UVF

Visiting card for Long Kesh

This is a visiting permit for HM Prison, Maze (Long Kesh), signed by the prison governor, Robert Truesdale allowing Merlyn Rees, Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Stanley Orme and Donald Concannon, Ministers of State, to visit Gusty Spense, UVF leader, on 12 July 1975.
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CJ4-1919 - First page of notes from meeting between Minister of State Stan Orme with UVF leaders on 15 May 1974

The meeting of Stan Orme with UVF leaders on 15 May was just one of several that took place between the NIO and UVF during the month of May 1974. This particular meeting took place as the UVF was being de-proscribed and made a legal organisation. Orme informed the delegation that the order had been taken through the House of...
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Weapons and Shooting Statistics (added May 2018)

Official memo on weapons seized on both sides of the border between 1969-1976 with a breakdown of types of weapons and a summary of key seizures. The information was supplied by the RUC Data Reference Centre which carried out intelligence analysis under the aegis of Special Branch. This February 1977 memo highlights the involvement of republican and loyalist organisations in...
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De-proscription of unlawful organisations (added May 2018)

Declassified 1974 NIO discussion doc on de-proscription of UVF and Sinn Fein. The juxtaposition of Sinn Fein (as opposed to the IRA) with the UVF tells us much about British government attitudes to loyalist paramilitary organisations. At the time the UDA remained legal and it would be another 18 years before London finally accepted that the UFF was nothing more...
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Subversion in the UDR and Annex E

The original intelligence report prepared for the Joint Intelligence Committee and Downing St
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Arrest Policy for Protestants - Memo from MoD

At point 1 (apologies for the quality of the copy) reference is made to a meeting at Stormont Castle on November 29 1972 where the GOC (General Officer Commanding - the British army) was asked to "draft an arrest policy covering the UVF and other extreme loyalist elements, though not the UDA per se."
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Two meetings at Laneside with the UVF - 27th and 29th May 1974

Documents relating to meetings with the UVF during the Ulster Workers' Strike.
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Thatcher and the UVF

This note concerns the UVF only by this stage, 1979, Thatcher is the Prime Minister. In a hand written note she urged mention of the ‘Volunteer Ulster Defence Regiment (? Is that the name)’.
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Murdered by the Glenanne gang: ‘Patrick lived till the ripe old age of 13’

Patrick Barnard died in a 1976 bomb attack in Dungannon, Co Tyrone. His brother Eddie is now taking a legal challenge against the PSNI.

British army 'covered up' UDR units links to UVF

The investigative website, The Detail, in co-operation with the Irish News, published a numbers of articles based on documents uncovered by the PFC at the National Archive in Kew. The declassified documents concern security investigations into loyalist infiltration of 10 UDR, the Belfast city...