UVF leader central to 1994 loyalist ceasefire

Augustus Andrew 'Gusty' Spence: WHEN AUGUSTUS Andrew “Gusty” Spence was released from prison in Northern Ireland two years ahead…

Augustus Andrew 'Gusty' Spence:WHEN AUGUSTUS Andrew "Gusty" Spence was released from prison in Northern Ireland two years ahead of schedule in December 1984 for the murder 18 years earlier of Peter Ward, he said his plan was to "fade into the insignificance whence I came".

Spence, who died last Saturday aged 78, was wrong on two counts. The 1966 murder of Ward was far from an insignificant historic moment. While the Troubles are generally viewed as having begun in 1969, the murder by the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) of the Catholic barman was part of the preamble to the conflict. The murder was also key to the birth and development of the modern UVF, an organisation which killed more than 550 people, the majority of its victims Catholic, and Gusty Spence was its father figure.

And Spence did not fade into insignificance. He played an important role in the moves that led to the 1994 ceasefire by the Combined Loyalist Military Command. It was also Spence who insisted the UVF, Red Hand Commando and Ulster Defence Association (UDA), in declaring their ceasefire, offer “abject and true remorse” to “innocent victims”.

As well as supporting the moves towards peace and politics, he mentored the likes of Progressive Unionist Party leaders David Ervine and Dawn Purvis, who helped establish and generally maintain that peace. As Purvis said at his funeral, he could reach beyond his constituency by making friends among republicans and socialists and among people from the Republic.

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With the UVF in such particularly low standing at the moment it was hardly surprising that he requested there be no paramilitary trappings at his funeral on Wednesday. The fact that former UDA leader Johnny Adair and his gang forced him and his family out of the Shankill during one of the loyalist feuds 11 years ago added to that disenchantment.

Gusty Spence was born on June 28th, 1933, in Joseph Street near the Shankill Road, Belfast, one of seven children. At the age of 14 he got a job as a mill worker, and subsequently worked in Harland and Wolff and in Mackie’s engineering works.

In 1957 he joined the British army’s Royal Ulster Rifles, serving in Germany and Cyprus. He enjoyed military life but, having developed asthma, left the army in 1961. He worked in the post office until 1965 when he was dismissed for falsely claiming overtime; he was also sentenced to six months’ imprisonment. He joined the UVF in 1965 when it was reactivated after decades of being dormant, and became leader on the Shankill. The organisation claimed its first victim in May 1966 when John Scullion, a Catholic, was murdered. In June, Peter Ward was one of four Catholics ambushed in a gun attack outside the Malvern Arms, where they had been drinking. Ward was shot dead, and two of his companions were wounded.

Spence and two other men were charged with the murder, tried and found guilty; he was also charged with the Scullion murder, but this was dropped. He was sentenced to life imprisonment with a stipulated minimum term of 20 years. He always protested his innocence, once going on a 35-day hunger strike to make that point.

In July 1972 he was allegedly abducted by the UVF while on parole to attend his daughter’s wedding. During the period when he was at large he resumed paramilitary activity and revived the UVF’s youth wing, a group that specialised in sectarian killings. He was recaptured that November. He took command of UVF prisoners and initiated a strict military regime. He also sat on a “council”, consisting of representatives of republican and loyalist prisoners, that discussed all aspects of the running of the Maze prison. The various groups agreed a “non-aggression pact”.

Towards the mid-1970s Spence began to express misgivings about “physical force”. He issued a message in 1977 supporting reconciliation and denouncing violence, calling it counterproductive. Loyalists, he asserted, had achieved their aim of self-determination. He believed loyalists had been exploited by unionist politicians.

He stood down in 1978 as UVF leader in the Maze, citing his disengagement from the organisation’s violent methods.

In the early 1980s Mairéad Corrigan of the Peace People and Cardinal Tomás Ó Fiaich supported calls by his family for his release on grounds of chronic ill health. Twice paroled, in 1982 and 1983, he was freed in 1984.

He advised the UVF in 1985 that there be should be no “physical response” to the Anglo-Irish Agreement, which unionists opposed, and argued for a wait-and-see approach. In October 1994 he publicly announced the loyalist ceasefire.

He married, in 1953, Louie Donaldson, who predeceased him in December 2002. They had three daughters and a son.


Augustus Andrew “Gusty” Spence: born June 28th, 1933; died September 25th, 2011