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Samuel "Sammy" Smyth (c. 1929 - 10 March 1976) was a Northern Irish loyalist activist. A founder member of the Ulster Defence Association (UDA) he was the early public face of the movement as the organisation's spokesman, and he later became involved in the group's attempts to politicise. He was assassinated by the Provisional IRA as part of the Troubles. Author Steve Bruce described Smyth as the "sometime editor of the ''Ulster Militant'' and a loose cannon who enjoyed an exciting and erratic relationship with the UDA".〔Robert William White, ''Ruairí Ó Brádaigh: the life and politics of an Irish revolutionary'', Indiana University Press, 2006, p.379〕 ==Development of the UDA== Smyth was a native of Louisa Street in Belfast, a loyalist interface area street which linked the Crumlin Road to the Oldpark Road and which faced "the Bone", a Catholic area at the bottom of Ardoyne.〔Henry McDonald & Jim Cusack, ''UDA: Inside the Heart of Loyalist Terror'', Penguin Ireland, 2004, p. 21〕 According to Smyth the area was regularly attacked by republicans from Ardoyne throwing nail bombs and shooting, and that in response he organised local men into a vigilante group. The group erected barriers on Louisa Street although these were removed by the British Army, which had a base in the area.〔McDonald & Cusack, ''UDA'', pp. 21-22〕 In his youth he had worked at Harland & Wolff shipyard.〔 Smyth attended and addressed meetings at Aberdeen Street school on the Shankill Road which were organised by Alan Moon, who had a similar group in that area. Several of these groups from across Belfast met and agreed to pool their resources, leading to the formation of the Ulster Defence Association in September 1971.〔McDonald & Cusack, ''UDA'', p. 22〕 Smyth, who was a community worker in the Lower Oldpark area and who was considered articulate, was the first public spokesman for the new movement. His first engagement came in 1972 when he appeared, wearing a mask, on a television debate with John Hume, warning him of a "Protestant backlash" against the recent formation of the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP).〔McDonald & Cusack, ''UDA'', p. 26〕 Smyth's rhetoric at this time was noted for its extremism. He reacted to an interview with Dáithí Ó Conaill published in the press by stating "at that moment in time I could have, without a twinge of conscience, bombed every well-filled chapel in Belfast".〔McDonald & Cusack, ''UDA'', p. 27〕 He also edited a news sheet entitled ''Ulster Militant'' which urged war on republicans and their "passive sympathisers" by the emerging UDA.〔 The journal also repeated claims, which had initially appeared earlier in the ''Protestant Telegraph'', that the Easter Rising had been personally blessed by Pope Benedict XV as well as allegations of Smyth's own devising that that the green, white and orange colours of the Flag of Ireland had been chosen to represent the Papacy rather than Thomas Davis's desire that Protestant and Catholic should unite in peace and that James Connolly, the socialist activist whose Irish Citizen Army had taken part in the 1916 Rising, had been ordained as a priest in the Roman Catholic Church.〔Yonah Alexander & Alan O'Day, ''Ireland's Terrorist Dilemma'', Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1986, p. 155〕 All of this was despite the fact that Smyth's previous community work had seen him participate in a number of projects involving Catholics and Protestants, particularly with regards to housing.〔 As chairman of the Lower Shankill Community Association he had even spoke at events at University College Dublin and University College Galway.〔 He briefly enrolled at Queen's University Belfast around 1974 as a mature student but did not stay long.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Sammy Smyth (loyalist)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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