There have been recent rising tensions between the UDA and UVF in the Tigers Bay and Shore Road districts
A band parade dedicated to dead teenager Glen Branagh – a relative of top actor Sir Kenneth Branagh – passed off peacefully despite recent rising tensions between the UDA and UVF in the Tigers Bay and Shore Road districts.
Glen ‘Spacer’ Branagh (16) was killed instantly when a blast bomb he was preparing to throw exploded during sectarian rioting on North Queen Street on November 11 2001.
He was a member of the Ulster Young Militants, the UDA’s youth wing.
Glen Hugh Branagh, who died on during rioting at Tiger’s Bay in north Belfast, was a member of the youth wing of the Ulster Defence Association.
Last Sat, UDA-linked loyalists gathered in Tigers Bay for an annual band parade held in his honour.
But the parade was also viewed by local UDA veterans as a barometer of the organisation’s declining support among residents.
Tigers Bay has long been a UDA stronghold but Shankill Road-based UVF are trying to take it over, sources told the Sunday World.
A well-placed UDA source told us: “It is no secret that UDA membership in north Belfast is diminished and has been declining for a number of years.
Tiger’s Bay in north Belfast
News in 90 Seconds – Thursday, October 30
“It’s a natural development. And as the Troubles become little more than a folk memory, local people don’t see any point of young people running the risk of police harassment and jail sentences.”
“But every summer a row develops over the siting of the community bonfire which has been a feature in Tigers Bay for at least 100 years.
“UVF leaders, including the now discredited ‘Winkie’ Irvine, arrived down from the Shankill with a blueprint of how they wanted things carried out over the 12th holidays.
“It was clear the UVF saw the UDA in Tigers Bay as a depleted and weakened organisation and local people, rightly or wrongly, saw it as a UVF takeover.
“I mean, who are they to arrive down here from the Shankill to start telling us how to run our own community?
“It’s obvious local people are going to kick back against that sort of thing,” said the veteran loyalist, who at the height of the Troubles had served a jail sentence for UDA activities.
Memorial plaque for Glen Hugh Branagh
He added: “The Shankill UVF is viewed in this area as an ‘on-message’ government grant-funded organisation, but despite their best efforts, they don’t speak for the people of Tigers Bay.”
In the build-up to last weekend’s Glen Branagh Memorial Parade, UDA murals in the area were given a fresh coat of paint.
Kerb stones along the Edlington Street entrance to Tigers Bay were painted red, white and blue.
It is being seen locally as the UDA reasserting itself to show it still has influence in the hardcore loyalist area.
‘Spacer’ Branagh was – amazingly for a loyalist – a supporter of Glasgow Celtic, and the club’s badge features on plaque near the spot where he was killed, along with the badge of his other favourite club, Liverpool.