EDWIN Poots reckons the loyalist paramilitary groups are little more than ‘old men’s clubs’. Who is going to defend Ulster now with no altruistic, volunteer, freedom-fighting defenders? Will Protestant areas be vulnerable now without the likes of the Shankill Butchers, Johnny Adair (who claimed to have taken the fight to the IRA), the Glenanne Gang (who killed up to 120 Catholics), Billy ‘King Rat’ Wright or Robin ‘the Jackal’ Jackson?
I cannot recall a single instance when any unionist demanded a security clampdown after a loyalist atrocity or called for an inquiry into terrorism within the security forces. Unionists strenuously opposed such inquiries and dismissively referred to rogue security force personnel as “a few bad apples”. The extent of their collusion is exposed in UDR: Declassified by Micheál Smith. The revelations in this book are irrefutable as they are taken directly from declassified government files.
There is also the question as to what these harmless old men have done with their arms, particularly the large shipment from South Africa, one third of which have never been recovered or decommissioned.
Since the foundation of the state, loyalists have reserved the right to murder Catholics any time they chose, just as the Gusty Spence-led gang did in 1966 – he later acknowledged “there was no threat from the IRA in the late ‘60s”.
Young Protestants are brought up with tales of great victories over Catholics and are only too willing to get involved in conflict over marches, flags, bonfires and, more recently, the immigrant issue at the behest of armchair generals – these men will not end up with criminal or prison records, just like those who indoctrinated the 33-year-old Gusty Spence.
Of course these old men may be needed to orchestrate violence in the ‘doomsday’ scenario of a democratic vote for Irish unity.
P McKenna, Newry, Co Down
