Loyalist Volunteer Force (LVF) flags prompt feud fear

Billy Wright leader of the Loyaist Ulster Volunteer Force the (LVF)

FEARS are growing of another loyalist feud erupting in a Co Antrim town. Tensions are running high after the recent erection of LVF flags in Ballymena.

The flags have been put up on lampposts in the Doury Road estate, an area regarded locally as a UDA stronghold. The LVF flags were put up in the Camberwell Way part of the estate. The move is being blamed on an LVF faction who recently moved from Co Antrim. “They are blow ins,” revealed our source. “Whether they moved of their own free will or where put out no one knows. “But there is no way the UDA will put up with that.

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“Doury Road has always been an area with big support for the UDA.” There are fears that the actions will antagonise UDA members into action. “It is only a small group but I’ve been told more are expected to arrive from Antrim,” added our source. “Hopefully nothing kicks off but people with authority in the organisation are monitoring the situation closely.”

There has been no love lost between the rival paramilitary organisations over the years. The LVF built up a strong affiliation with Johnny Adair’s Shankill Road UFF unit. And it was the unveiling of an LVF flag outside a bar during a show of strength which sparked the vicious feud which ultimately led to Adair’s exile. Now there are fears that Ballymena could be about to become the centre of another violent loyalist dispute.

With many thanks to the: Sunday World and Richard Sullivan for the original story.

Catholic Priest feared he could be killed by Provos after campaigning for the release of IRA prisoners

Father Denis Faul, was very active during both hunger strikes of 1980-1981 and was highly respected by all the republican prisoners on the blocks

A CATHOLIC priest claimed he could be shot by the Provos – for campaigning for the early release of IRA prisoners.

Father Denis Faul of St Patrick’s Academy, Dungannon, Co Tyrone made consistent appeals to Minister of State Nicholas Scott to let republican terrorists out of jail.

His pleas have been revealed in top secret files which have now been declassified by the Public Records Office of Northern Ireland, including when Fr Faul had a meeting with Mr Scott on May 16, 1986, bringing with him Fr Murray and Mr Canning, an independent nationalist councillor from Dungannon.

The note for the record said: “Father Faul set out at length his proposition that mass releases from the prisons now would end violence.

“He acknowledged that letting out the killers to stop the killing was a difficult concept to grasp, but claimed support from Irish history as well as the facts of the present.”

It continued: “Many of those in prison today had only become involved in paramilitary activity because of injustice done to the Catholic community – he spoke of internment, torture, plastic bullets and the hunger strike.

“Still, their families regretted their involvement, and if the prisoners were released to them there was no doubt that their influence would be deployed to restrain them from further dealings with the paramilitaries.

“…The commitment to the paramilitaries of many prisoners was, in any event, only ostensible. Families had told him that prisoners were now more often thinking for themselves, they felt the war was over.

“In prison, they moved to Provisional wings because they had less hassle from warders there than in mixed wings.

“…Father Faul spoke with real loathing of PIRA, which had cynically manipulated many young people. He knew of prisoners who had effectively delivered into the hands of the police whilst working for PIRA, because it had suited the organisation’s purposes.

“It was to PIRA’s advantage to have the prisons full. They were violently opposed to the release campaign: indeed Father Faul said he could be shot by them for his activities.”

The document is contained in a Northern Ireland Office file on Prisons from 1983 to 1989, regarding Reforms and Restoration of Lost Remission (after the Hunger Strike 03/10/81).

With many thanks to the: Belfast Telegraph and David O’Dornan for the original story 

Gerry Adams sent me to US to buy rifles for the Provos: ex-top IRA man

SPOTLIGHT: IRA Priest says Thatcher was “right” about him

Former top IRA man Brendan Hughes claimed that Gerry Adams sent him to America to buy Armalite rifles for the Provisionals, according to a new TV documentary.

And Catholic priest Patrick Ryan has told the same programme he set up arms deals between the IRA and Libya; that he once stole from church collection boxes to provide funds for the Provos, and that Margaret Thatcher was right to link him to English bombings like Brighton and Hyde Park.

OC Commder in H Blocks Brendan Hughes and leader of the first hunger strike in 1980

The disclosures come in episode three of the BBC NI series Spotlight on the Troubles: A Secret History.

In an interview recorded before his death in February 2008, Brendan Hughes, a one-time friend and ally of the former Sinn Fein leader, claims Adams sent him to New York to smuggle Armalites back to Ireland in the early 1970s.

Hughes adds: “I think we did push the war forward more than anyone else did. And I think it was Gerry who was largely responsible for that because it was Gerry who sent me to America to get the Armalites.”

Adams, who refused to take part in the Spotlight series, has always denied that he was a member of the IRA and he has repeatedly said Brendan Hughes told lies about him.

Gerry Adams and Brendan Huhes in Long Kesh

In the same programme about IRA gun-running, former missionary and parish priest Patrick Ryan has no such qualms about owning up to his part in the smuggling of weapons.

Tipperary-born Ryan says Mrs Thatcher was right to link him to a series of IRA bomb attacks in England like Hyde Park and Brighton which almost killed the Prime Minister at the time.

Asked about regrets, Ryan says: “I have big regrets that I wasn’t even more effective. But I didn’t do too badly you know.”

Ryan claims that it was his discovery of a timing device which transformed the IRA bombing campaign and stopped terrorists blowing themselves up as they made their deadly bombs.

Ryan’s admissions run contrary to what he told a Tipperary newspaper in 1988 when he said he had raised cash for nationalist victims of the Troubles but had “never bought explosives for the IRA or anybody else”.

In that year Ryan was arrested in Belgium and was sent back to Ireland but the Irish government infuriated Mrs Thatcher by refusing to extradite him to Britain.

Spotlight: Provo commander says Adams sent him to New York to smuggle weapons
In Spotlight, Ryan says that at the start of the Troubles he took money from mission collection boxes to finance the situation in the north but was later approached by the organisation’s leaders to work for them permanently.

“They asked me to travel the world and try to get help for them,” he says.

The British government was convinced he was the main link between the IRA and Libya’s Colonel Gaddafi who saw the Provos as comrades in arms.

Ryan says of Gaddafi: “He was a fine fella, the best I ever met. And we got on very well.”

Ryan says that in 1973 the IRA dispatched him to Rome to meet their Chief of Staff Joe Cahill who went with him to Tripoli to meet Gaddafi who initially offered 200 tonnes of weaponry but later reduced the shipment on board the boat, the Claudia, to five tonnes because he suspected someone had blown the whistle.

Veteran IRA man Des Long says Cahill had been told the boat’s owner was working with British intelligence.

“He was warned and warned and warned that the whole thing was gone,” says Long, and the Claudia was captured off the Irish coast.

Ryan however continued to travel all over Europe working for the IRA and he says he also spotted Memo Park timers which motorists were using to remind them when their car parking fees had run out.

As footage is screened of terrorists making up a device, Ryan says he saw the timers as a means of preventing bombs going off while terrorists were arming them.

Such was the scale of links between Libya and the IRA, the documentary makers say that in November 1972 the Provos chartered a DC3 aircraft to fly 25 rocket launchers and 400 warheads from Libya to Shannon airport. Days later one of the rockets killed policeman Robert Keys in an attack on Belleek RUC station in Fermanagh.

With many thanks to the: Belfast Telegraph and Ivan Little for original story 

‘King Rat’ – Billy wright executed by the INLA

Billy Wright was a vicious, sectarian killer & murdering bastard who killed people because of their religion, he and his splinter group the Loyalist Volunteer Force (LVF), were responsible for countless senseless deaths of Catholics, God bless Crip McWilliams and the bold INLA lads who wiped out this piece of human shit.

With many thanks to: Marcas Mac Giolla Aindreis – Chaírde ar an Arm Náisiúnta Fuascailte na hÉireann.

IRA Volunteer Hugh Coney, a native of Coalisland, Co Tyone, was shot dead by the British Army while attempting to escape from Long Kesh on 6th November 1974.

Following the introduction of internment in August 1971, the internees were initially held in Magilligan Prison, Co Derry, and the Maidstone Prison Ship, moored in Belfast Lough.

Oglach Hugh Coney - Coalisland, Co Tyrone.

https://m.facebook.com/dakota29#!/Seachranaidhe/posts/908936895852752?ref=m_notif&notif_t=like&soft=notifications

Maidstone Prison Ship - moored at Belfast Lough

Magillign Prison - 1970s.

Magilligan Prison - as it is today.

For more information on Oglach Hugh Coney, please click on the link below for more details:
– https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maze_Prison_escape

Maidstone Prison Ship click on the link below for more details:

HMP Maidstone in the harbour of Algiers. Alongside HMP Safari and HMS Sahib

– https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Maidstone_(1937)

With many thanks to: Stephen Codd (Stiofán Mac Óda) :
– https://m.facebook.com/dakota29#!/StiofanMacOda?fref=nf&pn_ref=story&ref=bookmarks

– IRNF:
– https://m.facebook.com/dakota29#!/groups/611797022229595?notif_t=group_activity&ref=m_notif

PATSY O’HARA – RAYMOND McCREESH – LET US NEVER FORGET – THEY GAVE THEIR LIVE’S FOR IRISH REPUBLICAN POLITICAL STATUS !