The Combined Loyalist Military Command is an umbrella body for

loyalist Loyalism, in the United Kingdom, its overseas territories and its former colonies, refers to the allegiance to the British crown or the United Kingdom. In North America, the most common usage of the term refers to loyalty to the British C ...

paramilitary groups in

Northern Ireland Northern Ireland ( ga, Tuaisceart Éireann ; sco, label=Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots, Norlin Airlann) is a part of the United Kingdom, situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, that is #Descriptions, variously described as ...

set up in the early 1990s, recalling the earlier Ulster Army Council and Ulster Loyalist Central Co-ordinating Committee. Bringing together the leaderships of the

Ulster Defence Association The Ulster Defence Association (UDA) is an Ulster loyalist paramilitary group in Northern Ireland. It was formed in September 1971 as an umbrella group for various loyalist groups and undertook an armed campaign of almost 24 years as one of t ...

, 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 campaign ...

and the Red Hand Commando, the CLMC sought to ensure that the groups would work towards the same goals. The group was made up of a number of 'Liaison Officers' who were senior figures from the paramilitary groups themselves, as well as from the

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 ...

and the loyalist

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 Volun ...

. The UDP was made up of representatives from UDA and the PUP was made up of representatives from both the RHC and UVF.

1991 Ceasefire

The CLMC first tested the idea of a ceasefire in 1991 when it called a halt to all action from 29 April to 4 July of that year. The only breach of the 10-week ceasefire was the killing by the

Ulster Freedom Fighters The Ulster Defence Association (UDA) is an Ulster loyalist paramilitary group in Northern Ireland. It was formed in September 1971 as an umbrella group for various loyalist groups and undertook an armed campaign of almost 24 years as one of t ...

Eddie Fullerton Edward "Eddie" Fullerton (26 March 1935 – 25 May 1991) was a Sinn Féin councillor from Inishowen in County Donegal, Ireland. He was killed at his Buncrana home in May 1991 by members of the Ulster Defence Association (UDA). Childhood and ...

, a

Sinn Féin Sinn Féin ( , ; en, " eOurselves") is an Irish republican and democratic socialist political party active throughout both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. The original Sinn Féin organisation was founded in 1905 by Arthur Gr ...

Councillor in

Buncrana Buncrana ( ; ) is a town in County Donegal, Ireland. It is beside Lough Swilly on the Inishowen peninsula, northwest of Derry and north of Letterkenny. In the 2016 census, the population was 6,785 making it the second most populous town in ...

County Donegal County Donegal ( ; ga, Contae Dhún na nGall) is a county of Ireland in the province of Ulster and in the Northern and Western Region. It is named after the town of Donegal in the south of the county. It has also been known as County Tyrcon ...

. The UDA justified the killing, insisting that the ceasefire only applied within Northern Ireland. The ceasefire indicated that the CLMC was open to the possibility of ending its campaign and a line of negotiation was opened afterwards with

Robin Eames Robert Henry Alexander Eames, Baron Eames, (born 27 April 1936) is an Anglican bishop and life peer, who served as Primate of All Ireland and Archbishop of Armagh from 1986 to 2006. Early life and education Eames was born in 1936, the son ...

, the head of the

Church of Ireland The Church of Ireland ( ga, Eaglais na hÉireann, ; sco, label= Ulster-Scots, Kirk o Airlann, ) is a Christian church in Ireland and an autonomous province of the Anglican Communion. It is organised on an all-Ireland basis and is the sec ...

Paramilitary action

The only paramilitary action claimed in the name of the CLMC was a rocket attack on

Crumlin Road Prison HMP Belfast, also known as Crumlin Road Gaol, is a former prison situated on the Crumlin Road in north Belfast, Northern Ireland. Since 1996 it is the only remaining Victorian era former prison in Northern Ireland. It is colloquially known as ' ...

on 13 December 1991, in retaliation for an IRA bomb in the prison on 24 November 1991 which killed two loyalist prisoners. An

RPG-7 The RPG-7 (russian: link=no, РПГ-7, Ручной Противотанковый Гранатомёт, Ruchnoy Protivotankoviy Granatomyot) is a portable, reusable, unguided, shoulder-launched, anti-tank, rocket-propelled grenade launcher. Th ...

was fired at the canteen block where republican prisoners were having their evening meal but the rocket bounced off a window grille and failed to explode

1994 Ceasefire

After a long process of consultation with members and activists across

, the CLMC called a ceasefire on 13 October 1994, bringing loyalists fully into the peace process. The ceasefire was announced at a press conference at Fernhill House in the Glencairn area of the Shankill. Former UVF commander and PUP politician

Gusty Spence Augustus Andrew Spence (28 June 1933
. ''

Drumcree

The ceasefire, however, proved difficult to maintain and in 1996 the CLMC was forced to distance itself from the murder of

Catholic 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 ...

taxi driver, Michael McGoldrick by the UVF's Mid-Ulster Brigade. They were further embarrassed by television pictures that year showing loyalists at Drumcree Church being led against the security forces by Billy Wright, at the time the leader of the Mid-Ulster UVF. Following the unsanctioned killing of a Catholic taxi driver by his brigade, Wright, along with the Portadown unit of the Mid-Ulster UVF, was stood down by the UVF's Brigade Staff (Belfast leadership). Wright was soon expelled from the UVF for his renegade actions along with a number of his followers who soon reconstituted as 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 ...

, continuing without ceasefire. Despite no longer having full control of Loyalism, the CLMC carried on and supported the signing of the

Belfast 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 ...

. However, since then the CLMC has effectively ceased to exist as the UVF and UDA were embroiled in a

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. Th ...

over

Johnny Adair John Adair (born 27 October 1963), better known as Johnny Adair or Mad Dog Adair, is an Ulster loyalist and the former leader of the "C Company", 2nd Battalion Shankill Road, West Belfast Brigade of the Ulster Freedom Fighters (UFF). This was a ...

and commitment to the Agreement has wavered. Overall control of Loyalism has largely been lost to the CLMC and, whilst it is still theoretically maintained, it is no longer the important body that it once was. The subsequent Loyalist Commission (LC) represented the political work of the new McMichael-ite UDA politicos, known as the Ulster Political Research Group (UPRG), which followed the now defunct UDP, and the David Ervine-inspired PUP. Led by the UPRGs liberal but tough East Belfast faction, Frankie Gallagher, and Dawn Purvis the new PUP leader, the testing post-Ervine vacuum murders by the CIRA-RIRA alliance were rendered ineffective when even the now larger hard-line Loyalist Volunteer Force refused to retaliate to several murders in March 2009. Many duly credit the CLMC/LC bodies with the final say in the Northern Irish peace process, in that their groupings managed somehow to not only avoid retaliation to the March 2009 killings, but (some argue) that they brought, albeit unofficially, the un-aligned LVF more into the peace process. At the Belfast peace rally of 12 March 2009 a community-led body calling itself the Combined Loyalists for Peace appeared. Quoted in the ''Irish Independent'' they stressed that the loyalist communities had a peace strategy and would stick to it. UDA leader

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 ...

confirmed the group's thoughts on a BBC interview when he said loyalists would not be goaded into reaction adding that "clowns" would not spoil the loyalist peace strategy. In a carefully choreographed move Frankie Gallahgher met Belfast mayor, Tom Hartley of Sinn Féin in public that same day. Despite goading from rebel republicans, three levels of formerly hard-line loyalism were evident for the first time and in public – the community, the military, and the political. All were showing overt support for no return to violence. Subsequently, and merely weeks after the dissident republican murders, the groups which had made up the CLMC made separate announcements to the media that arms had been decommissioned. Dawn Purvis, now leader of the PUP mentioned above, quoting the input of influential liberal loyalists such as

Billy Mitchell William Lendrum Mitchell (December 29, 1879 – February 19, 1936) was a United States Army officer who is regarded as the father of the United States Air Force. Mitchell served in France during World War I and, by the conflict's end, command ...

and Billy McCaughey, announced on behalf of the UVF and the RHC that all weapons had been put beyond use.

Frankie Gallagher Frankie Gallagher was a loyalist community worker from Northern Ireland and was along with Tommy Kirkham and Sammy Duddy one of the first leading spokespeople for the Ulster Political Research Group (UPRG) which offered political advice to the ...

, speaking for the UDA/UFF via the UPRG, stated that their process was underway. This was confirmed by General de Chastelain hours later. The CLMC set out to see that any conflict resolution initiatives by Irish republicans in the peace process were matched by loyalist groups, and nearly 20 years after its creation, and despite the fact that 'in essence' it no longer existed, it finally and successfully achieved its goals.

References

Bibliography

*H. McDonald & J. Cusack, ''UDA – Inside the Heart of Loyalist Terror'', Dublin, Penguin Ireland, 2004 {{Ulster Volunteer Force History of Northern Ireland Red Hand Commando Ulster Defence Association Ulster Volunteer Force