Almost all political prisoners, both republican and loyalist, had been released, under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement, by July 28th, 2000. The mural above shows the huts of Long Kesh and the H-blocks of the Maze.
“In loving memory of all our fallen comrades from A Coy, B Coy, C Coy, 2nd Batt UFF West Belfast Brigade. Murdered by the enemies of Ulster.” UDA Lieutenant-Colonel McCullough was killed by the INLA on October 16th, 1981, outside his home in Denmark Street (out of frame to the right), on information supplied by fellow UDA member James Craig, who feared that McCullough would expose his embezzling of UDA funds. Hopewell Crescent, Belfast.
UDA/UYM insignia and volunteers with sunglasses on the Shankill Road, Belfast. Bridgeton is a neighbourhood on the edge of Glasgow, Scotland, home to the Bridgeton flute band (Fb) and headquarters of the Grand Orange Lodge Of Scotland.
UDA and UVF murals on opposite corners of Northumberland St at the Shankill Road but with the same flute band – the Shankill Protestant Boys USSF (Fb | tw). “Ulster’s No 1 band, Shankill Protestant Boys, supports Drumcree.” The UVF side would outlast the UDA side, though the UFF board up above the Harp ad would remain until 2014 when the corner was redeveloped (into Conor’s Corner).
The Ulster Democratic Party (UDP) was the political wing of the UDA, and supported a policy of an independent Northern Ireland (as described in the policy document ‘Common Sense‘). It won a few council seats in the late 1980s and early 1990s and dissolved in 2001 (BBC-NI). The fourth panel (top right) is of the Ulster Workers’ Council strike that brought down the Sunningdale Agreement.
Ernie “Duke” Elliott came from the Woodvale area and was a founder member of the Woodvale Defence Association in 1971, which was later folded into the UDA. He was also a Marxist. He was killed in a pub brawl in December 1972 in a dispute over weapons (WP | Tele | Watching The Door)
Sixteen year-old Glen “Spacer” Branagh was killed by a premature blast bomb during a riot on Remembrance Sunday, 2001. His portrait is on a board at the centre of UDA flags and guns (and the tigers of Tigers Bay).
“If the Provos and the pan nationalist front and the British and Irish governments keep trying to succeed in a united Ireland then they may prepare themselves for another 30 bloody years for the battle will have just begun.”
The term “Pan Nationalist Front” was used (first by nationalists) to describe the co-operation between John Hume (SDLP) and Gerry Adams (Sinn Féin) in 1994 that led to the IRA ceasefire and the Downing Street Declaration.