisis was rendered invisible - simply be caus e they were Catholics. As ever, anti-Catholicism was used as a mobilisation to defend the socioeconomic and political position of Protestants and as a rationalisation to legitimise all consequent discrimination.

Those drawn police batons of October 5, 1968 - 35 years ago today - slammed shut a tiny window of opportunity that had unexpectedly opened.

comment@sbpost.ie

Arrest fears over 'dirty war' book

Stake Knife authors will risk imprisonment by detailing allegations of collusion between terrorists and security forces

Henry McDonald, Ireland editor
Sunday October 5, 2003
The Observer

A former undercover soldier pledged to ignore a threat of arrest to promote his new book on the 'dirty war' in Northern Ireland. Martin Ingram, a former member of the British Army's secretive Force Research Unit, pledged to promote the book detailing allegations of collusion between terrorists and the security forces even if it means risking imprisonment.

Ingram and his co-author, Greg Harkin, have written Stake Knife, the inside story of how agents for the British Army and RUC were able to carry out criminal acts, including murder, while working for the state.

Speaking from abroad, Ingram told The Observer that he said he was determined to promote the book in the UK, despite the threat of him being arrested for alleged breaches of the Official Secrets Act. The Ministry of Defence is considering whether to prosecute Ingram and Harkin over revelations made in Stake Knife about the secret anti-terrorist war in Ulster.

'If they want to arrest me, then they can arrest me,' he said. 'I am not running away or changing my lifestyle for them.'

The ex-army whistleblower added: 'I am not doing this for myself but rather for the public interest. In a democratic society the people should know that their security forces were allowing people serving the state to break the law up to and including murder. There are also families out there who have lost loved ones that deserve to be told that in many instances the people that killed their relatives were agents working for the British state.'

Ingram said he has been told that he may be arrested if he returns to Britain, having lived for eight years outside the UK. The former soldier spent several days in jail after giving interviews to journalists about the security forces' use of agents operating inside the IRA and loyalist terror groups. Ingram and Harkin are scheduled to join a promotional tour of the book in several UK cities next month. Their Irish publishers, O'Brien Press, have said they will print the book in the Irish Republic even if the MoD decides to slap an injunction on it in Britain and Northern Ireland.

Ingram served as an NCO for 12 years in the British Army's Intelligence Corps and six years inside the Force Research Unit.

The ex-soldier has been the source of a series of embarrassing revelations for the security forces in Northern Ireland, including the plot to kill Belfast solicitor Pat Finucane and the role of 'Stakeknife', the British Army's most prized intelligence asset inside the IRA.

Earlier this year a number of newspapers named Freddie Scappattici, the former head of the IRA's internal security department, as Stakeknife.

The allegations are strongly denied by Scappattici, who has claimed the reports have put his life in danger.

Ingram's fellow author was defiant about any threats of injunction or imprisonment. 'An arrest or injunction would be an attack on free speech, which we would resist to the end. I think any move like that would backfire on the MOD,' Harkin said last night.

Stake Knife will not only explore the alleged role of Scappattici in the deaths of IRA members accused of being informers but also the activities of the late loyalist terrorist Brian Nelson. Ingram and Harkin say Nelson had been working for the FRU as far back as the early 1980s when he prevented scores of UDA murder bids in Greater Belfast.

The authors will also claim that one of the police officers accused of setting up republicans for assassination by loyalists, known as 'Geoff', is still serving in the PSNI.

JIM CUSACK

THE IRA has begun to issue apologies to families of its own members who were tortured and murdered as informers following revelations that its internal security section - the notorious "nutting squad" - was headed by at least one British Army agent known as Stakeknife.

In both An Phoblacht and the west Belfast weekly newspaper, the Andersonstown News, the IRA has apologised to the families of two IRA men - one of whom was almost certainly innocent of the charges brought against him.

It is the first time the IRA has recanted in such a fashion, and republican sources say it has been coming under intense pressure in Catholic areas from families of IRA men killed for informing.

It is expected that more apologies will be issued, as the nutting squad was responsible for killing at least 47 men accused of being informants.

One of the two agents working inside the IRA internal security unit was also suspected of passing information that led to the British Army's SAS shooting dead IRA men in Belfast and Co Tyrone.

The apologies issued in the past fortnight are on behalf of two IRA men: Michael Kearney from west Belfast, who was kidnapped, tortured and shot dead in July 1979; and Anthony Braniff from Ardoyne, who was killed in September 1981.

There is strong circumstantial evidence that agents within the IRA set up both men for execution to draw attention from themselves.

Kearney was blamed for supplying information to the RUC that led to the disruption of a planned 40-bomb blitz in Belfast in early 1979.

Although he was involved in transporting bombs to the assembly point for the attack, it is now known that Kearney did not supply the information about the bombs.

Kearney was tortured and, the IRA alleged, confessed to passing information. He was found "in breach of general orders" and shot in the head.

It has now emerged that the two men in charge of the squad that tortured and killed Kearney were working for the RUC and British Army.

The other case is that of 27-year-old Anthony Braniff, who is believed to have been responsible for setting up another IRA man, Maurice Gilvarry, for execution as an informer in January 1981.

He blamed Gilvarry for tipping off the RUC about a planned IRA bomb attack in June 1978 which was intercepted by the SAS, who shot dead the three bombers.

Braniff was eventually caught after it was discovered he was receiving a weekly wage from the British Army.

However, last week the IRA issued a statement through An Phoblacht denying he was an informer and praising him in unctuous terms.

Republican sources say there has been huge resentment among the families of IRA members shot dead as informants after it emerged the internal security squad was headed by two agents. These two men - who might have been collectively, rather than individually, known as Stakeknife - were two of the most important agents ever run inside the IRA.

They were uniquely placed to provide the security forces with information and to cause disruption within the IRA. Both were responsible for multiple killings. One died two years ago.

The same squad was also responsible for killing civilians like the Co Louth farmer, Tom Oliver. Mr Oliver was killed after being accused of telling gardai about an arms dump he had uncovered on his farm.

He was branded an informer and murdered as a lesson to others not to give information to the gardai.

**From Fenian Voice

Fallen Comrade of the Irish Republican Socialist Movement

Seamus Costello
Chairperson - Irish Republican Socialist Party
Chief of Staff - Irish National Liberation Army
Assassinated on 5 October 1977

Seamus Costello was born in Bray, County Wicklow, Ireland in 1939,the eldest of nine children.

His interest in politics began in his early teens. At the age of sixteen he joined Sinn Fein and the Irish Republican Army. Within a year he was commanding an Active Service Unit of the IRA in South Derry, where his leadership skills earned him the nickname of "The Boy General". His unit carried out many successful operations, including the destruction of bridges and the burning of a British courthouse.

He was arrested in Glencree, County Wicklow in 1957 and sentenced to six months in Mountjoy Prison. On his release he was immediately interned in the Curragh prison camp for two years.

He spent his time in prison studying, becoming particularly inspired by his studies of the Vietnamese struggle. He became a member of the escape committee which engineered the successful escapes of Ruari O'Bradaigh and Daithi O'Connell among others. Costello would later refer to this time as his "university days."

After his release from the Curragh, Costello worked to rebuild the Republican Movement, beginning by building a local base of support in County Wicklow as Sinn Fein's local organiser. He helped form a strong
Tenants Association in Bray, and also became involved with the Credit Union movement, farmers' organisations, and trade unions. He stood for
election to the Bray Urban District Council and the Wicklow County Council in 1967 and successfully won election to both seats.

During this period, he found time to marry a Tipperary woman, Maeliosa, who also became active in the Republican Movement.

As both a trade unionist (in the Irish Transport and General Workers' Union) and an elected representative, he never wavered from advocating
the necessity of a socialist revolution carried out by the working class itself - nor did he waver from his belief that the class struggle and the national liberation struggle are necessarily intertwined in colonised and/or occupied nations such as Ireland.

During the split of the Republican Movement into Official and Provisional factions in 1969, Costello remained with the Officials, serving as Official Sinn Fein's Vice-President and the Official IRA's Director of Operations.

As the Officials began their slide into reformist politics, Costello's principled opposition led to his being dismissed from the OIRA and suspended from OSF. His dismissal from OSF came in 1974 after the OSF leadership undemocratically blocked his supporters from attending the party convention.

At a meeting in the Lucan Spa, a hotel near Dublin, on 8 December 1974, the Irish Republican Socialist Party was formed by republicans, socialists, and trade unionists with Costello as the Chairperson.

At a secret meeting later the same day, the Irish National Liberation Army was formed with Costello as the Chief of Staff, although its existence was to be kept hidden for a time.

Within days of its founding, the fledgling Irish Republican Socialist Movement was to begin a baptism of fire at the hands of the OIRA. Members of the IRSM would be attacked and even killed. Before a truce was reached, three members of the young movement were dead.

Despite the truce, Costello was shot and killed by a member of the OIRA in Dublin on 5 October 1977.

At the time of his death, he was a member of the following bodies: Wicklow County Council, County Wicklow Committee of Agriculture, General Council of Committees of Agriculture, Eastern Regional Development Organisation, National Museum Development Committee, Bray Urban District Council, Bray Branch of the Irish Transport and General Workers' Union, Bray and District Trade Unions Council (of which he was president 1976-77), and the Cualann Historical Society, as well as still holding the positions of Chairperson of the IRSP and Chief of Staff of the INLA.

At his funeral, Nora Connolly O'Brien (daughter of James Connolly) said Costello "was the only one who truly understood what James Connolly meant when he spoke of his vision of the freedom of the Irish people."

*******

"I owe my allegiance to the working class." - Seamus Costello

He died as he lived: a Republican Socialist. Remember him with honour and pride.

*******

First Allegiance - A Socialist Republic
By Bernadette Devlin McAliskey

My personal acquaintance and friendship with Seamus Costello began in 1973. Before then I knew him only, as most people in Ireland, by reputation.

On hearing of his death, I could find no words of my own to express the deep sense of loss I felt, both personally and as a revolutionary socialist committed to the struggle for Irish freedom. I took therefore the words of a fellow revolutionary on the death of Malcolm X, the black revolutionary champion of black liberation and socialism in the U.S.A.: "Without him, we feel suddenly vulnerable, small and weak, somewhat frightened, not by the prospect of death, but of life and struggle without his contribution, his strength and inspiration."

There is no doubt that the struggle continues and its victory or defeat is not measured solely by the number or quality of our fallen comrades individually. Yet it is equally true that in every generation of struggle the combination of circumstances, history and the nature of the struggle itself, produces from the ranks of its rebels a few, and a very few individuals who, notwithstanding the fundamental principles of organisation, political correctness and
practical ability, common to many, rise head and shoulders above the rest, with a potential for leadership, far beyond the ranks of the already committed. Such a comrade was Seamus Costello.

Brutally murdered by petty, small-minded men of no vision whose only place in history is to serve as a warning to others how revolutionaries gone wrong can degenerate into worse than nothingness, Seamus Costello, for all that he was and did in his lifetime, was only at the beginning of his potential contribution to the achievement of national liberation and socialism in this generation. That is not to say that Seamus was above making mistakes or that he was always politically correct. There were many questions
on which I disagreed with him, and which I considered crucial to the development of the struggle. These remain unresolved.

Nonetheless, in leaving the Official Republican Movement and taking the initiative of forming the IRSP, Seamus Costello proved his ability in practice - once convinced that the approach of the organisation to which he belonged was wrong and could not be altered from within - to take on the daunting, but necessary task of building an organisation capable and willing to carry the struggle forward. The fact that he was capable of it underlined his key position in the struggle, and his recognition of the need to forge a revolutionary force in Ireland from the unification of the republican and labour movements.

If I did not accept his arguments on how it could be done, I remained confident that he, again, if he found himself mistaken, would move further in his political analysis to another approach. He did not live to see the test of theory in practice.

Much is said of his single mindedness, his ruthlessness and organisational ability. At his hardest, Seamus Costello was never hateful, nor was there a fibre of his being that was petty or personally malicious, and despite the slanders of his enemies, he was neither politically nor religiously sectarian.

He owed his first allegiance to an ideal - a 32 county socialist republic. His enemies he defined only as those who consciously strove to suffocate, distort or deny _expression to that goal, and prevent its achievement. As an orator, he was brilliant and inspiring. In debate, he was uncompromising, skilled and learned. As an organiser, he was efficient and did not easily tolerate idleness or half-hearted
effort.

Yet in my mind's eye, when I think of him, I see him laughing. A sense of humour, the ability to laugh at oneself, and the predicament in which we find ourselves, is sadly too rare a quality among revolutionaries. Seamus possessed it in good measure.

His single greatest attribute was, however, his ability to relate to the mass of the people. His potential as a leader of mass struggle is not easily replaced. He could inspire not only the dream but the confidence of its achievement, and the commitment to work towards that end.

From the ranks of mass struggle, others will come. From the experience of struggle, the political programme, organisation and method of struggle will come. But another Seamus Costello may never
come again. When our freedom has been won, let us guard it well, remembering it was paid for in the blood and the lives of those now dead, but whose memory lives forever in the hearts of us who loved them for all that they were and all they might have been, had they been allowed to live.

*******

Related Websites:

http://www.irsm.org/fallen/costello/
http://www.irsm.org/irsp/costello/
http://www.irsm.org/irsp/costello/bio/

The downfall of Mad Dog Adair

At the height of his power, loyalist warlord Johnny Adair was responsible for a murder spree that resulted in the deaths of 40 Ulster Catholics. But it was only when he turned the guns on his own people that his reign of terror ended. David Lister and Hugh Jordan recount the demise of the Shankill Godfather

Sunday October 5, 2003
The Observer

On 15 May 2002, after 21 months in Maghaberry Prison in County Antrim, Johnny 'Mad Dog' Adair was released from jail for a second time. As he jumped out of a white prison van, he punched the air in celebration and shouted the only Latin words he had ever known: 'Quis separabit'. Over the next eight months the UDA's slogan, meaning, 'Who will come between us?', would become a bad joke, but for now there was unbridled euphoria as up to 300 supporters cheered and let off fireworks. Before returning to a triumphant reception outside his home in Boundary Way, West Belfast, he was welcomed by his fellow brigadiers. The media captured the show of unity as the South Belfast UDA leader Jackie McDonald and his colleagues gathered round to shake his hand. What reporters did not know, however, was that most had been reluctant to go. Looking back, Billy 'The Mexican' McFarland of north Antrim and Derry explained: 'I regret going to meet him. In the end the five brigadiers went and out of those five no one wanted to shake hands with him. There had been stories in the papers about splits in the UDA and John White argued that this would show unity.'

Within weeks, Adair and his spokesman White were contriving to persuade the world that the Shankill loyalist was a changed man. He took up a £16,500 post as a prisoners' welfare co-ordinator, a position funded by the British taxpayer. When the news broke, the Northern Ireland Office faced a storm of protest and insisted Adair had only been employed for five weeks. Adair was defiant.

'For years people were complaining, asking what I did to earn money and now they can see that I'm legitimately employed and pay taxes just like everyone else. People complain no matter what I do.' Throughout the summer he continued to pretend his interests now lay in community and political work. Although the majority of the political initiatives came from White, all the evidence suggests Adair knew exactly what he was getting into.'They needed each other,' said one senior police officer. 'Adair needed White to give him some semblance of credibility, precisely because White was the softer face of loyalist terrorism. White needed Adair because he was Johnny Adair. He had power.'

On 2 July, a snappily dressed Adair was part of a loyalist delegation that met John Reid, Tony Blair's third appointment as Northern Ireland Secretary. 'Has the man from the UDA become the Man at C&A?' asked a Sunday newspaper as it pored over his costume. In fact, Adair was considerably more up-market. As he stepped into the East Belfast Mission Hall for the meeting, he was wearing a pinstripe Hugo Boss suit, a yellow tie with a fashionably large knot and a baby-blue shirt. He looked every inch the stylish Mafia boss.

It was the second time Adair had met a serving secretary of state. But just like the previous occasion, when he had met Mo Mowlam inside the Maze, he never opened his mouth. Jackie McDonald, who was among those at the meeting, recalled, 'Johnny didn't say anything, not one word. After it was all over John Reid pointed outside and said, "I'll go out and talk to the reporters now - there's about 40 cameramen out there, but if you want to go for a cup of tea, go in that way. The cameras are that way." So myself and others headed for the tea, but, of course, Johnny headed for the cameras.'

Sectarian tensions had been high since June 2001, when Protestant residents in north Belfast began a 12-week picket of Catholic schoolgirls and their parents as they walked up the Ardoyne Road to the Holy Cross primary school. Although both his brother, Archie, and his friend, Gary 'Smickers' Smith, were sent to jail over the trouble at Holy Cross, Adair did not support the protest and saw it as a public relations disaster for loyalism.

By now, Adair was so obsessed by the media he was starting to irritate even his friends. There was nothing he loved more than being on TV. Maureen Dodds, Winkie's wife, recalls, 'Any time he was on TV no one was allowed to speak. He used to record all his TV appearances and just sit on the edge of the table playing the video over and over again.'

Although the seeds of Adair's downfall were already visible by the time he went to jail in August 2000, the real turning point came on 10 June 2002. Adair, who had just returned from a holiday in Benidorm, was sitting in his living room with the LVF's Jackie Mahood when he heard about the death in jail of Mark 'Swinger' Fulton. His friend and fellow drug dealer, who was on remand in Maghaberry, had been found in his cell with a leather belt around his neck. The fact that he was lying on his bed when he died led to lurid speculation that he had been engaged in an act of autoerotic asphyxiation. Whatever the cause of death, Fulton was genuinely suicidal. He had never fully recovered from the murder in 1997 of Billy Wright, his LVF commander and close friend, and he was also convinced he was dying of stomach cancer.

While Adair was upset at his friend's death, he also saw it as an opportunity. According to one close associate, 'I was talking to Swinger four months before he died and that was the first time I realised what Johnny was up to with the LVF. Johnny was running up and down to Portadown and he would have gone to all these different dos. So my reckoning was that he was definitely working deals with them on the drugs. And I think when Swinger died, Johnny saw that as his move to take over the whole patch.'

The strength of Adair's relationship with the LVF was confirmed on 21 July 2002, when Gerard Lawlor, a 19-year-old Catholic, was shot dead. The murder followed the shooting of Mark 'Mousey' Blaney, a 19-year-old Protestant, earlier that evening. Although Blaney was not killed, the fact that he was shot in broad daylight across the Ardoyne peaceline was seen as a deliberate republican provocation.

Within two hours, teams from C Coy and the UDA in north Belfast were dispatched to kill a random Catholic, shooting and injuring a man in Oldpark and opening fire without success on the Ligoniel Road. Shortly after midnight, Gerard Lawlor was walking home from a pub on the Antrim Road when a motorbike pulled alongside him and a gunman shot him twice in the back with a .38 revolver. Summoning its favourite choice of words, the UFF said the killing was a 'measured military response' and warned of 'further military action'.

By the summer it wasn't just the behaviour of Adair Snr that was attracting attention, but also Adair Jnr. To his father's growing anger, Jonathan Adair was rapidly gaining a reputation as a thug and a troublemaker. In June, his father's men beat him with baseball bats and iron bars after he broke into the home of an 84-year-old woman and stole her purse. In August, Adair had little choice but to consent to a more severe punishment after Jonathan hit a female shop assistant in a filling station on the Crumlin Road. Shortly before midnight on 7 August, Fat Jackie Thompson, who as C Coy's 'Provost Marshal' was in charge of kneecappings, dragged the 17-year-old into the middle of Florence Square in the lower Shankill and shot him in each leg with a 9mm pistol. As punishment-shooting victims go, Adair Jnr was lucky. By shooting the teenager through the calves, Thompson ensured there would be no permanent damage.

'Johnny had no choice other than to give his blessing,' said one of Adair's friends. 'There was a whole catalogue of things. He [Adair Snr] knew it was only a matter of time before he was going to get shot.' Although the shooting surprised few on the Shankill, to the outside world the idea of a father authorising a gun attack on his own son was savage. As Jonathan recovered the following day, Adair was indignant at suggestions that he had sanctioned the shooting or even pulled the trigger himself.

'What man in his own mind would do a thing like that to his own son?' he said. 'Had I known prior to this, I would have had my son on a ferry away from here as fast as possible.' Maintaining he had 'no idea' why the shooting took place, he added, 'He's a quiet boy. He never smoked, never drank, he loved his wee push-bike. Every day he was down the job centre looking for work, he was always doing the old age pensioners' gardens for nothing.'

Adair was fast becoming a caricature of the terrorist godfather, a cult figure whose face was rarely out of the newspapers. It was only a matter of time, it seemed, before his thirst for power and celebrity drove him into open confrontation with his fellow loyalists.

In September 2002 it became clear he was trying to promote a far closer alliance between C Coy and the LVF than the rest of the UDA had realised. On his release from jail, the LVF had presented him with a commemorative mirror bearing the message, 'UFF-LVF Brothers In Arms', but it was now obvious the links went far beyond personal friendship. To its astonishment, the UDA learnt that Adair viewed the mid-Ulster LVF as an extension of his paramilitary empire and claimed to have up to 70 men under his control there.

Jackie McDonald could hardly believe his ears when one of his commanders told him the LVF in Lurgan, County Armagh, had asked to borrow some camouflage equipment on the basis that they were 'all part of the same organisation now'. McDonald, whose south Belfast brigade stretches into mid-Ulster, was determined to confront Adair. He drew up a list of LVF figures in mid-Ulster and went straight to the Shankill to ask Adair about their relationship with C Coy. 'Myself and another fella challenged him about these people who now said they were part of the west Belfast UDA, although they were in the south Belfast area,' he recalled. 'We said this can't be, and he said he had 70 men up there. We said, "You can't have," and he said, "No disrespect to you Jackie, but they want me as their brigadier." I said, "If they want you as their brigadier they should go and live on the Shankill Road."'

The row with McDonald marked the beginning of a sharp deterioration in Adair's relations with his fellow brigadiers. McDonald, a convicted extortionist, was an old-style UDA boss in his early fifties whose views about running the organisation were dramatically different from Adair's. While Adair believed it needed a single charismatic leader, McDonald was convinced the UDA's strength came from the fact that each brigade area was autonomous. Adair despised McDonald because he'd been in prison during the early 1990s and had never taken part in the 'war'. In a rant from his prison cell, he described McDonald as a 'nothing and a nobody' who had 'never once been on the battlefield'. He said: 'He's into fake clothes and fake perfumes and contraband cigarettes.'

But it wasn't just McDonald whom Adair secretly loathed - it was all his fellow brigadiers with the exception of Andre Shoukri. He saw Billy McFarland, of north Antrim and Derry, as a hillbilly, and John 'Grug' Gregg, of southeast Antrim, as a waster who had contributed nothing since shooting and failing to kill Gerry Adams 18 years earlier. Last, but not least, was Jim Gray of east Belfast, for whom Adair reserved special contempt. Gray was a part-owner of the Avenue One Bar on the staunchly loyalist Newtownards Road. A flash dresser, he enjoyed the high life, eating and drinking in the best restaurants and bars, and rubbing shoulders with Glasgow Rangers footballers during regular trips to Ibrox Park. His detractors dubbed Gray and his cohorts 'the Spice Boys', while at every opportunity Adair referred to him mockingly as 'Doris Day', because of his bleach-blond hair.

The spark that set in motion Adair's showdown with his fellow commanders came on Friday 13 September, when Stephen Warnock, a senior LVF drug dealer, was shot dead. He was killed as he sat in his BMW in Newtownards, County Down, with his three-year-old daughter. According to police sources, he was murdered because he had borrowed £10,000 from a local drug-dealing cartel and had refused to pay it back.

A friend of Adair's from jail, the two had become increasingly close following the death of Mark 'Swinger' Fulton, triggering speculation that the Shankill godfather intended to install Warnock as his leader in east Belfast in a new loyalist terror group. The LVF was stunned by Warnock's murder, and Adair was immediately convinced it had been carried out by the UDA on the orders of Jim Gray.

Although press reports suggested the killing was the work of the UVF-linked Red Hand Commando, Adair's suspicions appeared to be confirmed when a man was abducted and questioned by the LVF. He told his interrogators that Gray was directly responsible for Warnock's murder. As far as Adair was concerned, it was all he needed to hear.

Three days after the shooting, Gray called at the home of one of Warnock's brothers in east Belfast to pay his respects to the murdered 35-year-old. He was leaving and about to get into his BMW when he heard a voice say, 'This is for Stephen.' As he turned to see who was speaking, a bullet pierced his cheek, shattering his jawbone and teeth before exiting the other side.

Gray recoiled in agony, but he knew that had he not turned his head he would have been dead. The would-be assassin then turned his gun on Gray's UDA colleague, who was about to get into the passenger seat. He leant across the roof of the car and pulled the trigger, but the gun jammed and Gray's friend took to his heels. Despite his injuries, Gray also fled. After finally clearing his weapon, the gunman fired several more shots at the fleeing UDA men before disappearing into the night. With blood streaming from his face, Gray staggered to the nearby police training depot at Garnerville, where he received first aid from officers before being whisked away to the Ulster Hospital at Dundonald. He was lucky to survive the assassination bid, although he now faces an £11,000 dental bill to have his mouth rebuilt.

Gray's fellow UDA brigadiers were livid at the attempt on his life. But it was nothing compared to the anger they felt when they discovered that Adair, John White and Andre Shoukri planned to attend Warnock's funeral. McDonald thought it was a sick joke: 'I heard from a mate that Jim Gray was shot. So I phoned John White and said, "What's happening?" He didn't sound at all surprised, and he said, "We have a funeral to go to tomorrow," and I said, "How the fuck can you? Whoever shot Jim Gray will be at that funeral."

This was on the phone about midnight the night Jim was shot. I came over to east Belfast the next morning and they were on the phone to John White saying, "You can't go to the funeral." White was told Jim Gray specifically asked from his hospital bed that they didn't go. He said, "Well, we're going, do you want to have a meeting afterwards?" I said, "If you go to the funeral, there will be no meeting at all."'

Gray's colleagues were sure he had not been involved in Warnock's death. As they pieced together the events leading up to his attempted murder, they uncovered a disturbing piece of information. Adair had been attending Warnock's wake shortly before Gray's arrival and had been moved to a neighbouring house, where he was able to watch the shooting from a window. They believed Adair had deliberately encouraged the attack.

To the consternation of McDonald and the other brigadiers, Adair, White and Shoukri went ahead with their plan to attend Warnock's funeral. On 20 September, Adair was summoned to explain himself at an emergency meeting of the UDA's inner council in a community centre in south Belfast.

The day of reckoning had at last arrived. In a gesture of defiance, Adair gave the go-ahead that morning for a joint UFF/LVF mural bearing the message, 'Brothers in Arms'. As he paced up and down the front room of his offices in Boundary Way, he was determined not to back down. He was furious that a group of middle-aged men who had done next to nothing during the early 1990s was about to sit in judgment over him. He could barely believe it had come to this: Johnny Adair, the loyalist hero who had brought the war to the IRA's front door, who had survived countless assassination attempts and a long stint in jail, was being ordered to explain his actions to the leadership of the Ulster Defence Association. As he became increasingly agitated, his mind churned through a range of possible scenarios, but began to settle on one in particular. There was only one course of action, it seemed, that could salvage his authority and teach McDonald and his cronies a lesson.

As he prepared to travel across Belfast to the meeting in Sandy Row, a police listening device picked up the basic outline of Adair's plan. 'Adair had this idea to walk in and shoot them all,' said one Special Branch officer. 'Special Branch heard him discussing it. He was saying, "I'll just walk in there and shoot all those fuckers. I'll pull a gun on them and shoot them all."' This version of events is confirmed by one of Adair's closest advisers, who was in the office that morning: 'Everything blew up that day. He was so berserk he punched a hole in the door. Johnny was saying, "I'm going to stiff every one, I'm going to stiff that big girl McDonald. I'm going to kill them before they kill me."'

As Adair arrived in a jeep with blacked-out windows, several dozen men from the UDA's other brigade areas were already waiting on nearby street corners. The police were also there in numbers, though they deliberately kept their distance. As Adair walked into the building he was accompanied by Fat Jackie Thompson and James 'Sham' Millar, both of whom were armed. In the gents' toilet, Thompson pulled a 9mm chrome Ruger from under his jacket and handed it to Adair, who tucked it under his waistband and covered it with his fleece. He then walked into the meeting, making it painfully obvious that he had a gun.

Seeing this, McDonald deliberately sat next to Adair, believing he could overpower him if he produced his weapon. But as the meeting wore on, Adair realised that there were other guns in the room and that it would be madness to chance his arm. This was not the time or the place, and he knew there would soon be other opportunities to kill his old comrades. But the meeting, which lasted two hours, became increasingly heated as Adair continued to justify his allegations against Gray. According to McDonald: 'Johnny had this thing about east Belfast. So right away, when Warnock got shot, Johnny assumed they had something to do with it. He saw that as an opportunity. But the evidence produced against the east Belfast UDA was totally ridiculous. McDonald recalls that the meeting broke up abruptly after Adair received a call. 'He was speaking to an LVF man and then he said, "I'll have to go." All the brigadiers headed off, fearing they'd be ambushed by Adair and his men if they hung around.'

As Adair and his C Coy minders drove away from Sandy Row it was clear he intended to make his old colleagues pay for challenging him. Within minutes of leaving the meeting he was kicking up a second storm. He went straight to Ballysillan, where he told senior members of the LVF what had just happened. Unbeknown to Adair, however, he was being monitored by a team from the mainstream UDA. 'We knew everything that happened,' said Billy 'The Mexican' McFarland, who believed Adair's terrorist career was now finished. 'He walked straight into the LVF meeting and told them, "I've just met the puppets."'

The downfall of Mad Dog Adair, part 2

Sunday October 5, 2003
The Observer

Johnny Adair didn't know it at the time, but 25 September 2002 was to be his last day as a member of the UDA. Another emergency brigadiers' meeting was called, but this time Adair and White were not invited. Although still badly wounded, Jim Gray signed himself out of hospital to attend the meeting, at a bar in east Belfast. Jackie McDonald says it was probably the most important, though shortest, inner council meeting in the organisation's history. There was only one item on the agenda: the dismissal of Johnny Adair as brigadier in west Belfast. In two minutes he was found guilty of treason. McDonald recalled, 'There was no other option for us but to dismiss him. He was involved in the attempted murder of two members. The reality is, Johnny Adair dismissed himself from the UDA.' A short time later, the UDA issued a statement to the press. 'As a result of ongoing investigations, the present brigadier in west Belfast is no longer acceptable in our organisation.'

Ripping up the dismissal notice in front of TV cameras, Adair told reporters, 'It's not worth the paper it's written on, but you'd better ask the UDA what it's all about.' Twelve years after he had seized control of C Coy in a coup, everybody but Adair could see that the game was up. 'It didn't seem to sink in,' said Sham Millar. 'Johnny didn't seem to know the importance of what was happening. He was out, but he didn't accept it. He just sort of went, "Fuck them 'uns."' Adair's only hope was that A and B companies would stick with him and that the UDA in west Belfast would remain defiant.

Shortly before midnight on 4 October, Geoffrey 'The Greyhound' Gray, a 41-year-old LVF member, was blasted to death with a shotgun as he made his way home from a local pub. The killing, on Ravenhill Avenue in east Belfast, was the UFF's retaliation for the shooting of Jim Gray. Three days later, the LVF shot 22-year-old Alex McKinley, a Protestant with links to the UDA in east Belfast. He died of his wounds on 13 October. The following day the LVF held out the white flag, saying that it wanted to 'mediate a settlement' and 'get the UDA leadership to the table to talk'.

Following intervention by Protestant clergymen, senior members of the LVF and UDA met on 18 October in a bid to reconcile their differences. After a flurry of meetings in early November, both sides agreed a truce. In a thinly veiled swipe at Adair, the LVF issued a statement admitting it had been wrong to blame Jim Gray for the murder of Stephen Warnock.

'It has now become obvious that erroneous/false information was furnished to both organisations, which resulted in this unfortunate conflict,' it said. It had cost three murders and seven attempted murders, but the feud with the LVF was over.

The stage was now set for the final confrontation, an all-out war between Adair and his old colleagues. On 1 November, in the first sign of the coming storm, Davy Mahood, one of Adair's political advisers, who had tried to keep himself right with both camps, was shot in the legs behind a community centre in Ballysillan. In a statement read by Sammy Duddy, who replaced Mahood as the group's spokesman in north Belfast, the UDA said the attack followed a four-month investigation into Mahood's activities. It blamed him for staging an attempt on his own life, which Mahood had claimed was carried out by republicans. Duddy, a former drag queen once known as 'Samantha', said, 'Mahood's life was spared, largely because of the intervention of the new regime.'

On 8 November, the UDA said eight families had been attacked over the past two weeks and blamed Adair for the incidents. Calling on rank-and-file members in west Belfast to walk away from their leader, it said: 'The loyalist people of west Belfast do not want this. The west Belfast UDA must take action to distance themselves from these individuals. They have caused enough suffering.' Not to be cowed into submission, Adair and White insisted that their support was as strong as ever and claimed 2,000 west Belfast UDA men had turned out for the 2nd Battalion's Remembrance Sunday parade. They even claimed that they had formed three new units - one in north County Down, one in mid-Ulster and another in Scotland.

The build-up to a new feud began steadily over the next few weeks with a series of threats and attacks, including the shooting of Sammy Duddy's pet chihuahua, Bambi. On the lower Shankill, Adair started to scent treachery everywhere. He turned on some of his oldest friends, including Alan McClean, his welfare officer and head of C9, who was driven off the Shankill. But the clearest sign that Adair was losing the plot came when he fell out with his old friend and ally, Winkie Dodds.

After learning that one of the Dodds family was still dealing drugs with the Shoukris, Adair ordered him to pay a fine of £10,000 or leave Northern Ireland. The family scraped together £7,000 and offered the payment to Adair, but he refused to accept and the relative fled the country. After the parade on Remembrance Sunday, Winkie's brother, Milton 'Doddsy' Dodds, was standing next to some of Adair's colleagues at the bar when he asked them why they were giving his brother such a hard time. Donald Hodgen responded by hitting him, while later that night Fat Jackie Thompson led a C Coy punishment squad to Milton's house where they broke down the front door and beat him with baseball bats. For Winkie and his wife it was the final straw.

On 21 November, after living on the Shankill all their lives, they moved to the loyalist White City estate on the outskirts of north Belfast, where they were given protection by the UDA's southeast Antrim brigade.

The defection of Winkie Dodds - a living legend in the eyes of many loyalists - should have been a wake-up call for Adair. But it only hardened his belief that he was doing the right thing.

On 6 December, an incendiary device was found outside John White's luxury £300,000 home at Carrickfergus on the outskirts of Belfast. Two days later, a sophisticated booby-trap bomb was discovered under the car of John 'Grug' Gregg, the UDA's southeast Antrim brigadier. It was a revenge attack by C Coy, but with an extra twist: the device was said to have been made by the same LVF bombmaker responsible for the booby trap that killed Catholic solicitor Rosemary Nelson in 1999.

As far as the UDA was concerned, it was a declaration of war. Five nights later, 17 shots were fired at the Ballysillan home of C9's Ian Truesdale and his wife's barber shop on the Crumlin Road was destroyed by arsonists. Truesdale, whose wife had refused to pay £25 per week in protection money to the north Belfast UDA, immediately moved to the lower Shankill, where Adair gave him £4,500 to help decorate his new home.

Just a week before Christmas the stakes rose again. Adair himself was the intended target of two gunmen, who had planned to kill him as he dropped his eight-year-old daughter at school.

By the middle of December, the UDA had launched a concerted propaganda campaign against Adair. It seized on the fact that he had briefly abandoned his beloved C Coy to spend a weekend with his wife, Gina 'Mad Bitch' Adair, in Lapland, a trip that did not go down well with ordinary volunteers in west Belfast. It also encouraged speculation that there was a £10,000 bounty on his head, to be doubled if he was killed by Christmas.

Adair remained defiant. Wearing a black Diesel sweatshirt and surrounded by cheering young men in designer tracksuits, he told The Observer, 'The Adair family will have a normal family Christmas. I'm not going anywhere.' Exaggerating as always about the number of murder attempts he had survived, he went on, 'The IRA and INLA tried to kill me. I survived 15 murder bids and I have bullet fragments in my head and side, so I'm hardly worried about a couple of bully boys who sat on their hands and did nothing when loyalists from the west Belfast brigade were taking the war to the IRA.' In a direct reference to Gregg, he added caustically, 'If I was to wait for these people to do anything, I would die of old age.' It was the clearest indication to date that Adair saw the feud as a personal battle between himself and the 45-year-old southeast Antrim brigadier.

Despite two pipe-bomb attacks on Gregg's house and a gun attack on the home of his friend, the loyalist councillor Tommy Kirkham, Christmas came and went without serious violence. All that changed at 7.30am on 27 December. Jonathan Stewart was standing chatting to a friend at a house party in Manor Street when a hooded gunman strode into the kitchen and shot him several times in the head and body. The 22-year-old was killed for the simple reason that he was a nephew of Alan McClean, who had sided with the mainstream UDA since being thrown off the Shankill. But in a cruel example of how paramilitary feuds could divide families, he was also the boyfriend of Ian Truesdale's 19-year-old daughter, Natalie. Her father almost certainly knew his killers.

It was not long before the UDA retaliated. Three days after Christmas, a decision was taken to execute Roy Green, a drug dealer and the UDA's former military commander in the Donegal Road area of south Belfast. A close friend of Adair, Green believed he was playing a clever game, pretending to set him up while in reality keeping him briefed about the UDA's plans to kill him. He even agreed to lure Adair to the Village district of south Belfast and to murder him personally. He was lying through his teeth.

As the UDA watched his movements, it became apparent that Green was keeping Adair informed of Jackie McDonald's whereabouts. He was also suspected of helping to set up Jonathan Stewart. Shortly before 7pm on 2 January 2003, the 32-year-old was shot dead as he left the Kimberley Bar off the Ormeau Road. In a statement, the UDA apologised to the Green family for the execution, but said that he had been a 'double agent'. Among his 'acts of betrayal', it said that Green had tipped off Adair about an intended attempt on his life. 'Green may as well have pulled the trigger himself,' it concluded.

On the morning of 8 January, a blast bomb exploded in the back yard of Johnny Adair's home, though it was not even loud enough to wake him. Branding his former cohorts 'criminals', Adair said, 'If they have something against me, bring it to me. I'll face them as individuals one on one, these five brigadiers, at a place of their choice. What they are doing is cowardice.'

Two days later, Paul Murphy, the new Northern Ireland Secretary, decided that enough was enough. In a dossier broadly identical to the one presented to Peter Mandelson two-and-a -half years earlier, he was shown police intelligence accusing Adair of continuing to direct acts of terrorism, involvement in drugs and extortion, membership of a banned organisation, and acquiring and distributing weapons. This time it had taken Adair a mere eight months to land himself back behind bars. Shortly after 5pm on 10 January, he was arrested on Murphy's instructions at his home.

With Adair back in jail, the security forces hoped that the worst of the feud was over. They were badly mistaken. At 10.10pm on 1 February, John 'Grug' Gregg was sitting in a red Toyota taxi at traffic lights near Belfast docks after returning from a Rangers match in Glasgow. He was talking to his 18-year-old son, Stuart, who was also in the car, when it was suddenly rammed by another vehicle. The sound of crashing metal and automatic gunfire filled the night air as two gunmen concentrated a stream of bullets on the cab. Gregg died instantly. Killed alongside him was Robert 'Rab' Carson, a 33-year-old UDA colleague. The taxi driver was seriously injured. Gregg's son was unhurt.

By any standards it was a spectacular gangland 'hit', and Adair was delighted. Although the gunmen were two young volunteers in their early twenties, the planning had been done by the old dream team of the early 1990s. It was the work of Fat Jackie Thompson, who had taken over as brigadier, and Sam 'Skelly' McCrory, who had returned from Scotland to visit Adair in jail the previous day.

The plan had been meticulously prepared. C Coy had intended to kill Gregg as he returned from a Rangers-Celtic match a few weeks earlier, but on that occasion he had felt too unsafe to go. This time, however, he had been confident about his safety. On the same day that Skelly was visiting Adair inside Maghaberry, Gregg discussed a non-aggression pact with Mervyn Gibson, the Presbyterian minister who chaired the Loyalist Commission. The clergyman was hopeful that both sides were moving towards a truce. It was only when Gregg was in Scotland that C Coy withdrew its support for a deal. While the UDA warned the feud was about to 'go nuclear', it also started to receive signals that several leading UDA figures in west Belfast were unhappy.

Although they had been reluctant to put their heads above the parapet, the murder of a brigadier put this in an entirely different perspective. Gregg was the most senior UDA figure to be murdered since John McMichael in 1987, but this time the killers were not republicans but loyalists from his own organisation. The cracks were starting to appear. Adair had believed his power base to be indestructible, but this time he had gone too far. By Tuesday, A and B companies, who had never supported him in the feud with the UVF, had defected. The UDA warned C Coy members that they had just 48 hours to follow suit. Setting a time limit of midnight on the day of Gregg's funeral, it warned: 'After this deadline, if they have not decided to move to A or B company, they will be identified as Red Hand Defenders and treated the same as the enemies of Ulster.' The same day the UDA stepped up the pressure by briefing reporters that it planned to mobilise up to 15,000 men for a march on the Shankill at the weekend.

By the evening of 5 February, Adair's empire was starting to fall apart. An eerie atmosphere settled over the Shankill as commanders from A and B companies met at the UDA's club in Heather Street to consider their position. They were joined by members of D Coy, former Shankill men who had moved to north Down but remained in close contact with Adair. As they were debating what to do, a steady trickle of volunteers from C Coy arrived at the club to turn themselves over.

As the evening progressed, the trickle turned into a deluge. Although they had initially gathered to discuss whether people wanted to move from the Shankill, the atmosphere suddenly changed. A television appearance by John White, in which he said he was 'indifferent' to Gregg's murder, tipped them over the edge. 'The plan was originally for up to 1,000 men to come into Johnny's area after Gregg's funeral, but what with the adrenaline and the drama, the defectors took it into their own hands,' said one UDA veteran.

Sensing that something was afoot, Fat Jackie Thompson and Sham Millar slipped out of the lower Shankill estate and called to see William 'Woodsie' Woods, who lived in nearby Manor Street. His wife explained he had already cut his losses and left. They then contacted Ian Truesdale and John White, only to discover that they too had bolted. In an instant, Thompson and Millar realised it was time to run. They telephoned home to say they were going to Scotland. Thompson told his wife to book furniture removal vans for the following day and said he'd meet her coming off the boat. In a series of phone calls, they arranged to meet some of their colleagues on the road to Larne, where they would catch a ferry to the mainland.

In the end, Adair's fiefdom collapsed with barely a shot fired in defence. Shortly after midnight, more than 100 men piled out of the Heather Street bar and drove straight to Boundary Way, where they started smashing windows and kicking in doors. Although most of his friends had already fled, a young C Coy volunteer involved in Gregg's murder was seized and badly beaten. He was about to be shoved into the boot of a car when a phalanx of police and Army Land Rovers arrived. Within minutes, a convoy of seven cars carrying around 20 people, including Gina Adair and her four children, left the Shankill for the last time.

They fled so quickly that Adair's Alsatians, Rebel and Shane, were abandoned in the street. Under police escort they headed to the ferry terminal at Larne, where they met up with White, Fat Jackie and the others. As around 7,000 UDA supporters descended on the Rathcoole estate for Gregg's funeral the next day, the exiles were adjusting to a harsh new life outside Belfast. After arriving in the port of Cairnryan, Fat Jackie and White were questioned by Special Branch officers. The police had found £69,000 in cash in one of the cars, but although it belonged to Gina Adair, White claimed it. The money, in separate envelopes containing £1,000 each, had been stuffed into a shoebox. Police also discovered that Fat Jackie was carrying £7,000 in cash, the takings of a sandwich shop he and Sham Millar had opened. While Thompson and White were quizzed, the others set off up the coast towards Ayr.

Following their release later that afternoon, White and Thompson joined their colleagues and the group reviewed its position. But without maps and with little money, Scotland was a confusing place. Said Millar: 'We were talking about going to Newcastle. Truesdale was leading the attack, but he got us lost. Everybody was just a bit pissed off, and we said, "Fuck it." The nearest place to where we were was Carlisle, so we went to Carlisle for a couple of nights, because we had more families from Belfast wanting to come over and join us.'

While Adair contemplated the ruins of his empire from his cell, his old comrades faced the reality of life on the road. After spending a few days in Carlisle, a collective decision was taken to head further south, this time to the more densely populated town of Bolton. The 120-mile journey down the M6 would take them a few hours at most, but the exiles again found themselves heading in the wrong direction. In a foreign country, the remnants of Johnny Adair's elite C Coy were truly lost.

Adair's old cohorts in England - the 'Bolton Wanderers' as they have been dubbed - appear resigned to the fact that they are not coming home. For Gina in particular, who is used to living in style and making others pay, it has been a humiliating comedown. She has even had to go to court to beg for a council house. Up to 50 former members of C Coy and their families are now living in the Bolton area, while several others are in Manchester. Like Gina, they are all pleading poverty, claiming to have sold their cars and pawned their jewellery in an attempt to survive. A handful of them are genuinely broke, but for Gina, Fat Jackie and Sham Millar (who are brothers-in-law), the claim is a little far-fetched. They are probably not as wealthy as newspapers in Belfast have speculated, but the cash is almost certainly there, stashed away and waiting for them to lay their hands on it. The police are convinced Adair still has money.

The real reason Gina and her fellow exiles have yet to access it is because they know they are being monitored by a new government agency with the power to confiscate the illegal assets of Northern Ireland's paramilitaries. John White, who has severed his links with Adair and become a born-again Christian in the north of England, is also being watched.

If or when the exiles try to return to Belfast, there will be more blood spilt. The only cause for hope is that none of Adair's old friends has the energy to carry out further acts of violence for a man who is already busy betraying them. Adair's most prolific hitman, Stevie 'Top Gun' McKeag, is in the grave. The rest are getting old. Fat Jackie Thompson will be 40 in November, Sham Millar is 37 and his brother Herbie 38. Ian Truesdale is 42.

Donald Hodgen, who turned 40 in May, has had virtually no contact with Adair since his old friend returned to prison. All he wants is to stay out of the way. Even Sam 'Skelly' McCrory, Adair's closest friend, appears to have gone to ground. Nobody knows where he is. Since the early 1990s he has been flitting between the west coast of Scotland and Northern Ireland. He was 38 in March.

As for Adair himself, he has experienced bouts of depression since returning to jail. He will be 40 in October. As he approaches middle age he cannot comprehend how his reputation and empire have fallen apart. Even C Coy itself, for so long synonymous with Adair, has been disbanded as a UDA unit. 'See, republicans have their heroes and they stay heroes, but loyalists build you up and then they knock you down,' he said in a telephone conversation from jail.

Enough violence has already emanated from the small maze of streets at the bottom of the Shankill Road. As a director of terrorism, Johnny Adair controlled a dangerous clique and ordered around 40 murders by C Coy and the west Belfast UFF. He was the UFF's most influential figure throughout the early 90s, when it claimed the lives of nearly 90 people.

When he is finally released from jail, probably in January 2005, Adair will face a stark choice. Does he go back to the Shankill and try one last throw of the dice? Or does he settle quietly away from Belfast, hoping he can avoid assassination and live in peace with his family? OM

Mad dog: who's who

Johnny 'Mad Dog' Adair
Also known as 'Pitbull', 'the Wee Man' and 'Red Adair'

Gina 'Mad Bitch' Adair
Also known as 'Orange Bitch'. Maiden name Crossan

Sam 'Skelly' McCrory
Adair's close friend and a C Coy gunman. Skelly is gay, which has led to speculation about Adair's sexuality

Donald 'Big Donald' Hodgen
One of Adair's oldest friends and a senior C Coy figure

Jackie 'Fat Jackie' Thompson
A C Coy gunman in the early 1990s and, like Hodgen, formerly one of Adair's closest associates

James 'Sham' Millar
Also known as 'Boss Hogg' after the money-grabbing villain in The Dukes of Hazzard. A former C Coy driver and gunman and a major drug dealer

William 'Winkie' Dodds
A veteran C Company gunman and for years one of Adair's closest allies

Gary 'Smickers' Smith
Also known as 'Chiefo'. After 1993, Smith became C Coy's leading gunman. Known for his loyalty to Adair

Billy 'King Rat' Wright
The founder of the LVF. Shot dead inside the Maze Prison in December 1997. Loathed Adair with a passion

Mark 'Swinger' Fulton
Wright's successor as head of the LVF and a friend of Adair. Found dead in his cell in Maghaberry Prison in June 2002

Billy 'The Mexican' McFarland
The UDA's brigadier for County Derry and north Antrim

Jim 'Doris Day' Gray
The UDA's brigadier in east Belfast. The derogatory nickname comes from his bleach-blond hair. His men, recognised by their chunky gold jewellery and extravagant lifestyles, are known as 'the Spice Boys'

John 'Grug' Gregg
The UDA's former brigadier in southeast Antrim. Shot dead in February

Andre Shoukri
Son of Egyptian father and Northern Irish mother, who at 25 became the UDA's youngest brigadier. Became friendly with Adair in jail, dealing drugs on his behalf

John White
Adair's former spokesman

Jackie McDonald
Currently, he is the most powerful figure on the UDA's ruling inner council

The lexicon of loyalism

A Company, or A Coy
The upper Shankill 'company' of the west Belfast UDA

B Company, or B Coy
The mid-Shankill 'company' of the west Belfast UDA

Brigadier
The title given to the head of each of the UDA's six 'brigade' areas

C Company, or C Coy
One of three 'companies' in the west Belfast UDA. At the peak of its violent campaign under Johnny Adair, C Coy stretched from the bottom of the Shankill Road to Tennent Street, half a mile up the road

C8
Johnny Adair's old C Coy 'team'. One of around 18 teams of up to 60 men, which together made up C Coy

LVF
Loyalist Volunteer Force. Volatile loyalist terrorist group founded by the loyalist icon Billy Wright in 1996, after he was forced out of the UVF

Quis Separabit
The UDA's Latin motto, meaning 'Who will come between us?'

RHC
Red Hand Commando. A small loyalist terrorist group closely linked to the LVF

RHD
Red Hand Defenders. A flag of convenience used by both the UDA and LVF

Second Battalion
The west Belfast UDA

UDA
Ulster Defence Association. The largest loyalist paramilitary group. Formed in 1971 as an umbrella group to replace vigilante organisations which sprang up in Protestant areas in reaction to IRA violence. At its peak it claimed to have a membership of over 40,000. Its small but ruthless military wing is known as the Ulster Freedom Fighters, and has been responsible for some of the most despicable murders of the Troubles. Only a small minority of UDA members are active in the UFF

UVF
Ulster Volunteer Force. The oldest loyalist terrorist group. Took its name from the organisation that was set up to oppose home rule in 1912. It was reformed in 1966 under Augustus 'Gusty' Spence

WDA
Woodvale Defence Association, also known as B Company

· Extracted from Mad Dog: The Rise and Fall of Johnny Adair and 'C' Company by David Lister and Hugh Jordan. Readers can order Mad Dog for £12.99 plus p&p (rrp £14.99) by calling the Observer Book Service on 0870 066 7989. Published by Mainstream on 3 November