Ulster Loyalist Central Co-ordinating Committee - Original Version

Original Version

Seen as an important links between grassroots loyalism and more mainstream unionist politics, the ULCCC was chaired by Glenn Barr and met in the Belfast offices of the Vanguard Progressive Unionist Party on a weekly basis. Replacing the earlier Ulster Army Council, it brought together representatives of the Ulster Defence Association (UDA), Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF), Red Hand Commando, Vanguard Service Corps/Ulster Volunteer Service Corps, Down Orange Welfare (DOW), Loyalist Association of Workers and Orange Volunteers. With Barr soon replaced as chairman by John McKeague the ULCCC took on the wider aim of preparing for the establishment of a unified "Ulster army" in the event of a British withdrawal from Northern Ireland, something that had become a leading fear in unionism and loyalism in the mid 1970s.

Both Barr and McKeague were noted supporters of Ulster nationalism and in his capacity of ULCCC chairman he spoke publicly in support of independence, despite the fact that such an idea had little support outside sections of the UDA. Somewhat ironically it was the UDA, along with DOW, that left the ULCCC in 1976 after it emerged that McKeague and other members of the groups were unilaterally holding meetings with members of the Provisional IRA and also discussing plans for an independent Northern Ireland with leading Catholic figures. With the departure of the largest loyalist paramilitary group in terms of membership the ULCCC went into abeyance.