From 1975 to 1982 a British terrorist faction nicknamed the “Shankhill Butchers”, part of the militant UVF, carried out a series of attacks designed to instil terror in the Irish Nationalist community of Belfast, randomly targeting men, women and children living in isolated enclaves around the city. Like Al-Qaeda in Iraq during the intercommunal conflict the Unionist grouping simply didn’t kill their victims. Armed with guns, explosives, axes and butchers knives they kidnapped, tortured, mutilated, hacked the limbs and cut the throats of those they encountered, often using various pubs and bars around the city to carry out their murderous activities (sometimes with the full knowledge of staff and customers). Fuelled by alcohol and drugs they boasted of the time it took to slay their captives or of how many they had killed that week, from ten year-old Kevin McMenamin to forty-eight year Marie McGrattan. Existing in the twilight world of British colonial culture on the island of Ireland, nationalism and religion fused together, they came to represent all that was evil on the ideological fringes of Unionism. Eventually their frenzied behaviour and ancillary criminal ways became too much for the British authorities and paramilitary police and they were brought to heel, arrests and assassinations (both internally and by Irish Republicans) breaking the back of their amorphous organisation.
One of their number was Eddie McIlwaine, a serving British soldier with the infamous Ulster Defence Regiment, who helped the group secure weapons, intelligence information and safe passage through British security cordons and checkpoints (though he was not the only one to do so). He was convicted in 1979 of kidnapping, assault and possession of weapons, the least of the charges that could have been brought against him. His only admitted victim was Gerard McLaverty, a young man the gang grabbed off the street while posing as police officers, beat, strangled and slashed with a knife before leaving for dead. Back then McIlwaine was an acknowledged psychopath, a dangerous soldier-cum-terrorist addicted to inflicting human suffering. Today he is an honoured and all-but venerated member of the Orange Order, the anti-Catholic and anti-Irish fraternity devoted to fundamentalist Protestantism and Britishness. From the Belfast Telegraph newspaper:
“One of the Shankill Butchers stewarded an Orange Order parade past a Catholic church in Belfast last weekend.
Eddie McIlwaine was filmed by Carrick Hill residents ushering members of the loyal orders past St Patrick’s on Donegall Street on the Twelfth.
McIlwaine was jailed for eight years in 1979 for being part of the Shankill Butchers gang that killed 19 Catholics and Protestants.
Last year Sunday Life pictured him parading through east Belfast during the UVF’s 100th anniversary parade.
He wore a UVF armband emblazoned with the words ‘UVF West Belfast 1’, and a medal understood to signify time spent in prison.
McIlwaine’s involvement with the Orange Order was first revealed a decade ago when he was pictured carrying a banner commemorating UVF killer Brian Robinson at the controversial Whiterock parade.
A spokesman for the Orange Order defended the Shankill Butcher’s role in the organisation, saying: “I can confirm that Eddie McIlwaine is a member of that lodge and in good standing…
“As long as Mr McIlwaine upholds the principle of the institution and has paid his debt to society he has done nothing wrong.””
Politicians, journalists and observers sometimes claim a moral equivalence between the actions of the (Provisional) Irish Republican Army, the British Occupation Forces and the British Terror Factions during the conflict in the north-east of Ireland and beyond. They argument goes that they all were equally guilty of militarism and violence. This is simply untrue. While the IRA can be justifiably criticised and condemned for many of its actions, up to and including war crimes, more often than not it exercised restraint. As dreadful as the war was it could have been far worse had the IRA chosen to act entirely outside the norms of western European behaviour at the end of the 20th century (or what the communities who supported it were willing to tolerate). That is not to negate the suffering caused by the Republican Army, the many innocent victims both direct and indirect left by its actions. The litany of its barbarisms, deliberate or otherwise, is lengthy and bring no credit to anyone. The war was not a clean one. Heroes are few and far between.
However the terrorist gangs organised and functioning under the aegis of the British state, acknowledged or otherwise, are a different matter. It was these factions which embraced as a weapon of war the policy of “ethnic cleansing” as the ultimate solution – or fallback – to the conflict and the defeat of their enemy. Acting as the cutting edge of Britain’s counter-insurgency strategy they engaged not armed opponents, guerrilla fighters or their commanders, but ordinary Irish men, women and children.
35% of all those killed by the (Provisional) Irish Republican Army were civilians.
51% of all those killed by the British Occupation Forces were civilians.
85% of all those killed by the British terror factions were civilians.
When the Orange Order permits the membership of someone like Eddie McIlwaine, a literal butcher of human beings, when it elevates him to a position of authority in its organisation, however slight, it sends a message to the people of Ireland as a whole. It is the same message that ISIS, the would-be Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, sends to Shia Moslems and Arab Christians or Israel sends to the Palestinians of Gaza: you and yours are unhumans.
AN SIONNACH FIONN 
Athbhlagáladh é seo ar seachranaidhe1.
LikeLike
was shocked to read that Telegraph article – especially at the Shankhill Butchers were sectarian serial killers – in the sense that I think they would have been serial killers in any society they found themselves in – sectarianism gave them the excuse to choose catholic victims and a few protestants by mistake and to celebrate their murders, secure in the knowledge they were approved by many Loyalists and had indeed been sanctioned by the NI state since its inception
http://eurofree3.wordpress.com/2014/03/12/licence-to-kill/
http://eurofree3.wordpress.com/2014/03/22/loyalist-sectarian-murders-any-catholic-will-do/
LikeLike
35% of all those killed by the (Provisional) Irish Republican Army were civilians.
51% of all those killed by the British Occupation Forces were civilians.
85% of all those killed by the British terror factions were civilians.
Er, yes but the IRA and its offshoots killed about three times as many people as the loyalists, Given the number of premature explosions and other incompetence, the internal bloodletting between various factions, the murders of informers, real or imagined, the murder of Catholic RUC officers, Omagh, Bloody Friday, the killings of second generation Irish in Birmingham and London, the IRA killed more Catholics than the loyalists.
LikeLike
“…but the IRA and its offshoots killed about three times as many people as the loyalists.”
The number of civilian fatalities by organisation, (P)IRA versus BOF and BTF:
c.650: members of the civilian population killed by the (Provisional) Irish Republican Army (Ireland, Britain, Europe).
c.600: members of the civilian population killed by the British Terror Factions (Ireland).
c.200: members of the civilian population killed by the British Occupation Forces (Ireland).
LikeLike
I agree with that, Ben. The Shankill Butchers were psychopaths in search of an excuse to kill. That is not to say that other forces in the conflict did not have their fair share of people with a scant regard for human life. However the Butchers took a peculiar pleasure in the infliction of sadistic pain and suffering. They were serial killers by any definition.
LikeLike
Thanks for the figures John –
I really don’t see what they have to do with a Shankhill Butcher who was a member of a serial sectarian murder gang, stewarding an OO march/walk past a a Catholic Church which many of his victims could have attended
LikeLike
Does not have much to do with it all: just trying to show an sionnach’s partial and somewhat propagandistic use of stats.
LikeLike
John, so your answer to the stats of what percentage of civilian deaths attributed to each group’s actions is “but Republicans killed more Catholics than others”.
The stats are not propaganda. They are the facts. It was you who picked this one part of the article to focus on. And let’s face it, Loyalist death squads existed merely to kill Catholics – as the statistic suggests – overwhelmingly civilian. The British, who controlled these groups, even managed to chalk up quite a few itself (their Loyalist underlings must not have been as effective as they desired) – most of the deaths attributed to them were civilians – and, in the main, Catholic.
I’d say An Sionnach has it spot on.
LikeLike
Something that has always bothered me : if the Loyalist Paramilitaries were merely offshoots of the official state forces, how come so many of the said paramilitaries ended up being put behind bars by the, er , state forces, like the R.U.C.? Just thought I’d ask.
LikeLike
The state had to manufacture the illusion that it was a sectarian civil war and that they were in the middle keeping the peace. International appearances had to be upheld. Thus loyalists had to be sent to prison simply to maintain the statistics of a ‘civil war’.
Lots of loyalists went to jail with noticeably more lenient sentences than republicans for similar ‘offences’. The loyalist who happened to get himself a heavy sentence used the trusted old tactic to get released early ie he found god!
More tellingly the statistics on loyalists caught in ambushes by the British state forces on ‘active service’ and killed, compared to republicans is galling.
I can recall a Brian Robinson(loyalist) who was shot dead by the SAS on his way from back from just killing a catholic shopkeeper in w.belfast. Prior to this time,international observers were suggesting that the British state was colluding with loyalism. The British needed a way of taking the spotlight of its shoot to kill policy on republicans. They needed to show observers they indeed treated all ‘terrorists’ the same and thus shot Robinson simply to keep up appearances. It was cynical but in their eyes the mirage that they were the peacekeepers had to be maintained.
Similarity the British tended to let whatever activity the loyalist was on, happen, and then arrest them eg Bernadette mcaliskey,Gerry adams shootings. Whereas the republican tended to get stopped before he got started if you like. Sometimes they didn’t even arrest the loyalist whilst he was shooting a catholic, they just watched him do it and let him leave eg the elderly lady Mallon, who was shot in her home in the early 1990’s in Tyrone.
Just thought I’d tell ye; )
LikeLike
Nationalists, Republicans IRA, INLA etc were considered to be rebelling against the lawful state.and the UK acted accordingly, coming down heavily (see reaction to London riots a couple of years ago and to the London mob throughout history).
As it always has throughout irish history.
The Unionists/Loyalists were (mistakenly?) perceived as acting in favour of the UK and were cynically used accordingly.
This policy is called “playing the orange card”
The Orange/British Loyalty mask is beginning to slip too far to cover up its bigotry, sectarianism and racism (see the better Together reaction to an Orange march in Scotland a couple of days before the Referendum on independence) .
Orange Loyalists do not conform to current UK policy of let’s all be tolerant in our multi-racial state. and what’s bigotry? The Orange Card is transparently played out.
How long until the Loyalists are dumped?
LikeLike