Billy Wright (loyalist) - Early Years in The Ulster Volunteer Force

Early Years in The Ulster Volunteer Force

In the more strongly loyalist environment of Portadown, nicknamed the "Orange Citadel", Wright was, along with other working-class Protestant teenagers in the area, targeted by the loyalist paramilitary organisation, the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) as a potential recruit. On 31 July 1975, coincidentally the night following the Miami Showband killings, Wright was sworn in as a member of the Young Citizen Volunteers (YCV), the UVF's youth wing. The ceremony was conducted by swearing on the Bible placed on a table beneath the Ulster banner. He was then trained in the use of weapons and explosives. According to author and journalist Martin Dillon, Wright had been inspired by the violent deaths of UVF men Harris Boyle and Wesley Somerville, both of whom were blown up after planting a bomb on board The Miami Showband's minibus. The popular Irish cabaret band had been returning from a performance in Banbridge in the early hours of 31 July 1975 when they were ambushed at Buskhill, County Down by armed men from the UVF's Mid-Ulster Brigade at a bogus military checkpoint. Along with Boyle and Somerville, three band members had died in the attack when the UVF gunmen had opened fire on the group following the premature explosion. Boyle and Somerville had allegedly served as "role models" for Wright. Boyle was from Portadown. However in his 2003 work The Trigger Men Dillon broke from this version of events and instead concluded that Wright had actually been sworn into the YCV earlier in 1975. Wright's sister Angela told Dillon that her brother's decision to join the UVF had in fact had nothing to do with the Miami Showband killings and Dillon then concluded that Wright had encouraged this version of events as he felt linking his won UVF membership to the activities of his heroes Boyle and Sommerville added an origin myth to his own life as a loyalist killer.

Shortly after Wright joined the organisation, he was caught in possession of illegal weapons and he was sentenced to five years in a wing of HMP Maze (Maze Prison) reserved for paramilitary youth offenders. Before his imprisonment Wright was taken to Castlereagh Holding Centre, a police interrogation centre with a notorious reputation for the brutality employed during grilling. According to Wright's sister Angela, he would later claim that he had been subjected to a number of indignities by the interrogating officers, including having a pencil shoved into his rectum. During his spell in prison Wright briefly joined the blanket protest, although he stepped down following an order from the UVF's Brigade Staff (Belfast leadership), who feared that prisoner participation in the protest was being interpreted as a show of solidarity with the Provisional IRA.

Wright would later claim that his decision to join the YCV had been influenced by the Kingsmill massacre of January 1976, when ten local Protestants were killed by republicans. Wright's cousin Jim Wright, and future father-in-law, Billy Corrigan and brother-in-law, Leslie Corrigan were also killed by republicans in this period. Wright later said of the Kingsmill massacre, "I was 15 when those workmen were pulled out of that bus and shot dead. I was a Protestant and I realised that they had been killed simply because they were Protestants. I left Mountnorris, came back to Portadown and immediately joined the youth wing of the UVF. I felt it was my duty to help my people and that is what I have been doing ever since." However the massacre actually occurred several months after Wright was first sworn in.

Locals say he was also "indoctrinated" by local loyalist paramilitaries. Wright was soon arrested as a result of his UVF activities and in 1977 was sentenced to six years in prison for arms offences and hijacking a van. He served 42 months for these crimes at the Crumlin Road and Maze prisons.