H. David "Davy" Payne (c. 1949 – March 2003) was a senior Northern Irish loyalist and a high-ranking 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) during the

Troubles The Troubles ( ga, Na Trioblóidí) were an ethno-nationalist conflict in Northern Ireland that lasted about 30 years from the late 1960s to 1998. Also known internationally as the Northern Ireland conflict, it is sometimes described as an " ...

, serving as brigadier of the North Belfast Brigade. He was first in command of the

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 ...

brigade of 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 ...

(UFF), which was the "cover name" of the militant branch of the UDA. The group was responsible for a series of abductions and killings of mostly Catholic civilians in the early 1970s. He was arrested after being stopped at a Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) checkpoint while driving the "scout" (lead) car for his UDA colleagues whose cars' boots contained large caches of weapons imported from

Lebanon Lebanon ( , ar, لُبْنَان, translit=lubnān, ), officially the Republic of Lebanon () or the Lebanese Republic, is a country in Western Asia. It is located between Syria to Lebanon–Syria border, the north and east and Israel to Blue ...

. He was convicted and sentenced to 19 years in prison.Peter Taylor, ''Loyalists'', pp. 191–92

Ulster Defence Association

Payne was born in

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 grew up in the loyalist

area of West Belfast. His family belonged to the Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster. He remained a member of the church in adulthood and regularly attended services at the Martyrs' Memorial Church, the group's headquarters on the Ravenhill Road in south-east Belfast. Payne was one of the original members of the

(UDA) when it was formed from

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 u ...

vigilante Vigilantism () is the act of preventing, investigating and punishing perceived offenses and crimes without legal authority. A vigilante (from Spanish, Italian and Portuguese “vigilante”, which means "sentinel" or "watcher") is a person who ...

groups in September 1971. These groups, including the

Woodvale Defence Association The Woodvale Defence Association (WDA) was an Ulster loyalist vigilante group in the Woodvale district of Belfast, an area immediately to the north of the Shankill Road. The organisation grew from a few smaller vigilante groups. It initially m ...

(WDA) and

Shankill Defence Association The Shankill Defence Association was a Ulster loyalism, loyalist vigilante group formed in May 1969 for the defence of the loyalist Shankill Road area of Belfast, Northern Ireland during the communal disturbances that year. The Shankill Defence A ...

(SDA), had sprung up following the outbreak in the late 1960s of the violent politico-religious conflict known as

the Troubles The Troubles ( ga, Na Trioblóidí) were an ethno-nationalist conflict in Northern Ireland that lasted about 30 years from the late 1960s to 1998. Also known internationally as the Northern Ireland conflict, it is sometimes described as an " ...

. Payne, who had been a supporter of

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

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 Tara but took his entire "team" over to the UDA upon that organisation's foundation.Steve Bruce, ''The Red Hand'', Oxford University Press, 1992, p. 253 As the civil disorder, rioting, and attacks carried out by the

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 ...

escalated, many

Ulster Protestant Ulster Protestants ( ga, Protastúnaigh Ultach) are an ethnoreligious group in the Irish province of Ulster, where they make up about 43.5% of the population. Most Ulster Protestants are descendants of settlers who arrived from Britain in the ...

s felt increasingly under threat, and the groups were created as a means of defending the status quo. These vigilante units merged in 1971 to become the UDA. Author Sarah Nelson stated that "the vigilantism of summer and autumn 1969 was one of the foundation stones of the Ulster Defence Association".Nelson, Sarah (1984). ''Ulster's Uncertain Defenders: Protestant Political, Paramilitary and Community Groups and the Northern Ireland Conflict''. Belfast: Appletree Press. p. 82. A former British Army

paratrooper A paratrooper is a military parachutist—someone trained to parachute into a military operation, and usually functioning as part of an airborne force. Military parachutists (troops) and parachutes were first used on a large scale during Worl ...

, Payne had been

interned Internment is the imprisonment of people, commonly in large groups, without charges or intent to file charges. The term is especially used for the confinement "of enemy citizens in wartime or of terrorism suspects". Thus, while it can simpl ...

in the early 1970s. He became commander of the UDA's C Company, 2nd Battalion Shankill Road, West Belfast Brigade, afterwards he commanded the Shankill Road brigade of the

(UFF), which was the "cover name" of the UDA's militant branch. Beginning in May 1972 (although the UFF was not "officially" formed until 1973),The Ulster Freedom Fighters were formed in 1973 as a "cover name" for the militant branch of the UDA, so the latter, who were then a legal organisation, could avoid being proscribed by the British government as part of their violent, retaliatory campaign against the

nationalist Nationalism is an idea and movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the state. As a movement, nationalism tends to promote the interests of a particular nation (as in a group of people), Smith, Anthony. ''Nationalism: Th ...

population who they believed was giving full support to the Provisional IRA, the group would abduct random Catholic men and women from nationalist areas, then beat, torture and kill them.Peter Taylor. (1999). ''Loyalists''. London: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc. pp. 115–16.Sarah Nelson. (1984). ''Ulster's Uncertain Defenders: Protestant Political, Paramiltary and Community Groups and the Northern Ireland Conflict''. Belfast: Appletree Press. pp. 117–27. Payne was described as the UDA's most violent and feared killer,Jack Holland, "Davy Payne, aka, 'the Psychopath' dies", ''Irish Echo'', 26 March-1 April 2003. and was also a member of the Orange Order, belonging to the ''Old Boyne Island Heroes Lodge''. Journalist

Kevin Myers Kevin Myers (born 30 March 1947) is an English-born Irish journalist and writer. He has contributed to the ''Irish Independent'', the Irish edition of ''The Sunday Times'', and ''The Irish Times''s column "An Irishman's Diary". Myers is kn ...

called him "one of the most ferocious savages in the history of Irish terrorism". Payne was said to have invented the notorious "romper rooms" where the UDA interrogated and tortured their victims.Simon Pi
"Death in Details"
''The Scotsman'', 10 July 2003. According to author Ian Wood, Payne was addicted to the use of knives and sadistically tortured his victims before killing themWood, Ian S. (2006). ''Crimes of Loyalty: A History of the UDA''. p. 13. this earned him the nickname of "The Psychopath". Payne served as the UDA's "Provost-Marshall", the officer in charge of maintaining internal discipline. Beginning in early 1973, there was an internal feud and power struggle within the UDA which would last until 1975. Its former leader, the West Belfast brigadier Charles Harding Smith, argued with Payne, and then ordered him off the Shankill Road on account of the latter's support of his rival,

Andy Tyrie Andrew Tyrie (born 5 February 1940) is a Northern Irish loyalist paramilitary leader who served as commander of the Ulster Defence Association (UDA) during much of its early history. He took the place of Tommy Herron in 1973 when the latter was ...

. Tyrie, who in 1973 had become UDA commander, retaliated against Harding Smith by promoting Payne to the rank of brigadier in 1974 and subsequently gave him command of the UDA's North Belfast Brigade. Although Tyrie was overall commander of the UDA, brigadiers in the organisation enjoyed a large degree of autonomy and regarded their own territory as "their personal fiefdoms". Payne was described by Wood as having been a friend of Tyrie.Wood, Ian S. (2006). ''Crimes of Loyalty: A History of the UDA''. Edinburgh University Press. p. 60. Fellow UDA member

Glenn Barr Albert Glenn Barr OBE (19 March 1942 – 24 October 2017) was a politician from Derry, Northern Ireland, who was an advocate of Ulster nationalism. For a time during the 1970s he straddled both Unionism and Loyalism due to simultaneously hol ...

believed that Payne on one occasion had saved his life

I owe my life to Davy Payne because there had been a plan within a section of the UDA to have me killed because I had been part of a delegation which had gone to Libya to have talks with Colonel Gadafy icin 1974. Davy Payne went to those people and told them I was under his protection and I have no doubt this saved my life.

Alleged killings and attacks

On 21 July 1972, Payne, along with some of his UDA associates, allegedly carried out the double killing of Rosemary McCartney, a young Catholic singer from West Belfast, and her boyfriend, Patrick O'Neill. Earlier on this same day, the IRA had exploded 22 bombs in Belfast, killing nine people, and injuring 130. One of the dead included a member of the UDA, William Irvine (18). This day became known as Bloody Friday. The couple had been stopped at a UDA roadblock and taken to one of the "romper rooms" for a "grilling" (interrogation) which was presided over by Payne, who like his companions, wore a mask. According to the journalist Kevin Myers, Payne supervised the beating and torturing of O'Neill, who was repeatedly burnt with cigarette butts. After a card was found in Rosemary McCartney's bag which identified her as a singer, Payne asked her whether she was in fact an actual singer. After the woman replied in the affirmative, Payne told her to "prove it". When she inquired how, he answered "by singing". McCartney was forced to sing in front of Payne and the others, then she and her boyfriend were subsequently forced into a car and shot to death, supposedly by Payne. Their bodies were discovered the following day in an abandoned car in Glencairn. McCartney had been shot three times in the face. In June 1973, Payne reportedly took part in the double killing of

Social Democratic and Labour Party The Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) ( ga, Páirtí Sóisialta Daonlathach an Lucht Oibre) is a social-democratic and Irish nationalist political party in Northern Ireland. The SDLP currently has eight members in the Northern Ireland ...

Senator

Paddy Wilson Patrick Gerard "Paddy" Wilson (c. 1933 – 25/26 June 1973) was an Irish nationalist politician in Northern Ireland who was murdered by the loyalist Ulster Freedom Fighters (UFF).

and his companion, Irene Andrews, a Protestant.Wood, Ian S. (2006). ''Crimes of Loyalty: A History of the UDA''. Edinburgh University Press. p. 105. Wilson had offered Andrews a lift home from a Belfast city centre pub. Following a telephone call to a newspaper from the UFF using their code name "Captain Black", Wilson and Andrews' mutilated bodies were found five hours later lying in pools of blood beside Wilson's car in a quarry off the Hightown Road. They had both been stabbed and hacked to death in what appeared to have been a frenzied attack. Wilson was stabbed a total of 30 times and his throat slashed from ear to ear; Andrews was knifed 20 times.Taylor, p. 118 The first-in-command of the UFF's Shankill Road brigade, John White was convicted of the crime after he had confessed to it in 1978. It was claimed that Payne would scream at those he wanted to frighten or intimidate: "Do you know who I am? I'm Davy Payne. They say I killed Paddy Wilson". Payne was never convicted of any of the murders that were attributed to him. He established the reputation of the UDA/UFF's notorious C Company, 2nd Battalion Shankill Road, West Belfast Brigade. This would eventually come under the control of Johnny "Mad Dog" Adair, who looked up to Payne as the biggest leading loyalist to take the war to the republican movement and a true hero to the loyalist people of Ulster. RUC

Special Patrol Group The Special Patrol Group (SPG) was a unit of Greater London's Metropolitan Police Service, responsible for providing a centrally based mobile capacity to combat serious public disorder, crime, and terrorism, that could not be dealt with by loca ...

(SPG) officer John Weir alleged that Payne had been involved in the Dublin car bombings on 17 May 1974 in which 26 people in three city-centre explosions were killed.''Houses of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Justice, Equality, Defence and Women's Rights, Interim Report on the Report of the Independent Commission of Inquiry into the Dublin and Monaghan Bombings'' (December 2003)
, The Barron Report 2003, p. 146. In 2003, Weir's allegations that Payne, along with senior

(UVF) members, Billy Hanna and

Robin Jackson Robert John Jackson (27 September 1948 – 30 May 1998), also known as The Jackal, was a Northern Irish loyalist paramilitary and part-time soldier. He was a senior officer in the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) during the period of viole ...

, had led one of the UVF teams that bombed Dublin, were published in the Barron Report which were the findings of an official investigation into the bombings by

Irish Supreme Court , image = Coat of arms of Ireland.svg , imagesize = 120px , alt = , caption = Coat of Arms of Ireland , image2 = Four Courts, Dublin 2014-09-13.jpg , imagesize2 = , alt2 ...

Justice Henry Barron. Payne, when questioned earlier, denied he had been involved in the car bombings,''Houses of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Justice, Equality, Defence, and Women's Rights, Interim on the Report of the Independent Commission of Inquiry into the Dublin and Monaghan Bombings'' (December 2003)
. The Barron Report 2003, p. 158. although he admitted to having met Weir in prison.

Arrest and conviction

Payne left the UDA in the mid-1970s over the continuing allegations that he had misappropriated UDA funds. Away from the group he set up as a community worker and also set up a number of youth training schemes. These initiatives, many of which were of a cross-community nature, briefly saw Payne held up as an example of a reformed character and he was praised by the Peace People and invited to speak in

Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of the Wicklow Mountains range. At the 2016 c ...

. Payne's relationship with Tyrie was damaged due to a speech Payne made warning young men away from paramilitary involvement. In April 1978 his house was shot at by UDA members. Soon after this attack, Payne's second career came to an end when he was investigated by a civil servant over allegations of fraud.Bruce, ''The Red Hand'', pp. 253–54. However, rather than contest the allegations Payne closed down his operations and, having rebuilt his relationship with Tyrie, accepted his invitation to return as North Belfast Brigadier. Tyrie reportedly worried that the Brigade was making no money and also feared a small group of members who were carrying out a series of sectarian murders under their own steam and felt that Payne could restore order to the area. Payne was not popular with many local members, who resented his bullying techniques. In the 1980s, persistent allegations of stealing UDA funds were levelled against him and he made many enemies within the organisation. The UDA also accused him of complicity in the assassination of South Belfast brigadier

John McMichael John McMichael (9 January 1948 – 22 December 1987) was a Northern Irish loyalist who rose to become the most prominent and charismatic figure within the Ulster Defence Association (UDA) as the Deputy Commander and leader of its South Belf ...

, who was blown up in a booby-trap car bomb planted by the IRA outside his Lisburn home on 22 December 1987. In that same year, the police were aware that he was involved in an operation to steal weapons from an army base. On 8 January 1988, he was arrested in

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 ...

after being stopped at an RUC checkpoint. At the head of a small convoy of vehicles, Payne was driving the "scout" car (an Austin Maestro) for his UDA colleagues whose own cars' boots contained the UDA's share of a large consignment of weapons which had been smuggled from

and destined for loyalist paramilitaries. The load consisted of 90 Browning pistols, 161

AK-47 The AK-47, officially known as the ''Avtomat Kalashnikova'' (; also known as the Kalashnikov or just AK), is a gas-operated assault rifle that is chambered for the 7.62×39mm cartridge. Developed in the Soviet Union by Russian small-arms d ...

s, 250 grenades, 6 RPG 7'S, 184 magazines and 11,000 rounds of ammunition, along with 200 lbs of deadly lebanese semtex. Fibres from Payne's clothing were found on the weapons, and his name had been used as a reference for hiring the cars. According to journalist

Peter Taylor Peter Taylor may refer to: Arts * Peter Taylor (writer) (1917–1994), American author, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction * Peter Taylor (film editor) (1922–1997), English film editor, winner of an Academy Award for Film Editing Politi ...

, there was no doubt at the time that he had been set up by an informer within the UDA.Taylor, p. 192 Payne was sentenced to 19 years in prison. He did not, however, serve the full sentence. His succession as brigadier was not a smooth one although after a disagreement, Tyrie relented and allowed the North Belfast members to promote their own man as Brigadier rather than an outside candidate who Tyrie had hoped to parachute in.

Death

Payne died of a heart attack in March 2003 at the age of 54. A widower, he was survived by two sons. After a service held on 19 March 2003 at his home in Snugville Street off the Shankill Road, several hundred mourners and over tens of hundreds of his members attended his funeral. It was said that he had the largest show of strength ever to be on the Shankill Road. 3 UFF gunmen fired AK47s and 3 young members of the UYM used handguns over his coffin outside his home in proper UDA military style. He was later cremated."Ulster Today: Funeral of former Shankill UDA chief"
''The News Letter'' (Belfast, Northern Ireland). 20 March 2003; retrieved 10 October 2009 via

Highbeam HighBeam Research was a paid search engine and full text online archive owned by Gale, a subsidiary of Cengage, for thousands of newspapers, magazines, academic journals, newswires, trade magazines, and encyclopedias in English. It was headq ...

. NOTE: small opening lead only; site is paywalled.

Notes

References

Notes Bibliography * Nelson, Sarah. (1984). ''Ulster's Uncertain Defenders: Protestant Political, Paramilitary and Community Groups and the Northern Ireland Conflict''. Belfast: Appletree Press; * Taylor, Peter (1999). ''Loyalists''. London: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc.; * Wood, Ian S. (2006). ''Crimes of Loyalty: a history of the UDA''. Edinburgh University Press.

External links

Davy Payne photo
victorpatterson.photoshelter.com. Retrieved 4 March 2015. {{DEFAULTSORT:Payne, Davy 1940s births 2003 deaths Ulster Defence Association members UDA C Company members Paramilitaries from Belfast Loyalists imprisoned during the Northern Ireland conflict Date of birth missing Date of death missing