Ulster Protestant Association

The Ulster Protestant Association (UPA) were a loyalist paramilitary group organised in Belfast in August 1920 to prevent Northern Ireland being included in an independent Irish Free State.[1][2]

In 1921, plumber and UPA Thomas Pentland was arrested for the murder of a Catholic named Murtagh McStocker, supposedly a member of the IRA, but was acquitted.[3]

The UPA were also associated with the 1922 murders of Catholic civilians in Ballymacarrett. John William Nixon was alleged to be associated with the UPA.[4]

In 1923 a police report described the Association as dominated by "the Protestant hooligan element [whose] whole aim and object was simply the extermination of Catholics by any and every means." Bomb attacks were made against children, crowds leaving Mass and onto crowded trains.[5] Their headquarters was in an East Belfast pub, with a flogging-horse upstairs to punish members who violated UPA rules.[6]

The UPA is said to have provided many members of the murder gangs active in Belfast during 1921-22. Other Protestant gangs active at that time were: the Imperial Guards, Crawford's Tigers and the Cromwell Clubs.[7] Many UPA members were recruited into the Ulster Special Constabulary, the infamous "B Specials."[8]

Although it is sometimes said to have dissolved in 1922, a hardcore remained active, murdering several Catholics in the mid-1930s.[4]

The UPA fought side-by-side with the IRA during the 1932 Outdoor Relief riots, swapping places in order to confuse Royal Ulster Constabulary policemen.[9]

The name was also used as a cover name by the loyalist group "Spirit of Drumcree" in 1998.[10]

References
  1. Norton, Christopher (6 April 1996). "Worker Response to the 1920 Belfast Shipyard Expulsions : Solidarity or Sectarianism ?". Études irlandaises. 21 (1): 153–163. doi:10.3406/irlan.1996.1297 – via www.persee.fr.
  2. Norton, Christopher (6 April 2019). "An Earnest Endeavour for Peace Unionist Opinion and the Craig/Collins Peace Pact of 30 March 1922". Études irlandaises. 32 (1): 91–108. doi:10.3406/irlan.2007.1787 – via www.persee.fr.
  3. "'The Mad Dance of Death': The Ulster Protestant Association in Belfast, 1921-22". 15 February 2016.
  4. "Dictionary of Irish Biography - Cambridge University Press". dib.cambridge.org.
  5. "CAIN: Issues: Sectarianism: Brewer, John D. 'Northern Ireland: 1921-1998'". cain.ulster.ac.uk.
  6. The Irish Times (Saturday, September 6, 1980), page 11.
  7. McDermott, Jim, (2001), Northern Divisions The Old IRA and the Belfast Pogroms 1920-22, BTP Publications, Belfast, pg 15, ISBN 1-900960-11-7
  8. The Irish Times (Saturday, November 24, 1979), page 13.
  9. The Irish Times (Wednesday, November 18, 1970), page 9.
  10. "Low-level ethnic cleansing in evidence". The Irish Times.
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