FF long term election strategy & 2016 celebrations

Camelot wrote: »

But Paisley & Robinson were not part of a Terrorist network, .

From the majority unionist community, Paisley was among those invited in 1956 to a special meeting at the Ulster Unionist Party's offices in Glengall Street, Belfast. Many Loyalists who were to become major figures in the 1960s and 1970 also attended, and the meeting's declared purpose was to organise the defence of Protestant areas against anticipated Irish Republican Army (IRA) activity, as the old Ulster Protestant Association had done after partition in 1920.[23] The new body decided to call itself Ulster Protestant Action (UPA), and the first year of its existence was taken up with the discussion of vigilante patrols, street barricades, and drawing up lists of IRA suspects in both Belfast and in rural areas.[24][25]
Even though no IRA threat materialised in Belfast, and despite it becoming clear that the IRA's activities during the Border Campaign were to be limited to the border areas, Ulster Protestant Action remained in being (the UPA was to later become the Protestant Unionist Party in 1966). Factory and workplace branches were formed under the UPA, including one by Paisley in Belfast's Ravenhill area under his direct control. The concern of the UPA increasingly came to focus on the defence of 'Bible Protestantism' and Protestant interests where jobs and housing were concerned.

As Paisley came to dominate Ulster Protestant Action, he received his first convictions for public order offences. In June 1959, a major riot occurred on the Shankill Road in Belfast following a rally at which he had spoken.[26].

Paisley, along with Noel Doherty established the Ulster Constitution Defence Committee, which in turn established the paramilitary organisation Ulster Protestant Volunteers on on 17 April 1966 at a parade in the Shankill area of Belfast [27](Boulton 34). Paisley then went on to establish another paramilitary group, Third Force, on 1 April 1981 [28][29][30]. Finally, the paramilitary group Ulster Resistance was established by Paisley, also in 1981[31][32].