Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Obituary for a terrorist

Sammy Duddy died on 17 October 2007 aged 62. The Independent says:

In the 1970s, he was by day a propagandist for the Ulster Defence Association (UDA), the extreme Protestant group which was responsible for the killings of hundreds of Catholics. By night, however, he appeared on Belfast's limited but vibrant cabaret circuit, presenting a ribald act in loyalist pubs and clubs dressed in fishnet tights, wig and heavy make-up.
The Torygraph says:
But in 1981, after the Kincora boys' home paedophile scandal which implicated senior loyalists, Duddy was ordered to abandon his drag act by the UDA's supreme commander Andy Tyrie. "Son, grow a moustache and drop your voice, because we don't want your name in connection with this thing," Tyrie told him. Duddy did as he was told: "It was a pity, but I guess it had to end sometime," he reflected.
The Irish Independent says:
After the RUC broke up the gang, arresting most of its members, the north Belfast UDA became less and less capable of targeting and killing republicans, increasingly killing innocent Catholics. A joke among loyalists at the time was that if the north Belfast UDA had you on its target list, your next door neighbour was in deadly danger.
The Torygraph adds:
[...] in 2002 Duddy paid the price for taking sides in the dispute when two masked gunmen fired shots at his front door. Although he escaped unharmed, his pet chihuahua, Bambi, was killed by the gunfire. This summer Duddy was reported to have moved out of his home in the Rathcoole estate due to continuing internecine tensions between rival UDA factions.

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