{"id":65004,"date":"2025-09-15T07:17:10","date_gmt":"2025-09-15T07:17:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/65004\/"},"modified":"2025-09-15T07:17:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-15T07:17:10","slug":"ex-loyalist-paramilitary-sees-norths-future-in-a-new-ireland-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/65004\/","title":{"rendered":"Ex-loyalist paramilitary sees North\u2019s future in a \u2018New Ireland\u2019 \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

On the livingroom wall in the Co Armagh home of David Adams<\/a> hang photographs of him meeting Nelson Mandela<\/a> and shaking hands with Bill Clinton<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The former loyalist paramilitary<\/a>, who took part in the political negotiations that led to the 1998 Belfast Agreement<\/a>, points to his favourite photograph taken at an Ethiopian refugee camp during his work with Dublin aid agency Goal.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy children call it \u2018The Davy Wall\u2019, sneeringly,\u201d he says, laughing while petting his ageing dog, Walter.<\/p>\n

Since retiring from the D\u00fan Laoghaire-based agency seven years ago, Adams (72) has kept a relatively low profile.<\/p>\n

His profile was not always low. Adams was a senior figure within the Combined Loyalist Military Command, a group representing the Ulster Defence Association (UDA), the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF), and the Red Hand Commando; he was heavily involved in the negotiations that led to the 1994 loyalist ceasefire.<\/p>\n

He is a former member of the UDA, although he was never convicted of any offences while a member of the paramilitary organisation. He was also a leading figure in the now defunct Ulster Democratic Party (UDP), the political party linked to the UDA. His association with the group didn\u2019t end well.<\/p>\n

It is almost 20 years since Adams was put out of his home by the UDA for his involvement in the peace process \u2013 \u201cmy daughter is still triggered,\u201d he says of the intimidation \u2013 and his life threatened when a gang climbed on the roof of his house and blocked up the chimney in the middle of the night.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was winter and we would often have banked the fire up at nights with coal and a bit of slack. That night we didn\u2019t. If we had, we could have easily been killed in our beds, burnt or poisoned,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\"DavidDavid Adams with his dog, Walter, at his home in Co Armagh. Photograph: Stephen Davison <\/p>\n

His pet dog, Oscar, was taken away and killed by paramilitaries.<\/p>\n

The \u201clast thing\u201d his family wants is for him to have a public profile again, he adds. But an escalation in racist and sectarian attacks in Northern Ireland has had an effect on Adams.<\/p>\n

The \u201clurch to the right\u201d within loyalism \u2013 and links with far-right figures in the South \u2013 have also altered his thinking on where he believes the North\u2019s future lies.<\/p>\n

He says he feels compelled to speak out.<\/p>\n

On the Tuesday morning he invites The Irish Times to his village home a short drive from Belfast, videos are circulating online of a group attacking individuals in a car park in east Belfast the previous evening. Later in the day, the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) confirms it is investigating the incident as a race-related crime.<\/p>\n

Catholic families being forced to flee a mixed social housing development on a Belfast interface where a UDA flag flies sparked an outcry the previous week.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0The last Catholic family in a Belfast housing development plagued by intimidationOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

\u201cWhenever I was away overseas with Goal, I could divorce myself from here and what was happening to a large extent,\u201d he says. \u201cWhen I came home, it was worse than what I\u2019d left in 2005.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is absolutely depressing and what it does as well, it throws me back in my mind to the 1970s. We now have vigilantes on the street; their target is those with different skin colour and people of a different religion. So, it all has echoes of where we once were and what that led to.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the kitchen are painted handprints of one of five grandchildren; he mentions them repeatedly by name.<\/p>\n

For the first time, he has reached a decision in the event of a referendum on a united Ireland. The criterion was simple: his grandchildren\u2019s future.<\/p>\n

\u201cNegative\u201d unionist leadership and growth in political support for what he brands \u201cpound-shop Paisleys\u201d preaching \u201cself-serving\u201d anti-migrant rhetoric were also a factor.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy former position was, come a border poll \u2013 and it is inevitable somewhere down the line \u2013 that I would make up my mind then on where I thought the best future would lie for my grandchildren,\u201d he says, of a potential vote on Irish unification.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd I wouldn\u2019t be swayed by tribalism or anything like that. I now believe that a \u2018New Ireland\u2019 is where the future lies, and has to lie. <\/p>\n

\u201cBut I have to stress it has to be a new Ireland for all of us. It can\u2019t be a replica of what was here obviously or what the Republic of Ireland was in the past.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo there really does have to be that effort \u2013 and unionism, if it has any sense, should begin negotiations towards a new Ireland.\u201d<\/p>\n

He dislikes the term \u201cunited Ireland\u201d because it\u2019s \u201cvery nationalistic\u201d and \u201csuggests all we need to do is nail six [counties] on to 26 and everything will be fine\u201d. <\/p>\n

Any move towards Irish unity would require an acknowledgment from the Irish Government on how Protestants living in the South were \u201ctreated very badly\u201d in the past, he insists.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere were two minorities who were abandoned after partition. The Catholic minority up here, who were discriminated against \u2013 no two ways about that, terribly so. But ignored in every conversation about a future Ireland is, how the Protestant minority in the South fared.\u201d<\/p>\n

Republicanism also needs to take \u201ca long hard look at itself\u201d, adds Adams.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have friends in Sinn F\u00e9in, I have friends among ex-IRA people, I don\u2019t want to be insulting them \u2026 I would just be worried about some of the rhetoric,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not about denigrating the other side to win plaudits from your own side.<\/p>\n

\u201cSinn F\u00e9in have shown leadership within their own communities and have built self-confidence within their own communities \u2013 the right thing to do \u2013 but it can\u2019t be at the expense of saying that \u2018we\u2019re better than them\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

There are people he has spoken to in the unionist community who are at their \u201cwits end\u201d about what Northern Ireland has become, he adds, but do not publicly speak about a new Ireland.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Loyalism needs a new way forward \u2013 let\u2019s start with the nameOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Adams also says he is aware there may also be concerns in the South about the prospect of a border poll. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe in the North, generally speaking, to people in the South are like that cousin who you would maybe go with to a Rangers-Celtic match, but you would never invite them to your wedding,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

In expressing his support for Irish unity, Adams is the first former loyalist political leader and ex loyalist paramilitary to do so. He is quick to point out that he has \u201cno friends within loyalism now\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I was put out of the house, that cut all ties,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

In 1994, he shared a platform with loyalist political leaders at Fernhill House in Belfast where foundingUVF member Gusty Spence announced the loyalist ceasefire.<\/p>\n

\"FormerFormer UVF leader Gusty Spence (right) announces the loyalist ceasefire in 1994 with, from left, David Adams, David Irvine, Gary McMichael and William Smyth <\/p>\n

Last June, Adams was among the speakers at a conference organised by pro-unity campaign group, Ireland\u2019s Future, in which he called for greater reconciliation. DUP founding member Wallace Thompson, who has spoken of the inevitability of a border poll, and Leo Varadkar also attended the event.<\/p>\n

That same month, Adams revealed his \u201cshame\u201d at his paramilitary past in an article published in this newspaper.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0I am ashamed of my paramilitary past. I won\u2019t be writing about it againOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

One of 10 children raised by nonsectarian parents in a mixed housing estate, Adams was grammar-school educated \u2013 his mother, a \u201cdevout Christian\u201d taught him to read before he started primary school \u2013 and he admits there was \u201cno reason\u201d for him to join the UDA as a teenager.<\/p>\n

Today, he expresses anger at the fact paramilitaries still exist.<\/p>\n

The joint appointment by the Irish and British governments of an interlocutor, a role that will involve meeting loyalist and dissident republican paramilitary leaders in a move towards disbandment, is imminent.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wish that appointment the very best but I don\u2019t have a terrible lot of confidence in it,\u201d he adds.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s also a part of me feels that we\u2019ve more of a peace industry than a peace process now.\u201d<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Simon Harris says European Convention on Human Rights is \u2018fundamental\u2019 to Belfast AgreementOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Filling young people\u2019s heads with Troubles\u2019 \u201cromanticism\u201d is wrong, he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am ashamed of what I did. Joining the UDA was wrong, from start to finish. There was nothing romantic about it,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was dirty, filthy business that we all should be ashamed of. And you would think we would have learned about how dangerous it is to lay the foundations, as I think is happening now, for that sort of stuff to rise again.<\/p>\n

\u201cOft-times, it\u2019s about no more than winning votes.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On the livingroom wall in the Co Armagh home of David Adams hang photographs of him meeting Nelson…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":65005,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[9,10,23935,4776,18,13,14,6,19,17,11,12,15,16,5,954,7,8,36276],"class_list":{"0":"post-65004","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-common-ground","11":"tag-dup-links","12":"tag-eire","13":"tag-featured-news","14":"tag-featurednews","15":"tag-headlines","16":"tag-ie","17":"tag-ireland","18":"tag-latest-news","19":"tag-latestnews","20":"tag-main-news","21":"tag-mainnews","22":"tag-news","23":"tag-northern-ireland","24":"tag-top-stories","25":"tag-topstories","26":"tag-ulster-defence-association"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65004","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65004"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65004\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65005"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65004"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65004"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65004"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}