of Catholic civilians was not the only thing running through the minds of UVF and RHC volunteers. Inside Long Kesh, loyalists attached to both organisations were engaging in political thinking. A ten-point plan for peace was even put forward, which called for the continued lowering of the army’s profile, reduction of military footprint, strategy of non-violence, release of prisoners, an amnesty and, of course, de-proscription.34 One of its key architects of the plan was RHC volunteer ‘Plum’ Smith. It was his belief that the proposal ‘built on or reiterated ideas that the RHC and UVF had put forward earlier’. There was an acceptance that paramilitaries on both sides ‘had acted for political reasons’.35
In January 1975, the UVF and UDA took separate, albeit complimentary, decisions to talk to British government officials. Up first was thirty-four-year-old Andy Tyrie, the UDA’s Supreme Commander, who led several delegations to meet James Allan, a British official working out of Laneside in North Down. Much of the UDA’s demands of the government revolved around the welfare of their prisoners, especially in Long Kesh. Accompanying Tyrie on these occasions were fellow members of the organisation’s ruling Inner Council, including Hugh McVeigh, the thirty-six-year-old UDA commander from East Belfast, who represented the organisation on prison-related matters. As soon as the UDA delegates left Laneside, the UVF were shown in to meet Allan. On the afternoon of 27 January 1975, the UVF delegation consisted of political spokesman Ken Gibson, their prisoners’ representative Jim McDonald and Brigade Staff officers Billy Mitchell, Jackie ‘Nigger’ Irvine and Eddy Kearns.36 The mood surrounding the meetings was not good. Both loyalist groupings were involved in a violent feud that would lead to several of their men losing their lives as the year progressed.
6
REGIMENTAL LOYALTY
‘The UVF was not formed to deal with interfaces, it was formed because they believed there was a sell-out, there was a rebellion which had to be stopped, whether you were from the Shankill or East Antrim you had the one enemy – the IRA, indeed the nationalist community as most UVF volunteers didn’t distinguish between the IRA and those they fought for.’
Billy Mitchell, UVF Brigade Staff Officer in 19751
Newington Avenue, North Belfast, 7 April 1975
The large furniture removal truck rattled along the narrow North Belfast street, before coming to a sharp halt, throwing the occupants in the front cab forward in their seats. In big bold letters along the side was written Gillespie and Wilson, a furniture company based on the Upper Newtownards Road in East Belfast. The men on board were making their routine deliveries of carpets and bedding to customers on the other side of Belfast Lough. The driver – a tall, older man – applied the handbrake before switching off the engine and taking out the keys. The doors of the cab were flung open as the driver and his young helper, much shorter than his colleague, jumped out and walked to the back of the truck.2 They opened the roll-up door a couple of feet before they were surprised by the sound of footsteps behind them, followed by a guttural voice. ‘Get your fucking hands up.’ Without much hesitation, they raised their hands and turned around, to be greeted by a group of armed men. The delivery driver and his young helper were promptly frog-marched to a waiting car, where they were bundled in and driven a few miles north of the city to be interrogated. Nobody would ever see or hear from the two men again.3
The next day, a Monkstown man, twenty-nine-year-old Norman Cooke, received a knock on his door by another man who asked Cooke to accompany him to a two-door Vauxhall Viva car parked outside his house. Inside the vehicle were two other men. All four men drove down onto the Shore Road and along the coast road to Carrickfergus where they headed towards Whitehead, before heading towards the Gobbins in Islandmagee, a breathtakingly beautiful, if incredibly isolated, spot overlooking the County Antrim coast. As they neared their destination, Cooke turned around in his seat when he noticed a blue transit minibus following them closely behind. Its headlights burned brightly, dazzling him. He averted his eyes, turning to the man sat next to him to ask what was going on. He was told he ‘would find out later’. A short time later the car and van slowed down, pulling into a lay-by. Two men in the front of the minibus got out and walked around to open its rear doors. ‘I then seen them taking two men out of the back of the van,’ said Cooke. ‘These two men were walked from the van across the Gobbins Road, they then got over a fence and into a field by the two men who had been in the front of the van. I did not know who the men were who were in the back of the van, but one was a young man and one was an older man.’ Cooke emerged from the car with the other men and followed them across the road, climbing down from the fence. ‘As I was walking I heard two shots,’ he recalled, adding, ‘I didn’t know what was happening. I just turned round and ran towards the car, two other fellows ran out behind me. As I was running I heard two more shots.’ Cooke said he was ‘sickened’ by what he had witnessed, and claimed to have entered ‘a state of shock at what had taken place’. He maintained his innocence when questioned by police about the episode, making it clear that he ‘didn’t know that the men were going to get shot’.4
The truth of what had actually transpired was shocking. Sometime on 7 April, the second-in-command of the Islandmagee UVF was called to a meeting with his Officer Commanding, thirty-one-year-old unemployed fitter Sydney Corr, in the Brown Trout pub in Carrickfergus. Also in attendance was the military commander of the Carrick UVF, thirty-one-year-old George (Geordie) Anthony and his second-in-command.5 They were accompanied by the commander of the area’s Special Services Unit, thirty-five-year-old Geordie Sloan. It appears that another man was also in attendance along with UVF Brigade Staff member Billy Mitchell who had travelled all the way from Belfast to arrange the execution of two UDA men who were earlier abducted in North Belfast. ‘You go along with them too,’ Anthony allegedly told his second-in-command and Sloan, as they accompanied Corr and another UVF man6 to dig a hole in a secluded part of the countryside. The hole they dug was roughly five-foot long by five-foot wide and four-foot deep. Corr claimed that he was only told that it was for ‘stuff coming from Tiger’s Bay’, which he took to mean weapons and ammunition.7 It would seem that most of the volunteers were not fully aware of what was about to transpire.
Later that evening, the two UDA men were transferred to a minibus used by the UVF to take families on prison visits to Long Kesh. As the welfare minibus passed through Carrick, it continued on in the direction of the coast road towards Whitehead, where it picked up speed on Cable Road before turning right onto the Larne Road and towards Ballycarry. It caught up with a car, which it followed to the Gobbins, where both vehicles stopped. As the men got out they could hear the tide lapping against the shore down below. It was in this picturesque part of East Antrim that they had brought their captives to their place of execution.
Billy Mitchell followed two of the UVF men down a path on the other side of the road, to the secluded spot where his underlings had prepared a shallow grave. He was closely followed by Sloan, who was frogmarching the older man. Another man held Douglas by the shoulder so that he couldn’t make a run for it. Both of the prisoners had their hands tightly bound behind their backs. ‘Go ahead, you’ll be alright,’ the UVF man told the younger man. Out of the side, another UVF member quickly ran over to the youth and grabbed him by the neck, putting a gun to the back of his head. The boy groaned as the man pulled the trigger. His lifeless body collapsed onto the ground in a crumpled heap next to the hole in the ground. ‘You nearly got me there,’ snapped the man who had held Douglas, before losing his balance and falling over. Panicking, he hurriedly picked himself up and ran off back up to the road. As he made good his escape, the unknown gunman took a few steps over to the older man, levelling his pistol at him, he pulled the trigger at point-blank range. Sloan, who had been gripping the older man by the neck, flew into blind panic and ran off. ‘Jesus Christ,’ blurted Corr, as he took in the scene unfolding around him. The gunman then levelled his pistol at the heads of the two captives and pulled the trigger another couple of times. Billy Mitchell looked on, the only witness to what had unfolded. The gunman then handed the weapon to Corr for safekeeping.8 Corr was later sentenced to two five-year jail terms for removing the gun from the scene and also burying the bodies of the two UDA men.9
East Antrim was one of the most ruthless units within the UVF in 1975. Most of its members lived in Rathcoole, Monkstown, Carrickfergus, and as far north-east as Islandmagee and the port