A Young Man Who Was A Member Of A Paramilitary Gang...

The Brits may have left Northern Ireland and the IRA may be all but completely decommissioned, but Loyalist (the guys who loved the Queen and hated the IRA) areas of Belfast are still firmly in the grip of paramilitary thugs. Surprised? You shouldn’t be. Did anyone really think that decades of bloodshed and hatred would just morph into a pile of daisies with smiley faces on them just because some soldiers went somewhere else?

While the Catholic areas of town are not completely peaceful and calm, they are like the Elysian Fields compared to a neighborhood like the Protestant Loyalist streets of Tiger’s Bay, where I recently spent a weekend.

The paramilitaries there are police and criminals all in one. Even though there’s no IRA to fight against and therefore no political cause anymore, their soldiers are so inextricably linked to the way the criminal underworld operates that they cannot stop themselves from carrying on with their usual shenanigans, such as tarring and feathering their enemies in the street and kneecapping local “hoods” (which basically means “extreme Irish chavs”). They operate in much the same way that the gangs in American ghettos do. They are involved in punishment beatings, organized crime, and pressuring young men into joining up to become little mini-versions of them.

It was while I was in Tiger’s Bay that I met a lad named George at a youth center. We drank Coke and talked. He had been bullied into becoming a member of a Loyalist paramilitary organization, but he spent half the interview denying he was involved in paramilitary activity at all. Eventually he said fuck it and told me about stuff like his mate who got his head blown off.

Vice: So the Loyalist paramilitaries still control areas like Tiger’s Bay?

George:

And they won’t let Catholics in?

But they’re a Loyalist group, like yours.

laughs

Despite the end of the Troubles, all the small armies and gangs that were operating at the time are all still fighting.

When you were younger did you have confrontations with Catholics?

Braveheart

Were the fights organized?

What about immigration to Belfast? Is that a problem for you?

And what about this new thing called “hoods”? They’re the kids of paramilitaries and they’re like chavs, right?

Are drugs a big problem now?

Do the paras come down hard on the kids that use drugs?

What do the UDA get up to here?

Do you know people who joined?

Who did you join?

What did being in the Protestant paramilitaries involve?

Were you armed?

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