Charles Harding Smith

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Charles Harding Smith was a loyalist leader in Northern Ireland and the first effective leader of the Ulster Defence Association (UDA).

[edit] Development of the UDA

Smith began as a member of the Woodvale Defence Association, a vigilante organisation based in the Woodvale area of the upper Shankill Road, during the early 1970s. He is sometimes credited with the idea of bringing this group, as well as others such as John McKeague's Shankill Defence Association, under the single umbrella of the UDA in 1971.[1] In 1972 he would face gun-running charges along with John White, although he secured an acquital.[2]

When the UDA was formed Smith was effective leader, being the top man in the UDA's West Belfast stronghold, although he has a powerful rival in the east of the city in Tommy Herron. In order to avoid a feud between Smith and Herron a compromise candidate, Andy Tyrie, was sworn in as UDA leader in 1973.[3] Both Smith and Herron remained important figures within the UDA, although Tyrie did not prove to be the puppet that both men had hoped and consolidated his power through his close involvement with Glenn Barr and the Ulster Workers Council.[4]

[edit] Feud

Fearing the growing power of Tyrie, Smith criticized the UDA leader for sending a delegation to Libya to meet Muammar al-Gaddafi, who was a hate figure for many loyalists due to his well documented arming of the PIRA.[5] Smith used this perceived collaboration as a pretext upon which to take control of the UDA from Tyrie, although by this stage Tyrie's control had been well established. This even extended to Smith attempting to place Tyrie under house arrest in 1975.[6] In the resulting loyalist feud Smith was seriously injured in two separate gun attacks by Tyrie's supporters indicating that his power had waned considerably within the movement.[7] Following the second attack Smith gave up his attempts to gain control and fled Northern Ireland to go into exile in England. No longer involved in loyalism, he died of natural causes.[8] During Dáil Éireann debates in 2005 he was named as a "self-confessed British intelligence agent"[9]

[edit] References

  1. ^ Charles Harding Smith profile from National Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism
  2. ^ Document: British saw UDA as playing 'constructive' role
  3. ^ H. McDonald & J. Cusack, UDA – Inside the Heart of Loyalist Terror, Dublin, Penguin Ireland, 2004, pp. 64-65
  4. ^ McDonald & Cusack, op cit, pp. 75-77
  5. ^ McDonald & Cusack, op cit, p.85
  6. ^ M. Anderson & E. Bort, The Irish Border: History, Politics, Culture, p.129
  7. ^ McDonald & Cusack, op cit, p.87
  8. ^ Charles Harding Smith profile from National Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism
  9. ^ Dáil Éireann debates Vol.599 No.6