The Ulster Volunteer Force and the Shankill Butchers

Begin with the UVF, or jump to links specifically on The Shankill Butchers.

The UVF.

To 1914, the most savage resistance to rapprochement between Britain and Catholic Ireland came from Protestants of urban Ulster: there was distrust and contempt of "backwards" southerners; the most virulent sectarianism was in the urban proletariat, both sects furthering interests through factional conflict rather than trade unionism. In opposition to Home Rule (which was going to pass) Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) formed, imported arms, drilled (with the at least tacit approval of the government). Army officers stated they would rebel if Home Rule passed. When the war came, Home Rule was suspended, UVF renamed 36^th (Ulster) Division, and suffered huge losses at the Somme [hence the constant claim that we died for England and now she has deserted us; see McClure's loyal Ulster speech, Resurrection Man 151]. It was however re-formed in 1920, many went into Ulster Special Constabulary of the Northern Ireland State post-Treaty (the hated B-Specials), where they particularly hard on Catholics. They were disbanded, but (And now I continue slightly rewriting from something called (eng) ANTIFA INFO-BULLETIN, Vol. 1, No. 6 [2/3] ): In 1966, a group of Shankill Road loyalists began to use the UVF name. In contrast to the earlier manifestation this UVF was small and poorly organised. This did not prevent it from carrying out a long and heinous campaign of sectarian murder against Catholics. The man who led the new UVF was one Augustus 'Gusty' Spence who coined the phrase "any taig will do!" By this he meant that any Catholic, whether a Republican or not, would be in danger of being murdered by the UVF. Following Spence's murder of an innocent Catholic, John Scullion, on May 27th 1966, the UVF was banned. Together with their murder campaign, UVF members and members of Ian Paisley's Ulster Protestant Volunteers (UPU) carried out a series of explosions at public utilities and tried to blame them on the then virtually non-existent Irish Republican Army (IRA). It was, during this first period of illegality that Billy Hutchinson and two accomplices brutally stabbed to death Social Democratic and Labour Party politician Paddy Wilson. In this horrific attack, carried out in 1972, Mr Wilson's girlfriend Irene McDonald had her breasts cut off by her UVF assailants. It appears that the attackers were particularly incensed because Irene McDonald was a Protestant.

The UVF, after briefly being legalised in April 1974 to October 1975, continued its sectarian murder campaign with some of the worst abominations of the 25 year war being committed by UVF men. One particular murderer was Lenny Murphy of the Shankill Butchers [who seems for sure to be the original for Victor Kelly--and note the details in what follows which match various details of the book]. On the 21st July 1972 they abducted Francis Arthurs, a Catholic man, who was stabbed and beaten for over an hour before being shot dead. Another Catholic Thomas Madden was hung upside down in a garage and slowly skinned alive. When found he had a total of 147 different slices of skin cut off. On October 3rd 1975 Murphy and his killers murdered five innocent customers at an off licence. This brutality continued until February 20th 1979 when most of the leading gang members were convicted of murder. Murphy, however, escaped a murder charge and was only convicted of possession of firearms. He was released on July 16th 1982. By October he had murdered another UVF man over a money quarrel. Also in this month he abducted Joseph Donnegan, a Catholic who he tortured and killed. Murphy's career of torture and murder was finally curtailed when the IRA shot him dead in November 1982.

Now Explicitly on The Shankill Butchers:

The Shankill Butchers. There is a book on them by that title, by Martin Dillon, not in UO library or Orbis (but said below to be standard).

The Irish News gives a history of the Shankill Butchers, because of the release of one of them, Basher Bates, our Willie Lambe.

And on the same day another story, focussing on the reaction of his relatives to Basher Bates's release.

And there's a new film, Nothing Personal, on them, much objected to by Presbyterian spokesman as endangering the peace process by focussing on the loyalist paramilitaries: a story in it in The Irish News of May 5, 1996.