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Jim Spence (loyalist)
Jim Spence (born Lister & Jordan, p. 95) is a Northern Irish former loyalist activist. Spence became notorious for his time in the Ulster Defence Association (UDA), serving two spells in charge of the West Belfast Brigade. Spence is a native of the Woodvale area of Belfast's Shankill Road. B Company and collusion Gerard Slane Spence was commander of 'B' Company of the UDA's West Belfast Brigade, which covered the Woodvale area at the top of the Shankill Road, during the 1980s and 1990s. In this role Spence was closely involved with British agent Brian Nelson. On 22 September 1988, Gerard Slane was shot dead at his Falls Road home after members of the UDA broke down his front door and shot him four times in the head. An article that appeared in the UDA's ''Ulster'' magazine claimed that Slane was a member of the Irish People's Liberation Organisation (IPLO) and had driven the getaway car when UDA member Billy Quee was killed by that group, although the IPLO did not claim S ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Belfast
Belfast ( , ; from ga, Béal Feirste , meaning 'mouth of the sand-bank ford') is the capital and largest city of Northern Ireland, standing on the banks of the River Lagan on the east coast. It is the 12th-largest city in the United Kingdom and the second-largest in Ireland. It had a population of 345,418 . By the early 19th century, Belfast was a major port. It played an important role in the Industrial Revolution in Ireland, briefly becoming the biggest linen-producer in the world, earning it the nickname "Linenopolis". By the time it was granted city status in 1888, it was a major centre of Irish linen production, tobacco-processing and rope-making. Shipbuilding was also a key industry; the Harland and Wolff shipyard, which built the , was the world's largest shipyard. Industrialisation, and the resulting inward migration, made Belfast one of Ireland's biggest cities. Following the partition of Ireland in 1921, Belfast became the seat of government for Northern Ireland ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Royal Ulster Constabulary
The Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) was the police force in Northern Ireland from 1922 to 2001. It was founded on 1 June 1922 as a successor to the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC)Richard Doherty, ''The Thin Green Line – The History of the Royal Ulster Constabulary GC'', pp. 5, 17, 27, 93, 134, 271; Pen & Sword Books; following the partition of Ireland. At its peak the force had around 8,500 officers, with a further 4,500 who were members of the RUC Reserve. The RUC policed Northern Ireland from the aftermath of the Irish War of Independence until after the turn of the 21st century, and played a major role in the Troubles between the 1960s and the 1990s. Due to the threat from the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA), who saw the RUC as enforcing British rule, the force was heavily armed and militarised. Officers routinely carried submachine guns and assault rifles, travelled in armoured vehicles, and were based in heavily-fortified police stations.Weitzer, Ronald. ''Policin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Panorama (TV Series)
A panorama (formed from Greek πᾶν "all" + ὅραμα "view") is any wide-angle view or representation of a physical space, whether in painting, drawing, photography, film, seismic images, or 3D modeling. The word was originally coined in the 18th century by the English (Irish descent) painter Robert Barker to describe his panoramic paintings of Edinburgh and London. The motion-picture term ''panning'' is derived from ''panorama''. A panoramic view is also purposed for multimedia, cross-scale applications to an outline overview (from a distance) along and across repositories. This so-called "cognitive panorama" is a panoramic view over, and a combination of, cognitive spaces used to capture the larger scale. History The device of the panorama existed in painting, particularly in murals, as early as 20 A.D., in those found in Pompeii, as a means of generating an immersive "panoptic" experience of a vista. Cartographic experiments during the Enlightenment era prece ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
British Army
The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom, a part of the British Armed Forces along with the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. , the British Army comprises 79,380 regular full-time personnel, 4,090 Gurkhas, and 28,330 volunteer reserve personnel. The modern British Army traces back to 1707, with antecedents in the English Army and Scots Army that were created during the Restoration in 1660. The term ''British Army'' was adopted in 1707 after the Acts of Union between England and Scotland. Members of the British Army swear allegiance to the monarch as their commander-in-chief, but the Bill of Rights of 1689 and Claim of Right Act 1689 require parliamentary consent for the Crown to maintain a peacetime standing army. Therefore, Parliament approves the army by passing an Armed Forces Act at least once every five years. The army is administered by the Ministry of Defence and commanded by the Chief of the General Staff. The Brit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Billy Hutchinson
Billy "Hutchie" Hutchinson (born 1955) is an Ulster Loyalist politician serving as the leader of the Progressive Unionist Party (PUP) since 2011. He was elected to Belfast City Council in the 1997 elections. Hutchinson was a Member of the Northern Ireland Assembly (MLA) for Belfast North from 1998 to 2003. He lost his assembly seat in 2003, and his council seat in 2005. He returned to the council in 2014 and was re-elected in 2019. Before this he had been a member of the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) and was a founder of their youth wing, the Young Citizen Volunteers (YCV). UVF activity A native of the Shankill Road, Belfast, Hutchinson took part in a series of riots in the area, during which Shankill dwellers clashed with residents of the neighbouring nationalist Unity Flats area. Members of the UVF fired shots at Unity Flats and it was around this time Hutchinson became a member of the organisation, describing his part in the rioting as "my initiation" into the UVF. A strong ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Progressive Unionist Party
The Progressive Unionist Party (PUP) is a minor unionist political party in Northern Ireland. It was formed from the Independent Unionist Group operating in the Shankill area of Belfast, becoming the PUP in 1979. Linked to the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) and Red Hand Commando (RHC), for a time it described itself as "the only left of centre unionist party" in Northern Ireland, with its main support base in the loyalist working class communities of Belfast. Since the Ulster Democratic Party's dissolution in 2001, the PUP has been the sole party in Northern Ireland representing paramilitary loyalism. Party leaders History The party was founded by Hugh Smyth in the mid-1970s as the "Independent Unionist Group". In 1977, two prominent members of the Northern Ireland Labour Party, David Overend and Jim McDonald, joined. Overend subsequently wrote many of the group's policy documents, incorporating much of the NILP's platform.Aaron Edwards, ''A history of the Northern Irel ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Crumlin Road
The Crumlin Road is a main road in north-west Belfast, Northern Ireland. The road runs from north of Belfast City Centre for about four miles to the outskirts of the city. It also forms part of the longer A52 road which leads out of Belfast to the town of Crumlin (). The lower section of the road houses a number of historic buildings, including the city's former law courts and prison, whilst the road encompasses several large housing areas, including Ardoyne, Ballysillan () and Ligoniel().. Lower Crumlin Road The Crumlin Road begins at Carlisle Circus, a roundabout north of the city centre just past the Westlink motorway. It is one of four exits from Carlisle Circus, the others being the Antrim Road, a major arterial and residential route that forms part of the A6, Clifton Street which leads back to the centre, and Denmark Street which leads to the area of the lower Shankill Road. The lowest section of the road contains a number of buildings of local and historic interest. T ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Portadown
Portadown () is a town in County Armagh, Northern Ireland. The town sits on the River Bann in the north of the county, about southwest of Belfast. It is in the Armagh City, Banbridge and Craigavon Borough Council area and had a population of about 22,000 at the United Kingdom Census 2011, 2011 Census. For some purposes, Portadown is treated as part of the "Craigavon Urban Area", alongside Craigavon (planned town), Craigavon and Lurgan. Although Portadown can trace its origins to the early 17th century Plantation of Ulster, it was not until the Victorian era and the arrival of the railway that it became a major town. It earned the nickname "hub of the North" due to it being a major railway junction; where the Great Northern Railway (Ireland), Great Northern Railway's line diverged for Belfast, Dublin, Armagh and Derry. In the 19th and 20th centuries Portadown was also a major centre for the production of textiles (mainly Irish linen, linen). Portadown is the site of the long-ru ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Billy Wright (loyalist)
William Stephen Wright (7 July 1960 – 27 December 1997) was a Northern Irish loyalist paramilitary leader during the Troubles. He joined the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) in his hometown of Portadown around 1975. After spending several years in prison, he became a born again Christian preacher. Wright resumed his UVF activities around 1986 and became commander of its Mid-Ulster Brigade in the early 1990s, taking over from Robin "the Jackal" Jackson. According to the Royal Ulster Constabulary, Wright was involved in the sectarian killings of up to 20 Catholics, although he was never convicted for any. It has been alleged that Wright, like his predecessor, was working with RUC Special Branch. Wright drew media attention during the Drumcree standoffs of 1995 and 1996, when he supported the Protestant Orange Order in its bid to march its traditional route through the Catholic area of Portadown. In 1994, the UVF and other paramilitary groups had called ceasefires. However, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ulster Volunteer Force
The Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) is an Ulster loyalist paramilitary group. Formed in 1965, it first emerged in 1966. Its first leader was Gusty Spence, a former British Army soldier from Northern Ireland. The group undertook an armed campaign of almost thirty years during The Troubles. It declared a ceasefire in 1994 and officially ended its campaign in 2007, although some of its members have continued to engage in violence and criminal activities. The group is a proscribed organisation and is on the terrorist organisation list of the United Kingdom. The UVF's declared goals were to combat Irish republicanism – particularly the Irish Republican Army (IRA) – and to maintain Northern Ireland's status as part of the United Kingdom. It was responsible for more than 500 deaths. The vast majority (more than two-thirds) (choose "religion summary" + "status" + "organisation") of its victims were Irish Catholic civilians, who were often killed at random. During the conflict, its ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jackie Mahood
Jackie Mahood (born c. 1954) is a Northern Irish former loyalist activist with both the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) and Progressive Unionist Party (PUP). He later split from these groups and became associated with the breakaway Loyalist Volunteer Force (LVF), founded in 1996 by Billy Wright. Family Mahood was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, one of the three children of John Alexander and Sarah Mahood. He has a sister, Sandra and a deceased brother, Bobby. Mahood was brought up a Protestant in Ainsworth Avenue, a street that marks the dividing line between two staunchly loyalist areas of the upper Shankill Road and Woodvale Road. However, Ainsworth Avenue had a significant Catholic minority population and linked directly to the mainly Catholic Springfield Road until the early years of the Troubles when the Ulster Defence Association (UDA) erected temporary barricades which were later replaced with peace lines. He is married to Rae, by whom he has three children. His father ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Loyalist Volunteer Force
The Loyalist Volunteer Force (LVF) is a small Ulster loyalist paramilitary group in Northern Ireland. It was formed by Billy Wright in 1996 when he and his unit split from the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) after breaking its ceasefire. Most of its members came from the UVF's Mid-Ulster Brigade, which Wright had commanded. In a two-year period from August 1996, the LVF waged a paramilitary campaign in opposition to Irish republicanism and the Northern Ireland peace process. During this time it killed at least 14 people in gun and bomb attacks, almost all of them Catholic civilians killed at random. The LVF called off its campaign in August 1998 and decommissioned some of its weapons, but in the early 2000s a loyalist feud led to several killings. Since then, the LVF has been largely inactive, but its members are believed to have been involved in rioting and organized crime. In 2015, the security forces stated that the LVF "exists only as a criminal group" in Mid-Ulster and Antrim ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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