Anthony McIntyre

Much media coverage of late has been devoted to the UFF leader Johnny Adair. As the Sunday Times put it after his release from prison he is no ordinary Johnny. Nor does this absence of ordinariness come from any sophistication in the manner which he verbalises his political philosophy. By general consensus he lacks both the charisma and intellect of the late LVF leader Billy Wright. The latter appeared to conceptualise Catholics as strategic pawns rather than their sole purpose on earth being to sate a particular sectarian blood lust as appears the case with Adair.

Recently, Martin Bashir interviewed Adair. By coincidence the previous slot on the Trevor MacDonald show featured a number of prominent English criminals who had mined celebrity status as a result of putting into print the story of their wayward lives. The camera teams made a point of contrasting the flashy suits with amateurish tattoos on the hands protruding from the arms of the most expensive cloth. Adair did not seem out of place on the tail end of such notorious company even if his clothing did. But he can hardly be faulted for not wearing a suit.

The comparison was not lost on Kate Kray, at one time married to the late gangster Ronnie Kray, when she included Adair in her book on the celebrities of the British underworld, Hard Bastards. What did amaze was her assertion that ‘Johnny spoke with great intellect’. It is difficult to reconcile such an insight with the following words selected by Roisin Ingle for her Irish Times piece on Adair. ‘I am a peaceful man. That was nothing absolutely to do with me whatsoever. . . The crowd that I was with applauded them ones, and I was part of that crowd so I applauded them also."

Whatever the limitations of his vocabulary, Adair is clearly more intelligent than articulate. That he has managed to inflict so much yet survive as long as he has despite annoying virtually everyone suggests a cunning others more articulate clearly did not possess. In a July interview with the Shankill loyalist, Liam Clarke of the Sunday Times claimed that he resorted to flattery in order to open Adair up. It succeeded for the RUC so why not try? Clarke’s opening gambit was: ‘A lot of people would say that you were the man who brought about the IRA cease-fire by raising the level of violence to the point where they couldn’t stand it’.

Clarke could, as he claimed, have been flattering his inter-viewee. Alternatively or dually, he may also have been raising a very significant strategic matter which for now dare not speak its name for fear of upsetting those republicans who either believe or spin that the IRA settled the war on decent terms. If indeed the outcome of the Loyalists’ onslaught against nationalists was in fact the intention from the outset what then prompted it? Apart from selective targeting of key republicans during the H-Block campaign loyalism had been relatively quiescent for a decade, failing even to respond to the IRA attack on La Mon House in which twelve innocent Protestants lost their lives.

Why did elements in the British state arm the Loy-alists and supply them with information at a particular time? Quite bluntly did the British behave as they did in order to facilitate a peace lobby within republicanism by strengthening the yearning for peace: a peace longed for deep within the nationalist community out of fear rather than because it was honourable? Did the loyalist campaign form an integral part of the process which is now lauded as ‘peace’? Was the lamp containing the murderous loyalist genie unintentionally rubbed by people in the republican camp in the ostensible pursuit of peace?

If so what did the British know about a peace lobby, when did they know and who told them? Let us hope that the answers to such questions are more articulate than Mr. Adair