Jonathan Adair in the UFF Christmas calendarThe death of Jonathan Adair from a drugs overdose is the latest curse to befall members of a young sectarian gang his father Johnny Adair shaped in his own image.
Known as the ‘Hallion Battalion’, the UDA unit was being groomed to eventually take over ‘C Company’ from the shaven-headed terror boss.
But its members are now either in the grave, prison or exiled from their former lower Shankill power base.
Not a single one of these UDA ‘young guns’ was present at Adair Jnr’s funeral in Scotland.
Instead it was left to the terror gang’s old-timers like ‘Skelly’ McCrory and John White to bury their pal Johnny Adair’s oldest child.
Sunday Life today looks at what became of the ‘Hallion Battalion’s’ leading members, and how their associations with Adair led each to either prison, exile or an early death.
JONATHAN ADAIR: Died of a drugs overdose one day after being freed from prison for motoring offences.
At the time of his death the 32-year-old was awaiting trial on drugs charges.
He had previous convictions for heroin dealing and wrecking the home of a woman who refused to sell him cannabis.
Jonathan fled the Shankill Road in 2003 after his father’s ‘C Company’ faction was purged by the mainstream UDA.
He was being groomed for a senior role in the unit and had been pictured for a UFF calendar wearing a balaclava and carrying a machine-gun. A year earlier he was kneecapped by the terror gang for hitting a woman during a filling station robbery and breaking into the home of a pensioner.
WILLIAM HILL: A violent ‘C Company’ member who hero-worshipped Johnny Adair and ended up being convicted of murder.
The 32-year-old is due for release in the new year after serving a minimum 13-year life sentence for beating chef David Cupples to death outside the old Girdwood Army barracks.
Hill, who had spent the night taking drugs and drinking in a ‘C Company’ shebeen, mistook his victim for a Catholic.
Popular David was walking along Clifton Park Avenue for an early morning shift when he was set upon by the frenzied sectarian thug.
Hill beat the innocent Protestant with a brick, and the following day threatened staff at a nearby service station to delete CCTV footage that recorded him at the premises the night before.
After the UDA thug was jailed it emerged he had carried out pipe-bomb attacks on the north Belfast office of SDLP politician Alban Maginness and the home of rival loyalist John ‘Grugg’ Gregg.
WAYNE AND BENJI DOWIE: The brothers were among two-dozen Johnny Adair loyalists who fled the Shankill when his faction was exiled by the UDA in February 2003.
Two years later Wayne, 36, was cleared of the UDA feud murder of Jonathan Stewart during a Christmas party in north Belfast.
The 2002 killing was carried out by a ‘C Company’ gunman because the victim was related to a loyalist who had fallen out with Adair.
His brother Benji, 35, was jailed for five years in 2004 for conspiracy to sell crack cocaine and heroin alongside Jonathan Adair.
Despite their associations with ‘C Company’ resulting in them being exiled from Northern Ireland, the Dowie brothers remain in awe of Adair.
In 2003 Wayne Dowie told reporters: “From when I’ve been growing up he’s been the biggest loyalist in my eyes. As Ulster’s young men we looked up to Johnny. We idolised him.”
ALAN ‘BUCKY’ McCULLOUGH: His body was found in a shallow grave at Mallusk in June 2005 two months after he left a safe house in Bolton to return to the Shankill Road.
The 21-year-old, who idolised Johnny Adair, was among the ‘C Company’ members who fled their Belfast home in February 2003 after being attacked by the mainstream UDA.
He moved to the north-east of England, but was unable to settle and sought assurances from the UDA that he would be safe if he returned to Northern Ireland.
Within a month of moving back to the Shankill McCullough disappeared. The body of the dad-of-one was discovered one month later.
Leading UDA member Mo Courtney — a former close friend of Johnny Adair — was convicted of the manslaughter of McCullough and sentenced to eight years in prison.
ANDREW ROBINSON: The knife maniac is serving a minimum 20-year life sentence for the horrific murder of his fiancée Julie-Ann Osbourne in 2000.
The 38-year-old stabbed his helpless girlfriend 50 times and left her body impaled to the floor of their Shankill Terrace home.
Robinson slaughtered Julie-Ann, 22, because she threatened to leave him and take their baby daughter Melissa with her.
At the time of the killing the thug was a ‘C Company’ enforcer who treated Johnny Adair as a god-like figure.
Robinson — who had an appalling record of domestic violence against his partner — was tasked with carrying out punishment attacks for the UDA.
He was behind bars when Adair’s faction fled the Shankill in 2003.
However, he will not be able to return there when he is freed from prison such is the revulsion towards him for murdering Julie-Ann
DEE COLEMAN: The only member of Johnny Adair’s ‘Hallion Battalion’ who is still with the mainstream UDA.
The 32-year-old was behind bars when his then he ro was forced from the Shankill by the mainstream UDA.
But rather than join him in Scotland on his release, Coleman opted to remain in Northern Ireland within the ranks of the terror organisation.
Coleman’s stint in a juvenile jail came about after he was convicted of involvement, aged just 14, in a UDA gun attack on rival UVF supporters during the 2000 loyalist feud.
He was caged again in 2007, this time for six years, for trying to extort £5,000 from an undercover policeman who he thought was a builder.
Coleman, who is currently the UDA’s second-in-command on the lower Shankill, wed two weeks ago in a lavish ceremony.
Raymond McCord at Belfast High Court during his case opposing Brexit.
Photo Arthur Allison/Pacemaker Press
Sam McBride .News Letter. (Belfast). Friday, October 7, 2016
cif he loses the High Court action.
Lawyers for Raymond McCord, whose son was murdered by the UVF in 1997, are asking the Belfast court to stop the entire UK leaving the EU because a majority in Northern Ireland did not endorse that decision.
In a case which has potentially momentous constitutional ramifications for the UK, Ronan Lavery QC told the High Court on Tuesday that it should interpret the Good Friday Agreement
to mean that it was impossible for Northern Ireland to be taken out of the EU against the wishes of its people.
Yesterday the case â as well as a concurrent but separate case which was brought by politicians and human rights groups â concluded in court, with the judge reserving judgement but promising to âimmediatelyâ consider the issues.
TUV leader and veteran QC Jim Allister has said that he will eat his hat if the cases succeed.
Speaking to the News Letter about how he got legal aid for the Brexit case, Mr. McCord said: âI was turned down and I appealed it.
âMy solicitors had to go and sit in front of the Legal Aid Commission â it wasnât that I just put in an application and it was granted.
âAt the appeal, my solicitors had to state their case. The legal aid was given and the panel had to believe that there was both merit in the case and a chance of success.â
Mr McCord criticized Paul Frew, the DUP chairman of the Assemblyâs Justice Committee, for questioning the decision to grant legal aid for such a case.
He said that Mr. Frew is âentitled to have an opinionâ, but said that he should have come to court to hear the case before deciding whether or not it had merit.
When asked if – in the event that the High Court finds against him – the legal aid will also cover an appeal to the Court of Appeal, Mr McCord said: âI believe that it does. Iâm pretty certain of that.â
When asked if he intended to pursue an appeal if he loses, Mr. McCord said that it was âone possibilityâ, adding: âI feel strongly about it.â
In court yesterday during less than an hour of final legal arguments, the judge was told that there had been agreement between the parties that if there is a costs order imposed by the court those costs will be capped â regardless of whether the government or the applicants are asked to pay for the proceedings.
The court was told that this was the same approach which has been taken in the case taken in London, which is due to be heard later this month.
The oration delivered by Francie Mackey, chairman of the Irish
Republican Prisoners Welfare Association, at the Hunger Strike
commemoration in Duleek organised by the Duleek Hunger Strike Monument
Committee on Saturday, 17th September.
As Irish republicans we know we are right. But we must equally know and
accept that we are not winning this struggle. To sacrifice your life
with the implicit trust that your comrades will fully utilise that
sacrifice to attain the ultimate objective can only be reciprocated by
the fullest efforts to do exactly that.
The Hunger Strike brought to a climax the role that the imprisonment of
PoW’s has on the overall Republican Struggle. The repressive confinement
forged a bond that became unbreakable despite the massive efforts of the
British establishment to do so.
One could argue that the Hunger Strike was the most defining republican
battle since the Civil War. For just like the Anglo Irish Treaty in 1921
the policy of criminalisation was a strategic British effort to
fundamentally undermine the sovereign legitimate basis of the republican
struggle itself.
The Five Demands were essentially a metaphor for Irish Independence.
This is what the ten republican and republican socialist volunteers died
for. There exists today on this island republican PoW’s in
incarceration. They exist because the British government, in connivance
with Irish allies, continues to violate our national sovereignty.
But the same unity of purpose that existed in 1981 does not exist today.
We need to address this. There can only be one national army and those
taken prisoner for its activities are national prisoners. The practice
of republican POW’s being somehow relegated to the status of a given
prison landing is a farce.
To claim that republican PoW’s are aligned to a given political or
welfare group reduces the national army to the status of a militia. To
have a policy of discrimination for the welfare of PoW’s families based
on what landing their relative or spouse reside on is an obscenity.
This entire approach represents a deeply flawed understanding of what
republicanism is all about and what the Hunger Strikes endeavoured to
achieve.
To claim to be a republican, to claim to honour the memory of the Hunger
Strikers carries with it an onerous responsibility. The Hunger Strikers
did not die for glory, let alone hollow homage. No matter where we stand
in their name we must give an account of ourselves in the most honest
terms. As of now this account is exceptionally weak and disunited.
Republican history is replete with examples of when republicans came
together in common cause to maximise the political effects of their
combined efforts. This being the Centenary Year of the 1916 Easter
Rebellion that event naturally comes to mind. But the Hunger Strike of
1981 is no less an example.
In an almost tragic irony, with the perceived differences we conjure
between ourselves, it was the British establishment who always viewed us
as one. And in doing so they treated us in kind. For the British,
Volunteers of the Republican Movement and the Republican Socialist
Movement were united in criminal intent against British interests in
Ireland.
And to extend this irony it was the unity of purpose between the
Republican Movement and Republican Socialist Movement which defeated
their policy of criminalisation within their prison system. This took
great effort and sacrifice. But it took unity of purpose first. Failing
to recognise this is a criminal dereliction in itself.
We cannot write the history of the Hunger Strike by looking back. Ours
is not an academic struggle. Events like the Hunger Strike and the 1916
Rising were the chapters of their time. We are now the authors of this
struggle in the here and now.
To begin this task there are certain realities we must face. Firstly, we
must adopt a concept of winning this struggle. We are not here to uphold
a tradition or praise glorious defeats. It is not our place to stand on
the coattails of previous generations and claim some form of apostolic
lineage to them. We are not here to bequeath our failures to the next
generation.
Secondly, although the core principle for which we struggle remains our
constant, the political environment in which we struggle for it, is
constantly changing. That means that republicans must adapt. Our message
must adapt. Our language must adapt and our strategies must adapt.
We have to abandon the fallacy of believing that simply being right is
enough. We need to stop deluding ourselves that by calling ourselves
something different it somehow makes us different, let alone relevant.
We must recognise that because the British presence in our country is
even more entrenched, all that has gone before has failed.
Thirdly, and crucially, we must take collective responsibility for the
circumstances in which Irish republicanism finds itself. And in so doing
we must recognise that a collective approach to addressing this is the
only viable way forward. Blaming others is not a solution.
A collective approach means a democratic approach. That requires us
sitting down as equals and mapping a way forward. In such a process
making our core message relevant to our people is key. For too long
republicans have looked upon the Irish people as mere spectators to the
struggle for independence. To struggle for the Irish people we must
struggle with them. An Irish Republic is not a monument to the dead but
a home of peace and justice for the living.
When we go into our communities our message must first and foremost make
sense. Communities which are suffering from discrimination, drug abuse
and debt exploitation are not in tune with the narrative of a green or
socialist utopia. In their lives they need solutions. The task for
republicans is to make our solutions at community level integral to our
national struggle.
This is the debate that republicanism must engage with itself. Our
identity should be sourced in the radicalism of our message and not in a
set of insipid initials. Through genuine comradeship and professionalism
we must create a radical policy platform that propels the core
republican message into modernity.
As Bobby Sands said, everybody has their part to play and this is no
less true for this necessary project. This policy platform cannot and
will not be developed by some backroom committee. The democratisation of
the Republican Movement is essential to its future progress.
Republicanism is not a spectator sport. It needs everyone to play its
part and to do so in unison with our fellow republicans, socialists and
social activists. The simple dynamic of allowing the better argument to
democratically prevail will serve us well. We have nothing to be afraid
of open and honest debate. We won’t have all the answers nor do we need
to.
This process has begun. The door is open. You are invited to step
through.
A large crowd turned out in tribute to the H-Block Martyrs of 1981 when
the 1916 Societies held their annual National Hungerstrike Commemoration
on Sunday last, October 2nd, in Galbally, County Tyrone.
Thousands travelled from across Ireland travelled to the republican
heartland, where a march and commemoration to the graveside of Volunteer
Martin Hurson was held for the ten men who laid down their lives on the
1981 hungerstrike, for their fellow prisoners, their ‘Five Demands’ and
ultimately for Irish freedom.
Local republican Noel McKeown chaired proceedings, which opened with a
song in memory of the hungerstrikers and a reading of the 1916
Proclamation in Irish.
Wreaths in memory of the hungerstrikers were then laid on the grave of
Martin Hurson, with Joe McNulty from Dungannon, who shared a cell with
Martin during the Blanket Protest, laying a wreath on behalf of ‘Friends
and Comrades’.
Tommy McKearney, a former Blanketman who himself endured the horrors of
H-Block and spent 55 days on hungerstrike in 1980, gave the main
oration, speaking of a need for republicans to challenge modern
imperialism, which continues to blight Irish society not only in the
north but across all of Ireland’s 32 counties.
Describing the Stormont Assembly as ‘a symptom of British imperialism’,
with the ‘shoneen parliament’ in the south ‘which trades on Ireland’s
sovereignty for its own narrow purposes’, he appealed for republicans to
‘take inspiration from the hungerstrikers and their legacy, which
continues to show for all the nobility of our cause – a cause we must
see through to the end’.
He told those gathered to “rally the forces” against British
imperialism.
Branding Stormont a “venial, futile, powerless institution”, he also hit
out at the Dublin parliament, which he said was “devoid of character”
and “trading on the sovereignty of its people”. In an attack on Sinn
Fein he told the men, women and children gathered that republicanism is
a cause “that stands above and beyond the selfish pursuit of self
aggrandisement”, adding that a “genuine republican” would “give what
they have without concern for personal safety, personal advancement or
personal career”.
“We are challenged to find the unity of purpose and bring together the
currents, forces and streams of people,” he added.
“We must rally the forces and rally the people that will break the
chains that bind us. We can do it and we will do it. We have the ability
and let there be no doubt this can be done.
“And where there is doubt let us draw inspiration from those not only
buried in this graveyard but the living who stand among and beside us
here today – you the republican people of Ireland, who have stood
fearlessly in the face of opposition and remain determined to accomplish
the Irish Republic for which so many gave of their lives, among them
Martin Hurson and his comrades who died on the hungerstrike.”
An Orange Order parade which was forced through the Ardoyne area of
north Belfast last weekend has reopened the north’s biggest parading
dispute.
A senior Orangeman has hailed what he said was the “resolution” of the
Ardoyne parade standoff. He said it could offer fresh hope for a similar
deal over the Portadown parade, for years the cause of intense riots and
linked to a number of sectarian murders of Catholics.
Last Saturday morning, one of the north’s most contentious parades took
place amid a huge policing operation as the PSNI forced the
anti-Catholic Orange Order through a nationalist and republican
community in north Belfast.
Orangemen hailed the march as a victory for their three-year
intimidatory protest at nearby Twaddell Avenue, where there had been
frequent disturbances and occasional violence. The illegal three-year
camp had been maintain on government property by the paramilitary UVF,
but has now been removed.
Orangemen now believe a precedent has been set for a ‘return’ parade
along the nationalist Garvaghy Road in Portadown, 18 years after the
Parades Commission decided to ban it.
“It was great to see our brethren in north Belfast finally getting back
home at the weekend,” said Darryl Hewitt, Portadown District Grand
Master. “We are of course still looking to finish our return parade from
1998, but it will take a lot of goodwill on both sides before that can
happen. However, we have seen it happen at Ardoyne, so who knows.”
In a statement, the nationalist Garvaghy Road Residents Coalition said
they would reject any attempt by Sinn Fein to broker a similar agreement
in Portadown, and said renewed parade protests at Drumcree would be
insensitive.
“Since 1998, and particularly from the start of this millennium, the
rerouting of contentious marches away from the Garvaghy Road by the
Parades Commission has meant that our community – and the wider
community – has enjoyed successive peaceful summers,” they said in a
statement.
“Demanding to complete the 1998 parade is not only completely absurd, it
is also highly insensitive and demonstrates a continued refusal by the
Orange Order to assume any responsibility for the violent events
associated with Drumcree in the 1990’s.”
In nationalist north Belfast, while Orangemen celebrated, there was
anger that loyalist intimidation at the protest camp had been rewarded.
Although there was some relief that the loyalist camp was being taken
down, there was strong criticism for Sinn Fein’s support for an
agreement which saw them no longer oppose sectarian parades through
Ardoyne.
As he made his way once the parade had passed, local priest Fr Gary
Donegan was loudly condemned by members of the Greater Ardoyne Residents
Collective (GARC).
Fr Donegan, who controversially replaced the more activist local priest
Fr Aidan Troy in 2008 and had prominently supported the Orange parade,
was greeted by residents with chants of “shame” and angry
recriminations.
In an unrelated incident at the same location, a local journalist also
became embroiled in a verbal dispute with a local man. The exchanges
were caught on video and condemned in the mainstream media as an example
of the “thuggery” of the GARC, which it described as a “dissident”
organisation.
SDLP Assembly member Nichola Mallon described the scenes as “vile and
frightening”, while Sinn Fein’s Gerry Mr Kelly said it was a “disgrace”
that GARC members had barracked Fr Donegan, “the same man was up every
night for the last two-and-a-half years in the area trying to make sure
that no more of our young people would get caught up and enter the
criminal justice system.”
Kelly praised the local Crumlin and Ardoyne Residents Association for
their support for for the Orange Order march, and said it heralded a new
era for Ardoyne. “Now we have the potential to move forward. I want this
to open up many more good relationships,” he said.
There was inevitable triumphalism for the Orange Order. “It was a very
good weekend not just for the Orange institution, but the community in
Belfast,” said Rev Mervyn Gibson said the Assistant Grand Master. He
credited the loyalist protest with the breakthrough. “I think if you
hadn’t had the protest camp you wouldn’t have got the agreement, because
it would have been forgot about,” he said.
