Ken Gibson (loyalist)

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Ken Gibson
Ken Gibson with VPP rosette, 1974
Born
Kenneth Gibson

East Belfast, Northern Ireland
NationalityBritish
OccupationManual worker
Known forChairman of the Volunteer Political Party (VPP)
Spokesman and Chief of Staff of the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF)

Kenneth Gibson was a Northern Irish politician who was the Chairman of the Volunteer Political Party (VPP), which he had helped to form in 1974. He also served as a spokesman and Chief of Staff of the loyalist paramilitary organisation, the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF).

Ulster Volunteer Force

Born in predominantly unionist East Belfast, Northern Ireland, Gibson was brought up in the Willowfield area.[1] He was a member of the Free Presbyterian religion before splitting with the church. He had been active as a member of the Sunday men's Bible study group at the Martyrs' Memorial Church, the Free Presbyterians' headquarters on the Ravenhill Road in south-east Belfast.[2] From an early age he identified strongly with loyalism and Unionism.[1] Author Sarah Nelson described him as a "skilled manual worker".[3]

In the early stages of

Long Kesh Prison.[5][6] This experience inside Long Kesh, including contact with Gusty Spence, left him a vehement opponent of internment and a critic of Ian Paisley and the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), Gibson having previously been chairman of the DUP East Belfast Branch.[3][7] He then became a leading figure in the Loyalist Association of Workers, a joint UVF-Ulster Defence Association (UDA) front organisation which was eventually merged into the Ulster Workers' Council.[8]

By 1974 Gibson was the UVF's Chief of Staff or Brigadier-General as well as the official spokesman. With the Supreme Commander

car bombs in the city centre of Dublin and a fourth car bomb in Monaghan, resulting in the deaths of 33 people. Almost 300 were injured; many scarred and maimed for life. Nobody was ever charged in connection with the bombings which were carried out by units from the UVF's Belfast and Mid-Ulster brigades.[14]

Classified government documents discovered by the Pat Finucane Centre reveal that Gibson was one of a four-man UVF delegation that secretly met with

Marion Price to Northern Ireland along with loyalist prisoners held in England.[15]

Volunteer Political Party

Following his release from prison in 1973, Gibson was chosen to serve as the public spokesman for the UVF.[6] He was subsequently appointed as the Chairman of the short-lived Volunteer Political Party (VPP) that was formed in June 1974 by members of the UVF, which had been legalised two months before by Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Merlyn Rees.[16]

He publicly stated that the new party endorsed the idea of the establishment of an all-party talks forum, a policy that was seen as attractive to the British government.

social housing on the Shankill Road, in particular the blocks of flats that were known colloquially as "Weetabix" due to a supposed resemblance to the cuboid shaped, crumbly breakfast cereal.[18]

In part due to their focus on social deprivation Gibson and the VPP were attacked by a number of unionist politicians, most notably Rev

Ulster nationalist ideas being proposed by the likes of Glenn Barr and Kennedy Lindsay at the time, arguing that Northern Ireland was too small to be economically viable as an independent state.[22] Gibson, out of frustration with his party's inability to win support from ordinary, working-class people, hit the table one night shouting: "Scum, rats [the politicians and Orangemen] 'I've told the people out there, but they're afraid. I've told them, you can run this country, you can have anything you want.'"[23]

Gibson stood as the VPP's candidate for the

Vanguard and independent Shankill councillor Hugh Smyth, he finished fourth behind the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) candidate John McQuade, who garnered 16,265 votes against Gibson's 2,690,[26] with the seat won by the incumbent MP, Gerry Fitt of the Social Democratic and Labour Party
(SDLP).

The VPP was dissolved shortly afterwards as the UVF accepted there was little interest in their forming a political arm. As a result, Hugh Smyth was elected to the Northern Ireland Constitutional Convention in 1975 as an independent Unionist.[18]

Feud

In July 1974 a

Newtownards Road headquarters of the east Belfast UDA. The bomb, which journalists Jim Cusack and Henry McDonald stated was being transported by UVF member and future Progressive Unionist Party leader David Ervine,[30][31] was intercepted by security forces whose presence in the area had increased as a result of the feud.[32]

Around this time Gibson and Billy Mitchell met with Ian Paisley at his Martyrs' Memorial Church in a largely unsuccessful attempt to heal the rifts that had opened between the paramilitaries and the UUUC with the UVF feeling that they had been sidelined in the new coalition. Gibson had already criticised Paisley for his failure to take the Carson route of publicly supporting the UVF. Both Gibson and Mitchell had been members of the Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster, although by the time of the meeting they had both long since left the religion.[33]

Later life

By the time the UVF was banned again, in October 1975, Gibson was no longer a member of its leadership but continued to give political advice to its Brigade Staff.[34] However, he made a show of presenting himself at a local police station to announce his membership of the group. He was turned away, the police remaining indifferent.[35] Several years later, he gave an interview to the Belfast Telegraph, in which he stated that he "wouldn't touch politics again".[36]

References

  1. ^ a b REMEMBERING KEN GIBSON | Longkesh Inside Out. Retrieved 2 July 2013
  2. ^ Dennis Cooke, Persecuting Zeal: A Portrait of Ian Paisley, Brandon Books, 1996, p. 184
  3. ^ a b Nelson, Sarah (1984). Ulster's Uncertain Defenders. Belfast: Appletree Press. p.182
  4. ^ a b "Irish Politics, Current Affairs and Magazine Archive - Politico.ie | Dublin and Monaghan bombings: Cover-up and incompetence". 15 March 2012. Archived from the original on 15 March 2012.
  5. ^ Frenett, Ross. "'Protestant Socialists'? Ulster Loyalism and Working-Class Politics: 1969–1974," Scrinium, University College Cork (2010), p.36
  6. ^ a b c Jim Cusack & Henry McDonald, UVF, Poolbeg, 1997, p. 143
  7. ^ Frenett, Ross. "'Protestant Socialists'? Ulster Loyalism and Working-Class Politics: 1969–1974," Scrinium, University College Cork (2010), p.16, p.36
  8. ^ Henry McDonald & Jim Cusack, UDA Inside the Heart of Loyalist Terror, Penguin Ireland, 2004, p. 74
  9. ^ Dewar, Michael (1985). The British Army in Northern Ireland. Arms and Armour Press. p.243
  10. ^ Tim Pat Coogan. The Troubles: Ireland's Ordeal, 1966–1996, and the Search for Peace, Hutchinson, 1995, p. 177
  11. ISBN 0-7475-4519-7
  12. ^ McDonald & Cusack, UDA, p. 79
  13. ^ Wood, Ian S. (2006). Crimes of loyalty: a history of the UDA. Edinburgh University Press. p.37
  14. ^ Taylor, Peter (1999). Loyalists. London: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc. p.125.
  15. ^ "PDF of the documents" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 24 September 2014.
  16. ^ Frenett, Ross. "'Protestant Socialists'? Ulster Loyalism and Working-Class Politics:1969–1974," Scrinium, University College Cork (2010)
  17. ^ Cusack & McDonald, UVF, p. 144
  18. ^ a b Ed Moloney, Voices from the Grave: Two Men's War in Ireland, Faber & Faber, 2011, p. 375
  19. ^ Cusack & McDonald, UVF, p. 349
  20. ^ Cusack & McDonald, UVF, pp. 149–150
  21. ^ Cusack & McDonald, UVF, p. 150
  22. ^ Ronnie Hanna, The Union: Essays on Ireland and the British Connection, Colourpoint, 2001, p. 80
  23. ^ Nelson, p.186
  24. ^ Cusack & McDonald, UVF, p. 151
  25. ^ Cusack & McDonald, UVF, p. 151-152
  26. ISBN 0-7475-4519-7
  27. ^ Cusack & McDonald, UVF, p. 154
  28. ^ Cusack & McDonald, UVF, p. 155
  29. ^ Cusack & McDonald, UVF, p. 157
  30. ^ "Ervine tried to blow up UDA chiefs". independent.
  31. ^ "'He articulated voice of the new voiceless'". Belfasttelegraph – via www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk.
  32. ^ McDonald & Cusack, UDA, p. 100
  33. ^ Ed Moloney, Paisley: From Demagogue to Democrat, Poolbeg, 2008, pp. 270–271
  34. ^ Fearon, Kate. The Conflict's Fifth Business: A brief biography of Billy Mitchell Northern Ireland: LINC Resource Centre (Local Initiatives for Needy Communities) (2002), p.52
  35. ^ Derek Brown, "Police crack down on UVF", The Guardian, 6 October 1975
  36. ^ Merlyn Rees, Northern Ireland: a personal perspective, p.92
Other offices
Preceded by Ulster Volunteer Force Chief of Staff
1974 		Succeeded by
Unnamed Chief of Staff
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