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Mo Courtney
William Samuel "Mo" Courtney (born 8 July 1963) is a former Ulster Defence Association (UDA) activist. He was a leading figure in Johnny Adair's C Company, one of the most active sections of the UDA, before later falling out with Adair and serving as West Belfast brigadier. Early years Courtney was born in Belfast in July 1963.David Lister & Hugh Jordan, ''Mad Dog: The Rise and Fall of Johnny Adair and 'C' Company'', Mainstream, 2004, p. 56 In the late 1970s and early 1980s Courtney was part in a gang of teenagers from Belfast's Shankill Road and nearby districts who spent their days near the Buffs Club on Century Street in the nearby Oldpark district. This gang included Johnny "Mad Dog" Adair with whom Courtney formed a friendship. The gang as a group had joined C8, one of around eighteen teams of 30 to 60 men that made up C Company of the 2nd Battalion of the Ulster Freedom Fighters, over a period of several months in 1984. Courtney and Adair became closer as the 1980s went ... [...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] |
Democratic Unionist Party
The Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) is a unionist, loyalist, and national conservative political party in Northern Ireland. It was founded in 1971 during the Troubles by Ian Paisley, who led the party for the next 37 years. Currently led by Jeffrey Donaldson, it is the second largest party in the Northern Ireland Assembly, and is the fifth-largest party in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom. The party has been described as right-wing and socially conservative, being anti-abortion and opposing same-sex marriage. The DUP sees itself as defending Britishness and Ulster Protestant culture against Irish nationalism and Irish republicanism; the party is Eurosceptic and supported Brexit. It supports Northern Ireland remaining in the United Kingdom and opposes the unification of Ireland. The DUP evolved from the Protestant Unionist Party and has historically strong links to the Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster, the church Paisley founded. During the Troubles, the DUP oppos ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jackie Thompson (loyalist)
John Albert Thompson (born 13 November 1963), commonly known as Fat Jackie, is a Belfast-born Northern Irish loyalist activist who was a senior member of the Ulster Defence Association (UDA). Thompson was close to Johnny Adair during Adair's time as leader of the UDA West Belfast Brigade and remained one of the last of the "C Company" members to support Adair. Thompson was briefly brigadier in West Belfast in 2003 between Adair's imprisonment and his fall.Lister & Jordan, p. 28 Early years A native of Snugville Street in the middle section of the Shankill Road, Thompson's parents ran a sweet shop on the road and the young Jackie Thompson gained his nickname at an early age due to his habit of eating large quantities of his parents' stock. Thompson was a contemporary of Johnny Adair, Sam McCrory, Donald Hodgen and James and Herbie Millar, and along with them was part of a racist skinhead gang that congregated on the Lower Shankill Road and neighbouring Lower Oldpark area in the ... [...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] |
Jackie McDonald
John "Jackie" McDonald (born 2 August 1947) is a Northern Irish loyalist and the incumbent Ulster Defence Association (UDA) brigadier for South Belfast, having been promoted to the rank by former UDA commander Andy Tyrie in 1988, following John McMichael's killing by the Provisional IRA in December 1987. He is also a member of the organisation's Inner Council and the spokesman for the Ulster Political Research Group (UPRG), the UDA's political advisory body. Ulster Defence Association Born in Belfast, Northern Ireland into a Protestant family, McDonald attended Larkfield Secondary School later known as Balmoral High School in South Belfast. He lives in the south Belfast housing estate of Taughmonagh. His paramilitary activities have attracted considerable publicity from the media, and he was the subject of interviews by journalist Peter Taylor for the latter's book ''Loyalists''. Described by journalist Rosie Cowan as the UDA's most powerful player, he is an outspoken critic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Gregg (UDA)
John Gregg (1957 – 1 February 2003) was a senior member of the UDA/UFF loyalist paramilitary organisation in Northern Ireland. In 1984, Gregg seriously wounded Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams in an assassination attempt. From the 1990s until he was shot dead in 2003 by rival associates, Gregg served as brigadier of the UDA's South East Antrim Brigade. Widely known as a man with a fearsome reputation, Gregg was considered a "hawk" in some loyalist circles. Early life Gregg was born in 1957 and raised in a Protestant family from the Tigers Bay area of North Belfast. Gregg when explaining his family background, revealed that his father, regarded as a quiet man, had trust in the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) and British Army but joined the loyalist vigilante groups set up around the start of the Troubles ostensibly to protect the Protestant community from attacks by republicans. His own earliest memory of the Troubles was the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association marches ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Big Brother (UK)
''Big Brother'' is the British version of the international reality television franchise '' Big Brother'' created by producer John de Mol in 1997. Broadcast yearly from 2000 to 2018, and due to return in 2023, the show follows the format of other national editions, in which a group of contestants, known as "housemates", live together in a specially constructed house that is isolated from the outside world. They are continuously monitored by live television cameras and personal audio microphones. Throughout the competition, housemates are "evicted" from the house by public televoting. The last remaining housemate wins the competition and a cash prize. The series takes its name from the oppressive character known by that name in George Orwell's 1949 novel ''Nineteen Eighty-Four''. The series premiered in 2000 on Channel 4 and immediately became a ratings hit. It featured a 24-hour live feed in which fans could view inside the house at any time. ''Big Brother'' aired for eleven s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John White (loyalist)
John White (born 1950) is a former leading loyalist in Northern Ireland. He was sometimes known by the nickname 'Coco'. White was a leading figure in the loyalist paramilitary group, the Ulster Defence Association (UDA) and, following a prison sentence for murder, entered politics as a central figure in the Ulster Democratic Party (UDP). Always a close ally of Johnny Adair, White was run out of Northern Ireland when Adair fell from grace and is no longer involved in loyalist activism. Early years Born in Belfast, White was one of eight children, two of whom had died in infancy, whose father was permanently disabled as a result of wartime injuries. The family had initially lived on the mainly nationalist Ballymurphy area of the Springfield Road, Belfast but had left upon the outbreak of the Troubles to move to the Old Lodge Road area of the lower Shankill.Wood, p. 6 White has claimed that although his house "wasn't a loyalist one" his father "hated Catholics" and was bitter abou ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Peter Taylor (journalist)
Peter Taylor, is a British journalist and documentary-maker. He is best known for his coverage of the political and armed conflict in Northern Ireland, widely known as the Troubles, and for his investigation of Al Qaeda and Islamist extremism in the wake of 9/11. He also covers the issue of smoking and health and the politics of tobacco for which he was awarded the WHO Gold Medal for Services to Public Health. He has written books and researched, written and presented television documentaries over a period of more than forty years. In 2014, Taylor was awarded both a Royal Television Society lifetime achievement award and a BAFTA special award. Early life Taylor was born in 1942 in Scarborough, North Riding of Yorkshire, and was educated at Scarborough High School for Boys, a state boys' grammar school, followed by Pembroke College, Cambridge, where he read Classics, Modern History and Social and Political Sciences. Career Taylor's career reporting on political violence beg ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gary Smyth (loyalist)
Gary Smyth (sometimes written as Gary Smith or Garry Smyth) is a Northern Irish former loyalist paramilitary. Smyth was an active member of the West Belfast Brigade of the Ulster Defence Association during the Troubles. He was known by the nickname "Smickers" throughout his paramilitary career, although he was also sometimes called "Chiefo". Early years A native of Belfast's Shankill Road, David Lister and Hugh Jordan state that Smyth joined the UDA for the first time around 1980 but left again in 1981 after a disagreement with his superiors. William "Bucky" McCullough, a leading figure in the West Belfast Brigade, was killed at his Shankill home by the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) in 1981. In response, Smyth hatched a plan to shoot up a bus stop on the republican Falls Road in retaliation. When the plan was vetoed by Smyth's superiors he left the UDA in disgust at what he perceived to be their inaction.Lister & Jordan, p. 152 C Company At a later unspecified date Smy ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shoukri Brothers
The Shoukri brothers are a pair of Northern Irish loyalist paramilitaries. Andre Khalef Shoukri was born in 1977, the son of a Coptic Christian Egyptian father and a Northern Irish mother. He was alleged to have taken over the north Belfast Ulster Defence Association (UDA) leadership. In July 2003 he received a two-year prison sentence for unlawful possession of a gun and received a nine-year sentence for various crimes in 2007. Ihab Shoukri, who was the older brother by three years, died in 2008. Early years The brothers were natives of the Westland estate, an Ulster loyalist area of Belfast that forms an interface area with the Irish republican "Little America" area, the two places being divided by the Cavehill Road. The brothers were educated at Lagan College, the first religiously integrated school in Northern Ireland, and at Boys' Model School, a secondary school in the north of the city.David Lister & Hugh Jordan, ''Mad Dog: The Rise and Fall of Johnny Adair and 'C' Compan ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Loyalist Feud
A loyalist feud refers to any of the sporadic feuds which have erupted almost routinely between Northern Ireland's various loyalist paramilitary groups during and after the ethno-political conflict known as the Troubles broke out in 1969. The feuds have frequently involved problems between and within the Ulster Defence Association (UDA) and the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) as well as, later, the Loyalist Volunteer Force (LVF). UDA–UVF feuds Although the UDA and UVF have frequently co-operated and generally co-existed, the two groups have clashed. Two particular feuds stood out for their bloody nature. 1974–1975 A feud in the winter of 1974-75 broke out between the UDA and the UVF, the two main loyalist paramilitary organisations in Northern Ireland.Taylor, Peter (1999). ''Loyalists''. London: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc. p.146 The bad blood originated from an incident in the Ulster Workers' Council strike of May 1974 when the two groups were co-operating in support of the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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