Editing Loyalist feud (section)

==UDA–UVF feuds==
Although the UDA and UVF have frequently co-operated and generally co-existed, the two groups have clashed. Two particular feuds stood out for their bloody nature.

===1974–1975===
A feud in the winter of 1974-75 broke out between the UDA and the UVF, the two main loyalist paramilitary organisations in Northern Ireland.<ref name="taylor146">Taylor, Peter (1999). ''Loyalists''. London: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc. p.146</ref> The bad blood originated from an incident in the [[Ulster Workers' Council strike]] of May 1974 when the two groups were co-operating in support of the [[Ulster Workers' Council]]. That support the UDA and UVF members were giving involved shutting down their own social clubs and pubs due to complaints from loyalist wives of the striking men. The reason for this was with the men not working and funds being tight, the wives saw what little money they did have being spent at the pubs and social clubs controlled by UDA/UVF; therefore, the wives put pressure on the leaders of both groups to shut them down for the duration of the strike, and after consultation they agreed. All shut down except for a lone UVF-affiliated pub on the Shankill Road. On a November night in 1974, a UVF man named Joe Shaw visited the pub for a drink. While there, he was "ribbed by the regulars about having allowed his local to be closed".<ref>The Red Hand by Steve Bruce 1992,p.124</ref> A few pints later Shaw and some friends returned to their local, on North Queen St., and opened it up. UDA men patrolling the area had seen the pubs lights on and ordered Shaw and his friends to close the place down and go home. Shaw refused, and the UDA men left, but they returned a short while later with a shotgun, determined to close the pub down. In the brawl that developed Shaw was fatally wounded.<ref>(Bruce 1992)</ref>  A joint statement described it as a tragic accident, although a subsequent UVF inquiry put the blame on Stephen Goatley and John Fulton, both UDA men.<ref>Henry McDonald & Jim Cusack, ''UDA - Inside the Heart of Loyalist Terror'', Penguin Ireland, 2004, pp. 98-99</ref> With antagonism growing, another man was killed in a drunken brawl on 21 February 1975, this time the UDA's Robert Thompson. This was followed by another pub fight in North Belfast in March and this time the UVF members returned armed and shot and killed both Goatley and Fulton, who had been involved in the earlier fight.<ref>McDonald & Cusack, ''UDA'', p. 99</ref>

The following month, UDA Colonel Hugh McVeigh and his aide David Douglas were the next to die, kidnapped by the UVF on the Shankill Road and taken to [[Carrickfergus]] where they were beaten before being killed near [[Islandmagee]].<ref>McDonald & Cusack, ''UDA'', pp. 99-100</ref> The UDA initially believed the IRA were responsible and intended to kidnap twenty Catholics in retaliation. The UDA's leadership were persuaded to call off their plan by a Protestant clergyman, who convinced them that the IRA were not involved. After [[Social Democratic and Labour Party]] (SDLP) leader [[John Hume]] revealed he had been informed of the aborted attacks, UDA chairman [[Andy Tyrie]] conceded that had been the UDA's intention but denied the group had planned shoot one hostage a day until the two missing UDA men were released.<ref>''Belfast News Letter'', 1 May 1975.</ref>

The UDA retaliated in East Belfast by attempting to kill UVF leader [[Ken Gibson (loyalist)|Ken Gibson]], who in turn ordered the UDA's headquarters in the east of the city to be blown up, although this attack also failed.<ref>McDonald & Cusack, ''UDA'', p. 100</ref> The feud rumbled on for several months in 1976 with a number of people, mostly UDA members, being killed before eventually the two groups came to an uneasy truce.<ref>McDonald & Cusack, ''UDA'', pp. 100-101</ref>

===2000===
Although the two organisations had worked together under the umbrella of the [[Combined Loyalist Military Command]], the body crumbled in 1997 and tensions simmered between West Belfast UDA Brigadier<ref>The UDA divides its membership into six vaguely geographic areas which it labels "brigades" with the six commanders styled "Brigadiers". Other military-style ranks are used by the group for its members</ref> [[Johnny Adair]], who had grown weary of the [[Northern Ireland peace process]] and the [[Good Friday Agreement]], and the UVF leadership. Adair by this time had forged close links with the dissident LVF, a breakaway group to which the UVF was ardently opposed.<ref>McDonald & Cusack, ''UDA'', p. 323</ref> Amidst an atmosphere of increasing tension in the area, Adair decided to host a "Loyalist Day of Culture" on the Shankill on Saturday 19 August 2000, which saw thousands of UDA members from across Northern Ireland descend on his Lower Shankill stronghold, where a series of newly commissioned murals were officially unveiled on a day which also featured a huge UDA/UFF parade and armed UDA/UFF show of strength. The UVF leadership had sought and been given assurances that no LVF regalia would be displayed on the Shankill on the day of the procession. However, and unknown to the UDA beyond its "C Company", Adair had an LVF flag delivered to the Lower Shankill on the morning of the celebrations. He planned to have it unfurled as the procession passed the Rex Bar, a UVF haunt, in order to antagonise the UVF and try and drag it into conflict with as much of the UDA as possible. Adair waited until the bulk of the parade of UDA men had made its way up into the heart of the Shankill before initiating the provocative gesture. Violence broke out between UVF men who had been standing outside the Rex watching the procession and the group involved in unfurling the contentious flag, which had been discreetly concealed near the tail end of the parade. Prior to this the atmosphere at the Rex had been jovial, with the UVF spectators even joining in to sing UDA songs along to the tunes of the UDA-aligned flute bands which accompanied the approximately ten thousand UDA men on their parade up the Shankill Road. But vicious fighting ensued, with a roughly three hundred-strong C Company (the name given to the Lower Shankill unit of the [[UDA West Belfast Brigade|UDA's West Belfast Brigade]], which contained Adair's most loyal men) mob attacking the patrons of the Rex, initially with hand weapons such as bats and iron bars, before they shot up the bar as its patrons barricaded themselves inside. Also shot up was the [[Progressive Unionist Party]] (PUP) headquarters which faced the pub. C Company then went on the rampage in the Lower Shankill, attacking the houses of known UVF members and their families, including the home of veteran UVF leader [[Gusty Spence]], and evicting the inhabitants at gunpoint as they wrecked and stole property and set fire to homes. By the end of the day nearly all those with UVF associations had been driven from the Lower Shankill.<ref>McDonald & Cusack, ''UDA'', pp. 325-327</ref> Later that night, C Company gunmen shot up the Rex again, this time from a passing car. While most of the UDA guests at Adair's carnival had duly left for home when it became apparent that he was using it to engineer violent conflict with the UVF, festivities nonetheless continued late into the night on the Lower Shankill, where Adair hosted an open air rave party and fireworks display.

The UVF struck back on Monday morning, shooting dead two Adair associates, Jackie Coulter and Bobby Mahood, as they sat in a Range Rover on the Crumlin Road. The UVF also shot up the  [[Ulster Democratic Party]] headquarters on the Middle Shankill. An hour later Adair's unit burned down the PUP's offices close to Agnes Street, the de facto border between the UVF-dominated Middle and Upper Shankill and the UDA-dominated Lower Shankill. The UVF responded by blowing up the [[Ulster Democratic Party|UDP]] headquarters on the Middle Shankill. Adair was returned to prison by the Secretary of State on 14 September, although the feud continued with four more killed before the end of the year.<ref>McDonald & Cusack, ''UDA'', pp. 332-334</ref> Violence also spread to North Belfast, where members of the UVF's Mount Vernon unit shot and killed a UDA member, David Greer, in the Tiger's Bay area, sparking a series of killings in that part of the city. In another incident the County Londonderry town of Coleraine saw tumult in the form of an attempted expulsion of UVF members by UDA members, which was successfully resisted by the UVF.<ref>McDonald & Cusack, ''UDA'', p. 335</ref> But, aside from these exceptions, Adair's attempt to ignite a full-scale war between the two organisations failed, as both the UVF and UDA leaderships moved decisively to contain the trouble within the Shankill area, where hundreds of families had been displaced, and focused on dealing with its source as well as its containment. To Adair's indignation even the "A" and "B" Companies of his West Belfast Brigade of the UDA declined to get involved in C Company's war with the UVF. Eventually a ceasefire was reluctantly agreed upon by the majority of those involved in the feuding after new procedures were established with the aim of preventing the escalation of any future problems between the two organisations, and after consideration was paid to the advice of [[Gary McMichael]] and [[David Ervine]], the then leaders of the two political wings of loyalism.<ref>McDonald & Cusack, ''UDA'', p. 340</ref>