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UVF
The Ulster Volunteer Force emerged during the first sparks of Northern Ireland's Troubles in the mid-1960s. Their campaign of violence quickly marked them out as one of the most extreme loyalist groups. Henry MacDonald and Jim Cusack provide a fascinating insight into the UVF's origins, growth and decline. They follow the careers of some of the key players in the UVF, including Gusty Spence, Billy Wright and David Ervine. They catalogue the atrocities in which the UVF were involved, including the Dublin and Monaghan bombings; the emergence of the notorious renegade Shankill Butchers; and the various bloody feuds that have infected loyalism. They trace the paramilitary organisation from the violent margins, through the horrors of the 1970s and 1980s, to its shaky 1994 ceasefire and its crucial (if sometimes reluctant) role in the peace process that led up to the signing of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998. This fully revised edition brings the story up to date, discussing the McEntee Report into the Dublin and Monaghan bombings; the death in January 2007 of Progressive Unionist Party leader David Ervine; and the announcement in May 2007 that the UVF were renouncing violence and putting their weapons beyond use .
- GenresHistory
368 pages, Paperback
First published July 11, 1997
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
October 21, 2008
This book has problems but it is probably the best work on the UVF (and one of the best on Loyalist paramilitaries) since David Boulton of World in Action wrote a book of the same name in 1974. Both signficantly were by journalists, not academics. Henry McDonald's great strength (as Irish editor of The Observer and somebody I know personally) is that he has little time for the demonisation of Northern Ireland Loyalists common in left circles. If I have a problem with this book it is that precisely because he WON'T represent Loyalists as the dupes of an imagined "British Imperialism" (Northern Ireland is an integral part of the UK, not a colony!) he doesn't afford sufficient significance to the magnitude of secret state dirty tricks in Northern Ireland in the 1970s. For example, he doesn't believe that British intelligence agencies were involved in precipitating some of the worst sectarian atrocities in late 1973 or else the Dublin and Monaghan bombings. I simply don't buy this. Also, while his analysis of the Combined Loyalist Military Command and the rise of the Progressive Unionist Party is spot on, the actaul analysis sort of runs out towards the end and it simply becomes a catalogue of the atrocites committed by those renegade paramilitaries who rejected the peace process.
August 23, 2023
Didn't particularly enjoy this book. The subject matter was horrific in itself but the book was written in an awfully dry way. A good percentage of it was reeling off facts and figures of every atrocity the UVF has been involved in. Padded out with some commentary. There are much better books out there detailing similar subject matter.
May 28, 2026
This book is riddled with falsehoods and inaccuracies, ranging from spelling mistakes of names, to incorrect dates of events (spanning days to weeks from when they occurred) and statement of events which can only be described as lies.
At the beginning of the book during the early years of the modern UVF around 1966, the authors’ depiction of the suppression of the loyalist force by the O’Neil government as anti - working class is laughable. The working class extremist loyalist population had largely free rein to terrorise the catholic working class since partition during times of heightened tension. The crackdown largely stemmed from contradictions between Downing Street and Stormont in terms of reform to allow international investment which would surpass sectarian institutions like the Orange lodges.
On occasion, the authors attempt to inflate a ‘progressive’ or ‘socialist’ image of political representatives of the UVF. During the course of a few pages, they describe how the group wrote vague endorsements in their newspaper for soft socialist policies, to then unabashed support for the fascistic National Front party in Britain. The authors don’t seriously acknowledge the contradictory schizophrenic behaviour of their outlook.
Finally, any time the Provisional Irish Republican Army are mentioned, it’s with a clear disdain. This is not to say that every mention of the group should’ve been with praise. At times, sectarian violence from loyalist groups is passed off as a response to identical behaviour from the IRA which has a hint of victim blaming. One instance when they mentioned the sectarian killing of catholic civilians by loyalists, the authors responded with a case of a sectarian killing of a Protestant civilian by republicans. When I went to research further into this case, I found on the first link in google that the civilian had been killed not by republicans but by the UVF. From that moment on I wasn’t sure what to believe in this book if the content was either formulated with a lack of care or ill intentioned deceit.
Again, they talk of a politician in the Republic of Ireland who was killed by the IRA and the give the Protestant identity of the politician as the motive for the death. In all accounts of this murder, the religious identity was not relevant. A few times they utilised the identity of state forces such as the Royal Ulster Constabulary and Ulster Defence Regiment as cases of sectarianism which can be easily dismissed by anyone who understands anti - colonial conflict and repression.
When looking further into one of the authors (who at one point was a member of the Official IRA, a rival of the Provisionals, but never discloses it and shows himself as a neutral journalist) I found many instances of his support for Israel lol. Those are all my messy thoughts.
At the beginning of the book during the early years of the modern UVF around 1966, the authors’ depiction of the suppression of the loyalist force by the O’Neil government as anti - working class is laughable. The working class extremist loyalist population had largely free rein to terrorise the catholic working class since partition during times of heightened tension. The crackdown largely stemmed from contradictions between Downing Street and Stormont in terms of reform to allow international investment which would surpass sectarian institutions like the Orange lodges.
On occasion, the authors attempt to inflate a ‘progressive’ or ‘socialist’ image of political representatives of the UVF. During the course of a few pages, they describe how the group wrote vague endorsements in their newspaper for soft socialist policies, to then unabashed support for the fascistic National Front party in Britain. The authors don’t seriously acknowledge the contradictory schizophrenic behaviour of their outlook.
Finally, any time the Provisional Irish Republican Army are mentioned, it’s with a clear disdain. This is not to say that every mention of the group should’ve been with praise. At times, sectarian violence from loyalist groups is passed off as a response to identical behaviour from the IRA which has a hint of victim blaming. One instance when they mentioned the sectarian killing of catholic civilians by loyalists, the authors responded with a case of a sectarian killing of a Protestant civilian by republicans. When I went to research further into this case, I found on the first link in google that the civilian had been killed not by republicans but by the UVF. From that moment on I wasn’t sure what to believe in this book if the content was either formulated with a lack of care or ill intentioned deceit.
Again, they talk of a politician in the Republic of Ireland who was killed by the IRA and the give the Protestant identity of the politician as the motive for the death. In all accounts of this murder, the religious identity was not relevant. A few times they utilised the identity of state forces such as the Royal Ulster Constabulary and Ulster Defence Regiment as cases of sectarianism which can be easily dismissed by anyone who understands anti - colonial conflict and repression.
When looking further into one of the authors (who at one point was a member of the Official IRA, a rival of the Provisionals, but never discloses it and shows himself as a neutral journalist) I found many instances of his support for Israel lol. Those are all my messy thoughts.
October 17, 2016
Reads like a newspaper, easy but combined with the length the constant flood of the names of people killed, the dates they were killed and the locations at which they were killed becomes tiresome - but I suppose it'd give you a view of the cult of martyrdom both communities in the 6 counties have for the people killed on 'their side' during the Troubles.
The use of the title of "Ulster" by the authors to describe Northern Ireland was personally irksome as this is geographically false considering the state (or statelet if I felt like donning the guise of the antagonistic Nationalist semanticist) doesn't encompass the entirety of the province.
There was a noticeable absence of sources for most all quotes which generally had a simple "as said by a top UVF man" or "as remembered by a former-UVF man" attached to them, but this was probably intended to protect their identities, which is understandable.
The authors are impartial - refreshingly not in the sense most people are on the Troubles and just deeming both sides of the conflict as "terrorists" and "murderers" or taking the "ah sure they were all at fault" stance. They go in-depth on the motivations of the UVF men of the Troubles, overwhelmingly of working class backgrounds and mostly cut off from the support of the Upper and Middle classes that Carson's UVF had decades before - though they still saw themselves as the successors of the men who made up the original UVF, supposedly opposing the same things they did, namely encroachment from the Southern Dublin government Republicans and the Republicans in their own midst. Along with the list of killings carried out by the organization (regarded as a 'moderate' Loyalist paramilitary compared to others such as the UDA and LVF), they examine the reasons they killed: ideological, though it had no decided ideology and wasn't homogeneous in this sense accusations of communism targeted at them and the PUP would push them towards the right and lead to far-right infiltration, especially amongst young UVF members and those in the YCV; religious, sectarianism being undoubtedly the main cause of most murders committed by members of Loyalist paramilitary groups especially those in the UDA; sociopathy and a latent desire to kill given opportunity by the times, as with the Shankhill butchers and many sectarian killings; economics and politics, working class people in the 6 counties opposing the Republican desire for a United Ireland that they fear (with good reason) would have adverse ramifications in their livelihoods, being dependent upon Industry and not wanting that Industry to be sucked to the Greater Dublin Area leaving them destitute.
The authors go into this and more, an informative read with perhaps not the best format.
The use of the title of "Ulster" by the authors to describe Northern Ireland was personally irksome as this is geographically false considering the state (or statelet if I felt like donning the guise of the antagonistic Nationalist semanticist) doesn't encompass the entirety of the province.
There was a noticeable absence of sources for most all quotes which generally had a simple "as said by a top UVF man" or "as remembered by a former-UVF man" attached to them, but this was probably intended to protect their identities, which is understandable.
The authors are impartial - refreshingly not in the sense most people are on the Troubles and just deeming both sides of the conflict as "terrorists" and "murderers" or taking the "ah sure they were all at fault" stance. They go in-depth on the motivations of the UVF men of the Troubles, overwhelmingly of working class backgrounds and mostly cut off from the support of the Upper and Middle classes that Carson's UVF had decades before - though they still saw themselves as the successors of the men who made up the original UVF, supposedly opposing the same things they did, namely encroachment from the Southern Dublin government Republicans and the Republicans in their own midst. Along with the list of killings carried out by the organization (regarded as a 'moderate' Loyalist paramilitary compared to others such as the UDA and LVF), they examine the reasons they killed: ideological, though it had no decided ideology and wasn't homogeneous in this sense accusations of communism targeted at them and the PUP would push them towards the right and lead to far-right infiltration, especially amongst young UVF members and those in the YCV; religious, sectarianism being undoubtedly the main cause of most murders committed by members of Loyalist paramilitary groups especially those in the UDA; sociopathy and a latent desire to kill given opportunity by the times, as with the Shankhill butchers and many sectarian killings; economics and politics, working class people in the 6 counties opposing the Republican desire for a United Ireland that they fear (with good reason) would have adverse ramifications in their livelihoods, being dependent upon Industry and not wanting that Industry to be sucked to the Greater Dublin Area leaving them destitute.
The authors go into this and more, an informative read with perhaps not the best format.
April 25, 2013
A boring book that only monotonously records every killing of the UVF. Little insight is added and little background information is provided. We learn next to nothing of the UVF members themselves, what they thought and why they did what they did. The book feels like a collection of newspaper clippings.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews