Historical Dictionary of Terrorism Third Edition

684 • ULSTER VOLUNTEER FORCEsummarily. By the “constitution of Ulster,” Spence meant Protestantsupremacy in the political and social life of Northern Ireland ratherthan any constitutional rule of law as such. The new UVF engaged ina campaign of arsons of Catholic homes and businesses. The SpecialPowers Act (1922) banning the IRA was amended on 23 June 1966 toproscribe the UVF as well. On 26 May 1966 the UVF shot one JohnScullion, who died two weeks later, for singing republican songs inpublic. On 25 June 1966, Augustus Spence and other UVF membersshot four Catholics leaving a pub in the Shankill area, killing one.The UVF then carried out a bombing campaign in 1969, whichwas blamed on the IRA, that forced the moderate prime minister ofNorthern Ireland, Terence O’Neill, to resign.The UVF was legalized again in 1973. On 31 July 1975 UVFmembers murdered three members of the southern Irish MiamiShowcase Band outside Newry. The UVF had rigged the band’svan with a bomb, which detonated, killing two of their own numbersas well. One of the two UVF dead happened to be a sergeantin the Ulster Defence Regiment, the successor to the Ulster SpecialConstabulary. The overlapping membership of the UDR and UVFand the direct material support given by UDR members to the UVFmade the latter, in effect, a state-sponsored group. The UVF also hadrelations with the Red Hand Commandos, who were suspected ofbombing downtown Dublin and the southern Irish town of Monaghanon 17 May 1974, killing 30 and injuring 151.The UVF had perhaps 1,500 members at its height. In 1976 theUVF pledged to refrain from violence; however, in the followingthree years, 43 members were tried and convicted on charges rangingfrom illegal possession of arms to murder.In 1991 the UVF joined the Combined Loyalist Military Command.In October 1994 the UVF endorsed the cease-fire declared bythe Combined Loyalist Military Command, although observers havereported the killings of more than 30 people, mainly members of rivalUlster Protestant militias, since the cease-fire. Several disaffectedUVF members broke away in 1996 to form the Loyalist VolunteerForce (LVF), which carried out an ongoing feud with the UVF thatended only on 30 October 2005 when the LVF announced it wasdisbanding. Due to UVF involvement in rioting, in which UVF membersreportedly fired handguns, Secretary for Northern Ireland PeterHain declared on 14 September 2005 that the British government