John was rushed to the Royal Victoria Hospital, a short distance from his home. Two weeks later John Patrick Scullion died from the wounds he received that night; wounds which doctors mistakenly attributed to him having been stabbed in an altercation. The reality had been much more serious. John Scullion had been deliberately shot by an organisation calling itself the UVF.
It would not be long before the UVF was stalking the streets again. On Sunday, 5 June 1966, James Doherty, a middle-aged lorry driver, was sleeping at home in Abbotts Drive when his son-in-law John McChrystal called, to see him about an incident that had happened just before dawn. When both men arrived to McChrystal’s home at Innis Avenue in Rathcoole estate, they found that the living room window had been shattered by what appeared to be a gunshot. As the bullet entered his home, it narrowly missed McChrystal’s head, striking the wall above the settee where he was resting.1 McChrystal was a machinist at a local industrial plant who, some loyalists alleged, had expressed republican sympathies.2
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Most UVF members in 1966 were working men in their late teens, 20s and 30s. Only a tiny number, like Hugh McClean, were older. They were typically recruited on the basis of their reputations as hard men. Some were singled out for their service history. The added bonus of having experienced military men in the ranks, Spence believed, meant that they could handle themselves and handle weapons, if armed conflict with republicans ever broke out. The reality was that few of them had ever fired a shot in anger. As a consequence, it was usually personal grievances, mixed with hefty doses of alcohol, which played a key role in their decision to target specific individuals. In many cases, it gave them much-needed ‘Dutch courage’ to pull the trigger on fellow human beings.3 The fact that the gunman who pulled the trigger in the drive-by shooting of John Scullion aimed low at his target is evidence of the difficulty most UVF men at this time had in killing, and probably explains why the vast majority of attacks were on property, not people. This single factor would prove crucial for RUC detectives investigating subsequent UVF attacks.
Despite Spence and several others having been sworn in by high-powered faceless men, instructions from the top of the chain of command appeared to be in short supply. Essentially, the new UVF became self-tasking insofar as Spence acted as the officer in command, who selected targets and authorised action against those suspected of being ‘republicans’ or holding ‘republican sympathies’. In most cases, Spence and the Shankill UVF were manufacturing these enemies out of their own paranoia, which made them see an IRA man under every bed. The reality of the situation was somewhat different, but it did not deter the UVF from declaring war on the IRA and its enemies on 21 May 1966. They were ‘heavily armed Protestants dedicated to this cause’ read the statement they released to the press.4
In order to give the organisation a semblance of military bearing, Spence revised the oath he had taken at Pomeroy. New recruits were now to give an undertaking that they would never ‘betray a comrade or give any information to whomsoever which could prove detrimental to my Cause’. Furthermore, they had to pledge: ‘if I fail in my obligations I shall truly deserve the just deserts befalling me’.5 For Spence, the UVF was a ‘very secretive’ organisation; everything was ‘on a kind of need-to-know basis’.6 Harry Johnston, a twenty-six-year-old electrician’s mate from Argyll Street on the Shankill, recalled the circumstances leading to his own swearing-in ceremony at the time:
I joined the Ulster Volunteer Force. It was in the Standard Bar on the Shankill Road. Gusty Spence asked me to join on Monday, 13 June, and he informed me that he was a member. Spence asked me to join in the presence of Harry Millar and Sammy Robinson. Spence told me that this was an organisation to protect Ulster and Protestants. I agreed to join and, by arrangement, I went to a meeting of the Ulster Volunteer Force in an upstairs room of the Standard Bar, Shankill Road, at about 8 p.m. on 16th June 1966. Those present were Augustus Spence, Rocky Burns, Eddie McCullough, William Johnston [unreadable] and a man called ‘Bertie’ from about Berlin Street. McCullough, William Johnston, Bertie and myself were sworn in by Spence, and we took an oath to protect Ulster and Protestants against the IRA and Cumann na hBan. The object of the Ulster Volunteer Force was to keep the IRA in their place and they were classed as our enemies.7
To reinforce the seriousness of the oath they were taking, Spence slapped each of the recruits on the face and pinched their thumbs. ‘You will have to sign this oath in your own blood,’ he barked at them. 5/- was the weekly subscription, or ‘dues’, which members were forced to pay, and would be used to buy arms. In all, the initiation lasted for an hour and a half, and included a general talk about the organisation and its aims. The group next met in the Standard Bar a few days later on Saturday 18 June. ‘We talked in general and the affairs of the UVF were not discussed,’ Johnston said. The UVF would also meet regularly in the Standard Bar every Thursday night. Spence told the manager that they were forming a social club to send money to loyalists in Glasgow. All the men would then socialise together until closing time.
Those men who formed the nucleus of the Shankill Road UVF at the time were also office bearers and members of the Orange Order’s Prince Albert Lodge, which sat in the Whiterock area. The Orange Order remained strong in places like the Shankill. Lodge meetings were an occasion to meet like-minded people.8 One of those men who spent time in the company of Spence and the others was twenty-six-year-old Hughie Smyth.
Smyth grew up in a working-class home on the Shankill Road. His father, Jimmy, worked in McGladdery’s and Parkview, two brickworks in West Belfast. Like most working-class men who worked as labourers, his shifts were long. For twelve hours a day, five days a week and then seven hours on a Saturday, Jimmy worked tirelessly to put food on the table for his family. When work was scarce, the local pawn shop became a regular haunt. A life-long supporter of the Northern Ireland Labour Party (NILP), Jimmy drilled into his family a sense of pride in work. His favourite motto was ‘In order to better ourselves we must rise ourselves.’ At elections, Jimmy Smyth would often comment that all a politician needed to do to get elected on the Shankill was to ‘traipse a donkey in a union jack up the Road and people would vote for it’. There was some truth to this well-worn adage. Unionist Party politicians in the area had been regularly re-elected without much opposition, save from the occasional breakthrough coming from Independent Unionists or NILP politicians.
Jimmy Smyth would frequently express his frustration at what he believed was an unfair system, which made all working-class unionists third-class citizens. It was a view of politics that would greatly influence his son, Hugh, a committed Christian who would go on to become a respected Sunday School teacher in the neighbouring Mayo Street Mission Hall. Hugh carried his strong, faith-based beliefs into the Orange Order and Royal Black Preceptory, where he met several men who were to become the UVF’s leading lights, including Gusty Spence, Dessie Balmer Snr, Norman Sayers, Harry Stockman Snr and Jim McDonald. Stockman and McDonald were also members of the NILP. In joining the UVF, these men found an avenue by which to hit back at the establishment, ‘as well as the IRA threat’.9
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Belfast City Centre, Daytime, 16 June 1966
A medieval crescendo of flute band music carried far and wide along the Shankill Road as Ian Paisley headed a large parade, which was steadily making its way to the Ulster Hall in Belfast city centre. Heading up the Shankill Road from the Peter’s Hill direction was Willie Blakely, who was accompanied by twenty-one-year-old Leslie Porter, a dumper driver from Beltoy Road in Kilroot. Porter had expressed keen interest in joining the UVF in the days leading up to the parade, and was anxious to become involved in their activities. Blakely and Porter had arranged to meet Gusty Spence in the Standard Bar on the Shankill. They were told to come armed, and so brought with them an automatic handgun and a Smith and Wesson revolver. Not long after they had arrived at the bar, Spence summoned Blakely and Porter to the toilets to examine Porter’s gun. After clearing it by ejecting the magazine, Spence handed the weapon back and left the bar to join the parade. The two East Antrim men remained in the bar and carried on drinking as the bands marched past.
As the final columns of the parade disappeared down the Shankill, Blakely and Porter joined the last of the marchers as they made their way towards the city centre. There they met Geordie Bigger, who was intoxicated. He became giddy with excitement at the prospect of handling Porter’s revolver. The East Antrim man became somewhat uneasy by