Clifford Peeples (sometimes spelled Clifford Peoples; born circa 1970) is a self-styled pastor in Northern Ireland who has been associated with
Ulster loyalist
Ulster loyalism is a strand of Ulster unionism associated with working class Ulster Protestants in Northern Ireland. Like other unionists, loyalists support the continued existence of Northern Ireland within the United Kingdom, and oppose a uni ...
activity. Peeples has been a member of the
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 campaig ...
(UVF), the
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 ...
(LVF) prisoners' spokesman and leader of the
Orange Volunteers
The Orange Volunteers (OV) or Orange Volunteer Force (OVF) is a small Ulster loyalist paramilitary group in Northern Ireland. It was formed in 1998 by loyalists who opposed the Belfast Agreement and the loyalist ceasefires. Over the following y ...
. He has taken a prominent role in opposing the
Northern Ireland Protocol
The Protocol on Ireland/Northern Ireland, commonly abbreviated to the Northern Ireland Protocol, is a protocol to the Brexit withdrawal agreement that governs the unique customs and immigration issues at the border on the island of Ireland betwe ...
in the courts.
Early years
According to writers
Henry McDonald and Jim Cusack, Peeples had been a member of the
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 campaig ...
(UVF) early in his life.
[Henry McDonald & Jim Cusack, ''UDA – Inside the Heart of Loyailst Terror'', Penguin Ireland, 2004, p. 282] This is also confirmed by Steve Bruce.
[Steve Bruce]
Religion and Violence: The Case of Paisley and Ulster Evangelicals
/ref> At some point, he was given security clearance for RAF Aldergrove
Joint Helicopter Command Flying Station Aldergrove or more simply JHC FS Aldergrove is located south of Antrim, Northern Ireland and northwest of Belfast and adjoins Belfast International Airport. It is sometimes referred to simply as Alde ...
. He did not come to any prominence, however, until the mid-1990s when he was a leading activist with Families Against Intimidation and Terror
Families Against Intimidation and Terror (FAIT) was a group that campaigned against paramilitary violence during the Troubles in Northern Ireland. Formed in 1990 by Nancy Gracey and others following the shooting of her son by a paramilitary organis ...
.
Loyalist Volunteer Force
Peeples became close to another pastor, 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 a ...
-based Kenny McClinton
Kenneth McClinton (born 1947) is a Northern Irish pastor and sometime political activist. During his early years McClinton was an active member of the Ulster Defence Association (UDA/UFF). He was a close friend of Loyalist Volunteer Force (LVF) ...
, who had formerly been a member of the Ulster Defence Association
The Ulster Defence Association (UDA) is an Ulster loyalism, Ulster loyalist paramilitary group in Northern Ireland. It was formed in September 1971 as an umbrella group for various loyalist groups and Timeline of Ulster Defence Association act ...
(UDA) before falling out with that organisation and joining forces with the UVF Mid-Ulster brigadier Billy Wright. According to McDonald and Cusack, Peeples and McClinton were also linked to a British intelligence agent known as "the Pastor." Together the three associates launched a propaganda campaign against the 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 Volunte ...
(PUP) and Ulster Democratic Party
The Ulster Democratic Party (UDP) was a small loyalist political party in Northern Ireland. It was established in June 1981 as the Ulster Loyalist Democratic Party by the Ulster Defence Association (UDA), to replace the New Ulster Political Res ...
(UDP) through which they hoped to destabilise the nascent Northern Ireland peace process
The Northern Ireland peace process includes the events leading up to the 1994 Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) ceasefire, the end of most of the violence of the Troubles, the Good Friday Agreement of 1998, and subsequent political developm ...
. McDonald and Cusack further claimed that Peeples, McClinton and "the Pastor" helped to convince Wright to break from the UVF, with which he had been in dispute over what he had said was their lack of reaction to the Drumcree conflict
The Drumcree conflict or Drumcree standoff is a dispute over yearly parades in the town of Portadown, Northern Ireland. The town is mainly Protestant and hosts numerous Protestant/loyalist marches each summer, but has a significant Catholic mi ...
, to establish the 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 ...
(LVF). The three helped convince Wright, who was an evangelical Christian
Evangelicalism (), also called evangelical Christianity or evangelical Protestantism, is a worldwide interdenominational movement within Protestant Christianity that affirms the centrality of being " born again", in which an individual exper ...
, that they intended the new group to be an "army of God."
Political activity
Peeples was also involved in Ulster nationalist politics as a member of the Ulster Independence Movement
The Ulster Independence Movement was an Ulster nationalist political party founded (as the Ulster Independence Committee) on 17 November 1988. The group emerged from the Ulster Clubs, after a series of 15 public meetings across Northern Ireland. ...
. He was, along with McClinton, one of two unsuccessful candidates for the party in Belfast West in the 1996 elections to the Northern Ireland Forum
The Northern Ireland Forum for Political Dialogue was a body set up in 1996 as part of a process of negotiations that eventually led to the Good Friday Agreement in 1998.
The forum was elected, with five members being elected for each Westmin ...
, jointly securing only 43 votes (out of 42,000). In keeping with UIM policy, Peeples campaigned against the Good Friday Agreement
The Good Friday Agreement (GFA), or Belfast Agreement ( ga, Comhaontú Aoine an Chéasta or ; Ulster-Scots: or ), is a pair of agreements signed on 10 April 1998 that ended most of the violence of The Troubles, a political conflict in No ...
and on 24 April 1998, he shared a platform at an Antrim rally with 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 J ...
(DUP) councillors Jack McKee
Jack McKee (4 September 1943 – 4 October 2015) was a Traditional Unionist Voice (TUV) politician in Larne, Northern Ireland.Sydney Elliott and W. D. Flackes, ''Northern Ireland: A Political Directory, 1968-1999'', p.333
Early life
McKee was bo ...
and Sammy Wilson at which he set fire to a copy of the document whilst members of the crowd shouted "and burn Fenian
The word ''Fenian'' () served as an umbrella term for the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) and their affiliate in the United States, the Fenian Brotherhood, secret political organisations in the late 19th and early 20th centuries dedicated ...
s too".
As a political figure he retained his links to the LVF, and during an LVF hunger strike in the Maze Prison
Her Majesty's Prison Maze (previously Long Kesh Detention Centre, and known colloquially as The Maze or H-Blocks) was a prison in Northern Ireland that was used to house alleged paramilitary prisoners during the Troubles from August 1971 to Sept ...
he went into the jail to discuss the incident with the loyalist prisoners. His links to this dissident group did not go unnoticed amongst the more mainstream elements of loyalist paramilitarism however. For a time he ran a flower shop on the 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 t ...
but this was ransacked in 1997 in an attack that Peeples blamed on loyalist racketeers. Peeples was seen as a target by the UVF because of his association with the LVF and their leader, the former Mid-Ulster UVF brigadier Billy Wright. He then resettled on the Woodvale Road, Greater Shankill
The Shankill Road () is one of the main roads leading through West Belfast, in Northern Ireland. It runs through the working-class, predominantly loyalist, area known as the Shankill.
The road stretches westwards for about from central Belfast ...
where he began styling himself as a pastor.
Orange Volunteers
A group known as the Orange Volunteers (OV) had existed in the early 1970s before disappearing. However, the name was revived in late 1998 by a group of Protestant
Protestantism is a Christian denomination, branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Reformation, Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century agai ...
fundamentalists based in Stoneyford, County Antrim who launched a series of pipe bomb attacks on Gaelic Athletic Association
The Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA; ga, Cumann Lúthchleas Gael ; CLG) is an Irish international amateur sporting and cultural organisation, focused primarily on promoting indigenous Gaelic games and pastimes, which include the traditional ...
halls and the homes of prominent Irish nationalist
Irish nationalism is a nationalist political movement which, in its broadest sense, asserts that the people of Ireland should govern Ireland as a sovereign state. Since the mid-19th century, Irish nationalism has largely taken the form of cu ...
s in County Antrim
County Antrim (named after the town of Antrim, ) is one of six counties of Northern Ireland and one of the thirty-two counties of Ireland. Adjoined to the north-east shore of Lough Neagh, the county covers an area of and has a population o ...
and County Londonderry
County Londonderry ( Ulster-Scots: ''Coontie Lunnonderrie''), also known as County Derry ( ga, Contae Dhoire), is one of the six counties of Northern Ireland, one of the thirty two counties of Ireland and one of the nine counties of Ulster. B ...
. The group also carried out 11 simultaneous arson attacks on Catholic churches.
In 1999 the 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 ...
, using a bugging device, overheard a conversation between a local DUP politician and Peeples, who was the leader of the group, in which the politician encouraged Peeples to attack local Irish republican
Irish republicanism ( ga, poblachtánachas Éireannach) is the political movement for the unity and independence of Ireland under a republic. Irish republicans view British rule in any part of Ireland as inherently illegitimate.
The develop ...
s. Peeples was the leader from the group's foundation in 1998 until 1999. He defended the activities of the OV by arguing that they were "defenders of the reformed faith" and that the Roman Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
was a tool of the Antichrist
In Christian eschatology, the Antichrist refers to people prophesied by the Bible to oppose Jesus Christ and substitute themselves in Christ's place before the Second Coming. The term Antichrist (including one plural form) 1 John ; . 2 John . ...
.
Peeples was assistant pastor at the Bethel Pentecostal Church on 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 Kingdo ...
's Shankill Road
The Shankill Road () is one of the main roads leading through West Belfast, in Northern Ireland. It runs through the working-class, predominantly loyalist, area known as the Shankill.
The road stretches westwards for about from central Belfast a ...
when in 1999 he was arrested for paramilitary offences and given a 10-year jail sentence after a pipe bomb
A pipe bomb is an improvised explosive device which uses a tightly sealed section of pipe (material), pipe filled with an explosive material. The containment provided by the pipe means that simple Explosive material#Low explosives, low explosi ...
and grenades were found in his car.[Church row splits congregation](_blank)
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
when the discovery was made, with his passenger, well-known loyalist, James McGookin-Fisher also arrested.