Ulster Clubs - Relationship To Para-militarism

Relationship To Para-militarism

McMichael was enthusiastic about this development and urged support for the new movement, reasoning that if, as many loyalists suspected, a widespread confrontation was going to follow the agreement then people who would not normally have joined paramilitary groups could be mobilised through the Ulster Clubs. The clubs also attracted a hardcore of evangelicals, mainly from County Armagh, who were veterans of the Ulster Protestant Volunteers and who saw the Ulster Clubs as a basis for a new armed group. Orange Order leader Joel Patton, who later came to prominence during the Drumcree conflict, felt that the Ulster Clubs, which he helped to establish, could effectively the place of the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC), a group he felt had been pitted against the unionist community as a result of the Anglo-Irish Agreement. Wright echoed Patton's sentiments and even hinted that he would be prepared to fight the RUC and the British Army in order to destroy the Anglo-Irish Agreement.

The clubs also played a role in the formation of Ulster Resistance in late 1986, fusing with elements of the "Third Force" grouping promoted by Ian Paisley. In November 1986, Alan Wright spoke at the Ulster Hall rally that launched Ulster Resistance, although there were many within the Ulster Clubs who advised him against closely allying himself with Paisley, given that in the past the Democratic Unionist Party leader had worked with loyalist paramilitaries only to distance himself from them when it became politically expedient.