Historical Dictionary of Terrorism Third Edition

ULSTER VOLUNTEER FORCE • 683lics not associated with antiunionist groups to terrorize the RomanCatholic community. In 1976 it murdered a former Sinn Fein activist,Marie Drumm, in her bed at Belfast’s Mater Hospital. On 14 March1984 it shot and injured Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams as he wasbeing driven through downtown Belfast. On 7 November 1986, twobombs planted by the UFF exploded in garbage cans on Dublin’smain street but caused no injuries, and two others were found anddeactivated. These bombs had been planted to protest the recentlyconcluded Anglo-Irish Agreement. On 12 February 1989 UFF membersentered the home of a prominent Catholic lawyer, Pat Finucane,and killed him in the presence of his family at the dinner table. Whilethey claimed that he had been an IRA member, this appeared to beanother example of the UFF campaign of killing prominent Catholicsof whatever political complexion.The UDA announced on 11 November 2007 that the UFF would bedisbanded that day and that its weapons would be “put beyond use,”although it did not commit itself to decommissioning these arms.ULSTER VOLUNTEER FORCE (UVF). The UVF was a NorthernIrish Protestant death squad used to repress suspected Irish RepublicanArmy (IRA) members. It had effective state support from theUlster Defence Regiment (UDR), an official security organizationdominated by sectarian Protestant militiamen. The original UVF wasformed from the unification of all Ulster Protestant militias in 1913to oppose the grant of an autonomous government to Ireland in whichProtestants would have formed a minority. At that time many Britishofficers gave the UVF covert support. Upon the partition of Irelandunder the Irish Free State Act of 1922, the Royal Irish Constabularywas dissolved throughout Ireland, while the Royal Ulster Constabulary(RUC) took its place in the north. Most UVF members enteredthe RUC at that time and continued to fight those IRA members whorejected partition. Although the UVF ceased to exist officially, thecorps of its members remained within the RUC and also later enteredthe Ulster Special Constabulary.A former British military policeman, Augustus Spence, declaredthe UVF revived in 1966 in a special newspaper advertisement on21 May 1966. This ad declared the UVF “a military body dedicatedto upholding the constitution of Ulster by force of arms if necessary”and declared war on all IRA members, threatening to kill them