Edward "Ned" McCreery (c. 1945 – 15 April 1992) was a

Northern Irish Northern Irish people is a demonym for all people born in Northern Ireland or people who are entitled to reside in Northern Ireland without any restriction on their period of residence. Most Northern Irish people either identify as Northern ...

loyalist. A leading member 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 ...

(UDA), he was notorious for the use of torture in his killings. He was leader of the UDA East Belfast Brigade for several years at a time when the brigade was at its most active. He later fell out of favour with other high-ranking UDA figures and was killed by unidentified members of the organisation. McCreery came from a well-known east

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 ...

family that produced a number of leading loyalists as well as

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, including his cousin

David McCreery David McCreery (born 16 September 1957) is a Northern Irish former international footballer who played professionally for Newcastle United and many other clubs during his long career. He mostly played in midfield, but was very versatile, and ...

.Henry McDonald & Jim Cusack, ''UDA – Inside the Heart of Loyalist Terror'', Penguin Ireland, 2004, p. 226

Rise to prominence

McCreery was a founder-member of the UDA in 1971. Holding the rank of colonel in the UDA, McCreery sat on the group's Inner Council in the early 1970s.McDonald & Cusack, ''UDA'', p. 42 According to Henry McDonald and

Jim Cusack Jim Cusack (2 November 1930 – 29 November 2019) was an Australian rules footballer who played with Fitzroy in the Victorian Football League The Victorian Football League (VFL) is an Australian rules football league in Australia ser ...

, McCreery was responsible for the murders of at least six

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 ...

civilians in 1972 and also launched a grenade attack on a busload of Catholic workers. His gang became notorious, along with the groups led by John White and

Davy Payne H. David "Davy" Payne (c. 1949 – March 2003) was a senior Northern Irish loyalist and a high-ranking member of the Ulster Defence Association (UDA) during the Troubles, serving as brigadier of the North Belfast Brigade. He was first in comma ...

, for pioneering the use of torture in their murders, something that was new to Northern Ireland at the time. In this role McCreery co-operated closely with Albert "Ginger" Baker, a Belfast-born British soldier and UDA

volunteer Volunteering is a voluntary act of an individual or group freely giving time and labor for community service. Many volunteers are specifically trained in the areas they work, such as medicine, education, or emergency rescue. Others serve ...

.David McKittrick et al, ''Lost Lives'', Mainstream Publishing, 2008, p. 1287 McCreery's name was also mentioned in connection with the killing of

Tommy Herron Tommy Herron (1938 – 14 September 1973) was a Northern Irish loyalist and a leading member of the Ulster Defence Association (UDA) until his death in a fatal shooting. Herron controlled the UDA in East Belfast, one of its two earliest strong ...

in 1973. According to one theory the two had a long-running dispute over money that ended when McCreery used a woman to lure Herron into a deadly ambush. The theory remains unproven and is one of a number of competing ideas, as Herron's death remains unsolved. Following the introduction of internment in 1971, McCreery was one of the first UDA members to be taken into custody.

Imprisonment and trial

In 1973, Albert Baker decided to leave the organisation after becoming disillusioned with killing. Baker turned himself into the Royal Ulster Constabulary and agreed to testify against a number of UDA leaders, including McCreery. Baker's evidence saw McCreery and six others brought to trial for the torture and murder of James McCartan on 3 October 1972. However, Baker's evidence proved incoherent and was tailored in an attempt to minimise his own involvement, resulting in the judge dismissing the case and McCreery going free. McCartan had been kidnapped from the lobby of the Park Avenue Hotel, Holywood Road and tortured at two separate

Newtownards Road The A20 is a road in County Down in Northern Ireland. It runs from Belfast to Newtownards and on to Portaferry. Beginning as the Newtownards Road at the junction of Bridge End close to Belfast city centre, the road runs in an easterly direct ...

UDA clubs (on Finmore Street and Clermont Lane) before being shot dead. According to the evidence presented, McCreery had directed the torture but had left the shooting to Baker, preferring to remain behind and drink at the Clermont Lane club. Whilst being held, McCreery was part of a Camp Council that met from time to time in the Maze and in which issues affecting prisoners in the compound were discussed. The Council was established by

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 ...

leader

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

Provisional IRA The Irish Republican Army (IRA; ), also known as the Provisional Irish Republican Army, and informally as the Provos, was an Irish republicanism, Irish republican paramilitary organisation that sought to end British rule in Northern Ireland, fa ...

members Proinsias MacAirt and

Billy McKee Billy McKee ( ga, Liam Mac Aoidh; 12 November 1921 – 11 June 2019) was an Irish republicanism, Irish republican and a founding member and leader of the Provisional Irish Republican Army. Early life McKee was born in Belfast on 12 November 1921 ...

, to which UDA representatives McCreery and James Craig as well as

Official IRA The Official Irish Republican Army or Official IRA (OIRA; ) was an Irish republican paramilitary group whose goal was to remove Northern Ireland from the United Kingdom and create a "workers' republic" encompassing all of Ireland. It emerged ...

and Irish National Liberation Army representatives were added. McCreery was released on 17 February 1974, prompting celebrations in his native East Belfast that quickly escalated into a riot. A gun battle between the UDA and the

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 Gurk ...

followed and UDA member Kirk Watters and local non-combatant Gary Reid, a cousin of footballer

George Best George Best (22 May 1946 – 25 November 2005) was a Northern Irish professional footballer who played as a winger, spending most of his club career at Manchester United. A highly skilful dribbler, Best is regarded as one of the greatest p ...

, were both shot and killed by soldiers. Eventually Sammy McCormick, recently appointed East Belfast brigadier, called a halt to the mayhem and over the coming weeks instilled a discipline within the ranks of his brigade that had previously been lacking in the area. McCreery was then interned without trial along with two other men involved in the Baker trial.

Later years and killing

McCreery remained an active figure in loyalist paramilitarism and according to author Ian S. Wood, was probably one of those who killed a Protestant. Rumours also circulated at the time that McCreery had been known to indulge in bestiality. Margaret Caulfield, in Ballysillan on 7 May 1986 when seeking her Catholic husband. During the 1980s he began to take more of a role in the racketeering side of the movement. Towards the end of the decade he began to garner a reputation within the movement for corruption and greed, a trait shared by his old ally Craig. By this time his base was the Avenue One bar on Templemore Avenue, which he owned.Wood, ''Crimes of Loyalty'', p. 162 He had risen to the rank of Brigadier of the East Belfast UDA, following the resignation of

Billy Elliot ''Billy Elliot'' is a 2000 British coming-of-age comedy-drama film directed by Stephen Daldry and written by Lee Hall. Set in County Durham in North East England during the 1984–1985 miners' strike, the film is about a working-class boy w ...

. This made him effectively one of the six leaders of the movement.The death of Doris Day
/ref> However, by the early 1990s, McCreery's position within the UDA became less secure. In 1991 his cousin had been shot and wounded by UDA colleagues, an attack that left McCreery embittered, and shortly before his death McCreery had a fight with another UDA member, beating him soundly. An internal UDA inquiry in the early 1990s determined that McCreery was also a police agent and claimed that he had even passed on information about fellow UDA members to Irish republicans. McCreery's close links to Craig, who had been killed in 1988 following similar claims, as well as the ''persona non grata''

Tommy Lyttle Tommy "Tucker" Lyttle (c. 1939 – 18 October 1995), was a high-ranking Ulster loyalist during the period of religious-political conflict in Northern Ireland known as "the Troubles". A member of the Ulster Defence Association (UDA) – the large ...

sealed his fate, and a death sentence was passed on McCreery by the new UDA leadership in early 1992. He was shot and killed outside his home on Grahamsbridge Road, Dundonald on 15 April 1992. He was 46 years old. The killing was claimed by the UDA's Special Assignment Section, which had first appeared in 1988 when it claimed Craig's murder.

Aftermath

Following his death, an "Ulster Freedom Fighters" (UFF) statement described McCreery as an "enemy of Ulster" and accused him of being a leading figure within the illegal drugs trade. No convictions were ever made for McCreery's killing although his relatives and supporters within the East Belfast UDA blamed Geordie Legge, another leading figure in the east of the city and a major internal rival of McCreery. In 1997 Leonard McCreery, Ned's brother, attacked Legge with a knife, inflicting grievous wounds on Legge. Despite clinically dying twice on his way to the hospital, Legge survived the attack and Leonard McCreery was sentenced to eleven years in prison for attempted murder.Simon Cressy, "Leon McCreery", ''

Searchlight A searchlight (or spotlight) is an apparatus that combines an extremely bright source (traditionally a carbon arc lamp) with a mirrored parabolic reflector to project a powerful beam of light of approximately parallel rays in a particular direc ...

'', No, 424, October 2010, p. 13 Legge, who is described by Ian S. Wood as having served as brigadier of East Belfast, eventually fell foul of McCreery's ultimate successor Jim Gray and was violently killed in Gray's "Bunch of Grapes" pub in January 2001.Wood, ''Crimes of Loyalty'', p. 264 Gray was also believed to have issued the order to kill McCreery. Leonard McCreery's son Leon also became active in the UDA but in 1999 fled Belfast after being attacked by rivals from the group. In the course of the knife attack he sustained wounds that required 63 stitches and 17 staples. Leon McCreery settled in Stockport where he would later come to prominence as the head steward for the far-right

English Defence League The English Defence League (EDL) is a far-right, Islamophobic organisation in the United Kingdom. A social movement and pressure group that employs street demonstrations as its main tactic, the EDL presents itself as a single-issue movement ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mccreery, Ned 1945 births 1992 deaths Deaths by firearm in Northern Ireland People acquitted of murder Paramilitaries from Belfast People killed by the Ulster Defence Association Ulster Defence Association members Ulster loyalists interned without trial