Greggs movements were known to C Company member Alan McCullough who, receiving instruction from Adair (then in HMP Maghaberry), arranged for a hit team to kill Gregg and his associate as the taxi took them from the port of Belfast. And some of them think the UVF tout should be made to pay with his life but were told they couldn't by already under-fire SEA leader Fisher. As a result of the attack, three Woodvale UDA members went to Gregg and complained about the attack. A man described in court as the commander of the UDA in South East Antrim is one of four men charged with conspiring to supply cocaine. Members of this brigade were believed to be behind the killings of Catholic postman Danny McColgan, Protestant teenager Gavin Brett and Trevor Lowry (the latter kicked to death in the mistaken belief he was a Catholic), and a spate of pipe bomb attacks on the homes of Catholics. Carrick's drug trade is now a mish-mash of conflicting independent criminal gangs. [37], In 2007, the UDA's inner council expelled the Brigadier in the South East Antrim area and his political adviser after a long-running stand-off between the mainstream UDA and the South East Antrim Brigade. A senior police source once described him as a man driven by pure and absolute bigotry. When the taxi stopped at traffic lights close to the motorway, it was rammed by another taxi which had been hijacked earlier on the Shankill Road. Tommy Lyttle inherited 'Bertie Scott' from a man called Alan Snoddy, the UDA commander or Brigadier in South-East Antrim, a figure who kept a very low public profile. During the course of the melee a Shankill Protestant Boys member managed to gouge out Gregg's eye. Convicted gunrunner Thomas Morgan, a one-time member of the UDA, has muscled in on the town's drug scene. One of those was alleged Carrickfergus UDA commander Clifford Irons who was charged with conspiracy to supply cocaine. [4], Gregg and his team were apprehended almost immediately by a British Army patrol that opened fire on them before ramming their car. In response, graffiti appeared around the walls of Rathcoole in December, stating: Daft Dog and White beware. His own earliest memory of the Troubles was the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association marches in Derry, a movement to which Gregg and his family were strongly opposed. His plan to flee to Scotland has also been put on hold after loyalists there were warned not to harbour him. Widely known as a man with a fearsome reputation, Gregg was considered a "hawk" in some loyalist circles. The UDA was only proscribed - or declared illegal - in 1992 and, as the Troubles ended, the group began to fracture. 2 Discover Center Of Taipei ( ), 1 Shifu Rd ( Taipei City Hall Stn ), +886 2 2757-4547. In the last 12 months almost a dozen alleged South East Antrim members have been lifted and charged with drug offences by the National Crime Agency working alongside the Paramilitary Crime Task Force. [10] The attack is commemorated in the song South East Antrim Brigade by loyalist singer Rab C, many of whose compositions were about the brigade and its leading members. The UDA structure was divided into six geographical areas during the late 1980s (Londonderry, South-East Antrim, North Belfast, East Belfast, West Belfast and South Belfast). Posted 2 years ago 2 years ago. In late August 1997 this band was one of a number of similar flute bands to travel to Derry for the annual Apprentice Boys of Derry march through the city centre. "The former brigadier was summoned to a UVF leadership meeting on the Shankill to talk about the missing money, but he cried off sick," said a UVF source. Widely known as a man with a fearsome reputation, Gregg was considered a hawk in loyalist circles. 'Break the silence about who killed my brother', Cannabis factory uncovered in UDA searches, House of alleged senior UDA member seized, Angry protests erupt over Greek rail disaster, India PM Modi urges G20 to overcome divisions, Aboriginal spears taken in 1770 to return to Sydney, How 10% of Nigerian registered voters delivered victory, Sake brewers toast big rise in global sales, The Indian-American CEO who wants to be US president, Blackpink lead top stars back on the road in Asia, Exploring the rigging claims in Nigeria's elections, 'Wales is in England' gaffe sparks TikToker's trip. Adair was returned to prison two days later. Gregg had been a regular visitor to Ibrox Park for a number of years. Along with Jackie McDonald and Billy McFarland, fellow brigadiers on the UDAs Inner Council, Gregg was lacking in enthusiasm for the Belfast Agreement when it appeared in 1998. He was interviewed on the basis of anonymity. [58], On 11 December 2018 handguns bought on the 'dark net' by two Co Antrim men linked to a loyalist feud may have been destined for use by the South East Antrim UDA. Members of the Cloughfern Young Conquerors dressed in uniform accompanied the coffin. Fisher is no longer the main man in South East Antrim, he has seen his close circle of trusted sidekicks dissolve. It has brought the town under close scrutiny from the Paramilitary Crime Task Force. Protestant Trevor Lowry (aged 49) was beaten to death in Glengormley by UDA members under Greggs command on 11 April 2001 after he was mistaken for a Catholic. He sought to portray Gregg as unstable and thuggish and spread a rumour that he was about to be replaced as brigadier. [14] Throughout 1999 his brigade continued to be active, undertaking a pipe bomb campaign against Catholic homes whilst on 12 May members of his brigade shot and wounded a Catholic builder in Carrickfergus under the cover name "Protestant Liberation Force". Representing the UVF was John 'Bunter' Graham and the organisation's 1st Battalion commander Harry Stockman. [15] English was a strong advocate of political means and pushed for the UDA to call a ceasefire in the early 1990s, a position that was anathema, at that point, to Adair. Despite his reputation for gangsterism, Greggs failed attack on Gerry Adams had afforded him legendary status and, under the direction of Jackie McDonald, the remaining UDA brigadiers concluded that Adair had to be removed. The organisation is now in the grip of a committee of senior paramilitary veterans with Fisher forced to toe the line. [11] In late August 1997 this band was one of a number of similar flute bands to travel to Derry for the annual Apprentice Boys of Derry march through the city centre. Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email. Gregg, seated in the backseat, was hit at close range and died instantly. [27], However, in late 2002 a UDA member originally from the Woodvale Road who had moved to Rathcoole was attacked after it emerged that he was a friend of Joe English, the former brigadier who had since been exiled from the area by Gregg for his anti-drugs stance. Adams was hit five times in the attack but the taxi rushed to the Royal Victoria Hospital where he received treatment and survived. [43] The decommissioning was completed at the same time as that of the republican Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) and Official Irish Republican Army (OIRA). [18] In 2000, he helped to ensure that a proposal before the Inner Council to initiate the decommissioning of weapons was rejected. The Belfast Telegraph called the move "a familiar loyalist pattern of events. [18], Despite the continuing activity of his brigade, and his own earlier maiming, Gregg shared the reluctance of other brigadiers about what he saw as a coming war between the UVF and West Belfast brigadier Johnny Adair. Simms' demise was the catalyst for the disintegration of Fisher's power base. "[38] The dissident branch was also revealed to have contained an informer after Jon McDowell, Tommy Kirkham's assistant, told the Belfast Telegraph that he was an RUC Special Branch agent in November 2007. Widely known as a man with a fearsome reputation, Gregg was considered a "hawk" in some loyalist circles. He cited former UFF chief Johnny Adair as one of the few to have got out with the skin on his back. [31], On 1 February 2003, along with another UDA member, Robert "Rab" Carson, Gregg was shot dead on Nelson Street, in the old Sailortown district near the Belfast docks, while travelling in a taxi after returning from Glasgow where he regularly went to Rangers F.C. Create a free website or blog at WordPress.com. From the 1990s until his shooting death in 2003 by rival associates, Gregg served as brigadier of the UDAs South East Antrim Brigade. [11], As brigadier Joe English enjoyed, theoretically, more power than his predecessor, as Andy Tyrie had been removed from the UDA leadership and replaced by a collective leadership of the movement's six brigadiers, including English. [41], In 2009, the brigade claimed to have decommissioned a substantial quantity of guns and explosives in a single day in the presence of the chairman of the Independent International Commission on Decommissioning (IICD). "I think that the powers that be know exactly which individuals are involved. There is a belief in the organisation that the Task Force is building a case against Fisher and senior figures in SEA are content to leave him in place. [55] Gilmore had been targeted in an unsuccessful crossbow attack the previous August. Gregg when explaining his family background, revealed that his father, regarded as a quiet man, had trust in the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) and British Army but joined the loyalist vigilante groups set up around the start of the Troubles ostensibly to protect the Protestant community from attacks by republicans. He managed to avoid being beaten in return for tricking his ex-UVF 2IC friend into attending the Monkstown meeting during which he was attacked. [56] Two men from the Newtownards area were arrested in connection with the killing. He will have run the crime gang . His role in the murder was covered up for years by his father's best friend - the deposed UVF South East Antrim commander. [23] Trevor Lowry (aged 49) was beaten to death in Glengormley by UDA members under Gregg's command on 11 April 2001 after he was mistaken for a Catholic. At the service on 6 February, UVF/RHC representatives joined the UDA leadership in a show of anti-Adair solidarity. Gary Fisher became brigadier following the murder in 2003 of his predecessor John 'Grug' Gregg, but he is known to be looking for a way out of the organisation. The expelled Mount Vernon UVF commander was replaced by a close associate of the organisation's overall leader John 'Bunter' Graham. fifty skinheads appeared from nowhere, many of them wearing Chelsea and Rangers football scarves and covered in Loyalist and swastika tattoos. Three men were acquitted of his murder. During the course of the melee a Shankill Protestant Boys member managed to gouge out Greggs eye, although it is also claimed that Gregg lost his eye due to a fight with republicans at the same parade. John Gregg (1957 - 1 February 2003) was a senior member of the UDA/UFF loyalist paramilitary organisation in Northern Ireland. The deal was discussed at a February meeting in London at the home of the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby. [16], Gregg was released from prison in 1993. A mural commemorating Gregg and Carson in Cloughfern. And one-time trusted lieutenant Colin Simms is in disgrace after being linked with the murder in Carrick a year ago of Glenn Quinn. The new Irish Sea Border: What does it mean? The views and opinions expressed in this documentary/ies and page are soley intended to educate and provide background information to those interested in the Troubles of Northern Ireland. [10] He called on the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) to establish an auxiliary police "clinic" on the estate, which had no permanent police building, so that locals concerned about crime could have somewhere to go. However in the second half of 2002 he was dragged into the conflict after Adair made him a target in his own attempts to take full control of the UDA. [9] Gregg's fearsome reputation earned him the nickname "the Reaper" and he bore a tattoo of the Grim Reaper on his back as a tribute. Ann Ogilbys brutal murder: Forgotten victims of the Troubles, Kriss Donald The Brutal Racist Killing of an Innocent Schoolboy. Gregg's 18-year-old son Stuart and another man were also in the vehicle but neither sustained injuries in the shooting attack. [63] At least one journalist was warned of a possible under car booby trap. The coffin was draped in the Ulster flag and the flag of the UFF. To the rest of us, an attack on a UDA brigadier is an attack on the whole organisation. The juxtaposition of this initiative with the name of Gregg was condemned by the mother of a Catholic who had been killed by members of the South-East Antrim Brigade in 2000 as she argued "it's sickening to call it the Gregg initiative when he was a ruthless terrorist.Everyone goes on about Johnny Adair but they're all as bad as each other". [44] In 2010, the Independent Monitoring Commission confirmed that the split between the Fisher faction of the brigade and the wider UDA had not ended. In the later 1980s Snoddy took ill with cancer and many of his duties as brigadier were filled by his ally Joe English. These psychos were obviously baying for blood Mod blood, to be exact. [35] Members of Adair's C Company shot and killed Gregg the following month. The organisation is now in the grip of a committee of . He spent six months in jail for rioting in 1977. From the 1990s until his shooting death in 2003 by rival associates, Gregg served as brigadier of the UDA's South East Antrim Brigade. [3] A mural in support of the group lists its areas of activity as being Rathcoole (the mural's location), Rathfern, Monkstown, Glengormley and Whitewell, all of which are part of Newtownabbey, as well as Carrickfergus, the Shore Road, Greenisland, Ballymena, Whitehead, Antrim and Larne. On 4 September Langhammers car was blown up outside his Whiteabbey home by Greggs men, although Langhammer himself was asleep at the time and no one was injured. [30] A bomb attack on Adair's house on 8 January 2003 was blamed on Gregg by White, although Adair himself was returned to prison two days later after a dossier detailing his drug-dealing and racketeering activities was shown to Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Paul Murphy. A DEPOSED UVF boss is suspected of stealing more than 250,000 from the terror gang over the past five years. UDA Brigadier for South East Antrim, Gregg - who became a loyalist icon when he shot Sinn Fin chief Gerry Adams - was gunned down in Belfast's docklands area nearly 20 years ago. Afterwards a lone piper led the cortege to Carnmoney Cemetery where he was buried. [45] As of 2014 Fisher was still identified by the Irish Independent as Brigadier, with the brigade reported as being in the process of rearming. His assassination attempt had made him a loyalist hero and he quickly took over from English as brigadier. Four men were convicted of his murder. Following his release from prison, Gregg returned to Rathcoole where he again became an important figure, taking a central role in the illegal drug trade, with his Rathcoole stronghold a centre of narcotics.Sometime after the Combined Loyalist Military Command of 1994 he succeeded Joe English, who had emerged as a leading figure in the Ulster Democratic Party, as brigadier of the South-East Antrim UDA. Nonetheless he was not keen to antagonise Adair and so, along with McFarland, McDonald and Jimbo Simpson, accepted his invitation to attended a Loyalist Day of Culture organised by Adair on the Lower Shankill on 19 August 2000. [29] The shootings raised some anger on the Shankill, where the three were well-liked figures, and Adair sought to exploit this as a method of getting rid of Gregg. 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