Tommy Lyttle
Encyclopedia
Tommy "Tucker" Lyttle was a high-ranking Northern Irish loyalist
who was a member of the Ulster Defence Association
(UDA). He served as the UDA's spokesman as well as the leader of the organisation's West Belfast Brigade
from 1975 until his arrest and imprisonment in 1990. According to writer Henry McDonald
and the Pat Finucane Centre
, he was a Royal Ulster Constabulary
(RUC) Special Branch
informer.
, Northern Ireland and grew up in the loyalist Shankill Road area in a Protestant family as one of five children. In the late 1960s, he worked as a machinist in Mackie's Foundry
in the Springfield Road. He later became a bookmaker
. At the age of 18, he married Elizabeth Baird, by whom he had three sons: Bill, John, Thomas; and two daughters, Linda and Elaine. In 1968 the religious-political conflict known as "The Troubles
" broke out; three years later in 1971, he became a founding member of the legal loyalist paramilitary organisation, the Ulster Defence Association. According to his daughter, Linda, he joined the UDA after a Provisional IRA
bomb exploded at the Balmoral furniture showroom in the Shankill Road in December 1971, killing two small children. Lyttle's wife and two daughters had been close to the scene of the explosion, although they were not hurt.
In 1972, he was a Lieutenant Colonel in the UDA's "C" Company, 2nd Battalion Shankill Road; in 1975 he rose to the rank of brigadier, having command of the West Belfast Brigade. He had taken over the brigade from Charles Harding Smith
, the former leader of the UDA, and its first commander following the organisation's formation. Although Andy Tyrie
was the UDA's overall commander (from 1973 to 1988), brigadiers such as Lyttle enjoyed a large degree of autonomy and regarded the areas under their control as "their personal fiefdoms". He also was a member of the UDA's Inner Council and served as the UDA's spokesman. His youngest son, Thomas "Tosh" Lyttle also joined the UDA.
that Lyttle was with fellow UDA member Davy Payne
when Catholic singer Rosemary McCartney and her boyfriend were abducted at a UDA roadblock and brought to one of the UDA's notorious "romper rooms" to be interrogated and tortured, with Payne having presided over the "grilling" and the subsequent double killing. This took place on the evening of 21 July 1972, the day the IRA had exploded 22 bombs
in various areas of Belfast resulting in the deaths of nine people including Stephen Parker, a 14 year-old Protestant boy.
He was an Independent Unionist
candidate for North Belfast
in the 1973 Northern Ireland Assembly elections. He was not elected, however, having only polled a total of 560 votes. Along with Tommy Herron
and Billy Hull
he was one of three leading UDA figures to stand for election in Belfast, with all three failing to win a seat. He took his loss in stride with the statement: "It's not such a bad result for someone whose day job is a bookie".
During the Ulster Workers' Council Strike
of May 1974 Lyttle was, along with UDA leader Andy Tyrie and Ken Gibson
of the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF), one of three loyalist paramilitaries chosen to accompany the three leaders of the main unionist
political parties, Harry West
, Ian Paisley
, and Ernest Baird
, to a meeting with Stanley Orme
, the deputy to the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland
Merlyn Rees, in which the government representative attempted unsuccessfully to have the strike terminated early.
Together with Vanguard Assemblyman Glenn Barr
, Lyttle travelled to Libya
where he met Colonel Muammar Gaddafi
about obtaining weapons and money for the loyalist cause. When Lyttle returned from the trip, which was largely unsuccessful, he was caught up in a loyalist feud
between Tyrie and Charles Harding Smith for overall control of the UDA. Lyttle was with Harding Smith when the latter was shot and wounded by a pro-Tyrie sniper on the Shankill in January 1975; although following the attack Tyrie asserted his control and, with the help of Lyttle and fellow Shankill commanders John McClatchey and Tommy Boyd, soon regained control of the pivotal Shankill and neighbouring Woodvale areas. Harding Smith survived another shooting later in the year before leaving Northern Ireland for good. Lyttle was then appointed West Belfast Brigadier in his stead.
With the feud ended and firmly established as a loyal supporter of Tyrie, and with a reputation as one of the UDA's most articulate commanders, Lyttle was sent by Tyrie to the United States
in order to solicit support and funding from interested groups. In 1977 he helped form a think tank with UDA Commander Andy Tyrie and South Belfast brigadier John McMichael
; this was called the New Ulster Political Research Group. Along with Tyrie, McMichael, Glenn Barr and Harry Chicken, Lyttle was involved in the production of the group's 1979 policy document Beyond the Religious Divide in which the UDA advanced a policy of negotiated independence for Northern Ireland
.
Enquiry team after his fingerprints were found on a stolen classified document which was a security forces list of suspected republicans
, likely to be used by loyalist paramilitaries for targeting people to be assassinated by hit squads. He was brought before Belfast's Crumlin Road Court where he was convicted of receiving and passing on classified security force intelligence files and intimidating potential witnesses. Although he was sentenced to seven years imprisonment, he was released in 1994 on remission. It was later revealed that he was an informer working for the RUC's Special Branch. According to the Pat Finucane Centre
, he was in charge of UDA Intelligence chief Brian Nelson and quartermaster William Stobie
. A former officer from the Force Research Unit
(the covert military intelligence agent-handling unit based in Northern Ireland) using the pseudonym "Martin Ingram
" suggested that Lyttle ordered Nelson, who was recruited by the FRU to infiltrate the UDA's intelligence structure, to compile targeting information on Catholic solicitor Pat Finucane prior to his killing in 1989. "Ingram" stated that he knew with "iron cast certainty" that Lyttle was working as an informer for Special Branch at the time of the Finucane killing. According to Andy Tyrie, Lyttle was reluctant to become personally involved in the Finucane killing, as he feared that his rank of brigadier would make him a likely target for the inevitable IRA retaliation. Stobie was later arrested and charged with Finucane's killing, although he was not convicted. UDA member Ken Barrett, who was also a Special Branch informer, eventually pleaded guilty to the killing in September 2004. Shortly before Lyttle's death in October 1995, BBC journalist John Ware
interviewed him. Lyttle maintained that two RUC officers had originally proposed the idea of killing Finucane.
Two years prior to Finucane's assassination, Lyttle reportedly had asked Nelson to obtain details on top IRA figures. When the name Frederick Scappaticci came up, Nelson's FRU handlers became alarmed as Scappaticci—allegedly known as "Stakeknife
"—was one of their most important agents, having infiltrated the Provisional IRA's Internal Security Unit
or "Nutting Squad" as it was commonly referred to. A substitute was eventually found in the person of Francisco Notarantonio, a retired IRA man of Italian parentage, who lived in the staunch republican stronghold of Ballymurphy
, which also happened to be the neighbourhood of Sinn Féin
President Gerry Adams
. On 9 October 1987, Lyttle sent out a UDA hit squad, headed by Sam McCrory
using the cover name "Ulster Freedom Fighters" to Notarantonio's home where they shot him to death in his bedroom. Allegedly a party was held afterwards in Lyttle's Sydney Street West home to celebrate the killing. Lyttle would also throw a similar party following the assassination of Finucane.
The possibility of conspiracy became public through Lyttle himself, following the UDA murder of Loughlin Maginn at his home in Rathfriland
on 25 August 1989. Media coverage had insisted that Maginn was the innocent victim of a sectarian attack but Lyttle personally contacted members of the press to inform them that the UDA had good reasons for killing Maginn, whose name was on the list. In order to back up his claim Lyttle sent a copy of the list he received to a journalist. The uproar that followed the revelation that a senior UDA member was in possession of government documents led to Royal Ulster Constabulary
Chief Constable Hugh Annesley
appointing Stevens, an officer in Cambridgeshire Constabulary
, to investigate the claims.
home on 22 December 1987. Although the IRA claimed responsibility for the attack, there were suggestions that members of the UDA helped set up the killing by passing on information to the IRA about McMichael to facilitate the assassination. It was alleged that after the signing of the Anglo-Irish Agreement
in 1985, McMichael had planned a UDA bombing campaign against the Republic of Ireland
; Lyttle, acting on orders of the security forces, was rumoured to have aided in the killing to prevent the proposed attacks from being carried out. Lyttle, in his turn, put the blame on his long-time rival James Pratt Craig
, the UDA's notorious "fundraiser", who had been under investigation by McMichael for his racketeering activities. There was much animosity between the two UDA men, as Craig had supposedly made Lyttle's daughter pregnant.
by loyalist Michael Stone in March 1988, Lyttle released a statement claiming that Stone had operated alone without sanction from the UDA's Inner Council as he felt that such commando-style attacks would inevitably bring retaliation from republican paramilitaries, making open warfare between the two communities an actual possibility. Despite Lyttle's condemnation, Stone's action—in which three republicans were shot dead and more than 60 wounded—impressed many young loyalists who rushed to join the UDA. This change in membership profile was to have a profound effect on the make-up of the UDA leadership. With McMichael dead, Tyrie having resigned in March 1988 (following an attempt on his life) and even Craig being killed by UFF gunmen in October 1988, Lyttle was one of the few veterans to remain in power and his incarceration during the Stevens Enquiry was to prove the catalyst for his removal from command, with Tommy Irvine succeeding him as West Belfast brigadier. By 1989-90, information regarding UDA operations was being deliberately withheld from Lyttle "because he was thought to be not reliable". Held in Crumlin Road Gaol
from July 1991, word was sent into the prison by a new group of "Young Turks"—emerging leaders from the Shankill—that Lyttle was to be ostracised by the other UDA inmates. As a result of this edict Lyttle was moved into secure isolation on a wing of the prison usually reserved for prisoners under high risk of attack from other inmates, such as sex offenders; an area described by one of the new leaders, Jim Spence
, as "the wing with the bull roots [a local slang term of abuse]". As the 1990s progressed, Lyttle had no more direct involvement in the UDA as leadership on the Shankill passed to Johnny Adair
and other young, ambitious militants such as Stephen McKeag
who wanted a freer hand in dealing with Catholics than that afforded by Lyttle with the latter's alleged links to the security forces.
in County Down
, and it was there in his home that he died of a heart attack on 18 October 1995. He was 56 years old. His second son John is a journalist who writes for The Independent
. John described his father as a "hard man" who liked to read James Bond
novels, and watch western
and gangster films. Kevin Myers, who was personally acquainted with Lyttle in Belfast, called him "a violent man", but he admitted to having liked him nevertheless.
Ulster loyalism
Ulster loyalism is an ideology that is opposed to a united Ireland. It can mean either support for upholding Northern Ireland's status as a constituent part of the United Kingdom , support for Northern Ireland independence, or support for loyalist paramilitaries...
who was a member of the Ulster Defence Association
Ulster Defence Association
The Ulster Defence Association is the largest although not the deadliest loyalist paramilitary and vigilante group in Northern Ireland. It was formed in September 1971 and undertook a campaign of almost twenty-four years during "The Troubles"...
(UDA). He served as the UDA's spokesman as well as the leader of the organisation's West Belfast Brigade
UDA West Belfast Brigade
The UDA West Belfast Brigade is the section of the Northern Irish loyalist paramilitary group the Ulster Defence Association based in the western quarter of Belfast in the Greater Shankill area...
from 1975 until his arrest and imprisonment in 1990. According to writer Henry McDonald
Henry McDonald
Henry McDonald may refer to:* Henry McDonald * Henry McDonald * Henry McDonald * Henry McDonald *Henry Monroe McDonald , a Major League Baseball pitcher known as Hank McDonald...
and the Pat Finucane Centre
Pat Finucane Centre
The Pat Finucane Centre is a human rights advocacy and lobbying entity in Northern Ireland. Named in honour of murdered solicitor Pat Finucane, it operates advice centres in Derry and Newry, dealing mainly with complaints from nationalists and republicans...
, he was a Royal Ulster Constabulary
Royal Ulster Constabulary
The Royal Ulster Constabulary was the name of the police force in Northern Ireland from 1922 to 2000. Following the awarding of the George Cross in 2000, it was subsequently known as the Royal Ulster Constabulary GC. It was founded on 1 June 1922 out of the Royal Irish Constabulary...
(RUC) Special Branch
Special Branch
Special Branch is a label customarily used to identify units responsible for matters of national security in British and Commonwealth police forces, as well as in the Royal Thai Police...
informer.
Ulster Defence Association
Tommy Lyttle was born in BelfastBelfast
Belfast is the capital of and largest city in Northern Ireland. By population, it is the 14th biggest city in the United Kingdom and second biggest on the island of Ireland . It is the seat of the devolved government and legislative Northern Ireland Assembly...
, Northern Ireland and grew up in the loyalist Shankill Road area in a Protestant family as one of five children. In the late 1960s, he worked as a machinist in Mackie's Foundry
Mackie International
James Mackie & Sons was a textile machinery engineering plant and foundry in Northern Ireland. The company closed in 1999. Latterly called Mackie International, at its height James Mackie & Sons was one of the largest employers in Belfast...
in the Springfield Road. He later became a bookmaker
Bookmaker
A bookmaker, or bookie, is an organization or a person that takes bets on sporting and other events at agreed upon odds.- Range of events :...
. At the age of 18, he married Elizabeth Baird, by whom he had three sons: Bill, John, Thomas; and two daughters, Linda and Elaine. In 1968 the religious-political conflict known as "The Troubles
The Troubles
The Troubles was a period of ethno-political conflict in Northern Ireland which spilled over at various times into England, the Republic of Ireland, and mainland Europe. The duration of the Troubles is conventionally dated from the late 1960s and considered by many to have ended with the Belfast...
" broke out; three years later in 1971, he became a founding member of the legal loyalist paramilitary organisation, the Ulster Defence Association. According to his daughter, Linda, he joined the UDA after a Provisional IRA
Provisional Irish Republican Army
The Provisional Irish Republican Army is an Irish republican paramilitary organisation whose aim was to remove Northern Ireland from the United Kingdom and bring about a socialist republic within a united Ireland by force of arms and political persuasion...
bomb exploded at the Balmoral furniture showroom in the Shankill Road in December 1971, killing two small children. Lyttle's wife and two daughters had been close to the scene of the explosion, although they were not hurt.
In 1972, he was a Lieutenant Colonel in the UDA's "C" Company, 2nd Battalion Shankill Road; in 1975 he rose to the rank of brigadier, having command of the West Belfast Brigade. He had taken over the brigade from Charles Harding Smith
Charles Harding Smith
Charles Harding Smith was a loyalist leader in Northern Ireland and the first effective leader of the Ulster Defence Association...
, the former leader of the UDA, and its first commander following the organisation's formation. Although Andy Tyrie
Andy Tyrie
Andrew "Andy" Tyrie is an Ulster loyalist and served as commander of the Ulster Defence Association during much of its early history...
was the UDA's overall commander (from 1973 to 1988), brigadiers such as Lyttle enjoyed a large degree of autonomy and regarded the areas under their control as "their personal fiefdoms". He also was a member of the UDA's Inner Council and served as the UDA's spokesman. His youngest son, Thomas "Tosh" Lyttle also joined the UDA.
Rise to West Belfast Brigadier
It was alleged by Irish journalist Kevin MyersKevin Myers
Kevin Myers is an Irish journalist and writer. He writes for the Irish Independent and is a former contributor to The Irish Times, where he wrote the "An Irishman's Diary" opinion column several times weekly...
that Lyttle was with fellow UDA member Davy Payne
Davy Payne
David "Davy" Payne was a senior Northern Irish loyalist and a high-ranking member of the Ulster Defence Association during the Troubles serving as brigadier of the North Belfast Brigade. He was second-in-command of the Shankill Road brigade of the Ulster Freedom Fighters , which was the "cover...
when Catholic singer Rosemary McCartney and her boyfriend were abducted at a UDA roadblock and brought to one of the UDA's notorious "romper rooms" to be interrogated and tortured, with Payne having presided over the "grilling" and the subsequent double killing. This took place on the evening of 21 July 1972, the day the IRA had exploded 22 bombs
Bloody Friday (1972)
Bloody Friday is the name given to the bombings by the Provisional Irish Republican Army in Belfast on 21 July 1972. Twenty-two bombs exploded in the space of eighty minutes, killing nine people and injuring 130....
in various areas of Belfast resulting in the deaths of nine people including Stephen Parker, a 14 year-old Protestant boy.
He was an Independent Unionist
Independent Unionist
See also Independent .Independent Unionist has been a label sometimes used by candidates in elections in the United Kingdom, indicating a support for Unionism, retaining the unity of the British state....
candidate for North Belfast
Belfast North (Assembly constituency)
Belfast North is a constituency in the Northern Ireland Assembly.The seat was first used for a Northern Ireland-only election for the Northern Ireland Assembly, 1973...
in the 1973 Northern Ireland Assembly elections. He was not elected, however, having only polled a total of 560 votes. Along with Tommy Herron
Tommy Herron
Tommy Herron was a loyalist from Northern Ireland, and a leading member of the Ulster Defence Association up until his fatal shooting. Herron controlled the UDA in East Belfast, one of its two earliest strongholds...
and Billy Hull
Billy Hull
Billy Hull was a loyalist activist in Northern Ireland.Hull worked at the Harland and Wolff engine shop in Belfast, and became the convenor of shop stewards there. He joined the Northern Ireland Labour Party, but resigned in 1969 in protest at the Northern Ireland policy of the British Labour Party...
he was one of three leading UDA figures to stand for election in Belfast, with all three failing to win a seat. He took his loss in stride with the statement: "It's not such a bad result for someone whose day job is a bookie".
During the Ulster Workers' Council Strike
Ulster Workers' Council Strike
The Ulster Workers' Council strike was a general strike that took place in Northern Ireland between 15 May and 28 May 1974, during "The Troubles". The strike was called by loyalists and unionists who were against the Sunningdale Agreement, which had been signed in December 1973...
of May 1974 Lyttle was, along with UDA leader Andy Tyrie and Ken Gibson
Ken Gibson (loyalist)
Kenneth "Ken" Gibson was a Northern Irish politician, who acted as the Chairman of the Volunteer Political Party which he had helped to form in 1974...
of the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF), one of three loyalist paramilitaries chosen to accompany the three leaders of the main unionist
Unionism in Ireland
Unionism in Ireland is an ideology that favours the continuation of some form of political union between the islands of Ireland and Great Britain...
political parties, Harry West
Harry West
Henry William West was a politician in Northern Ireland who served as leader of the Ulster Unionist Party from 1974 until 1979.West was born in County Fermanagh and educated at Portora Royal School in Enniskillen...
, Ian Paisley
Ian Paisley
Ian Richard Kyle Paisley, Baron Bannside, PC is a politician and church minister in Northern Ireland. As the leader of the Democratic Unionist Party , he and Sinn Féin's Martin McGuinness were elected First Minister and deputy First Minister respectively on 8 May 2007.In addition to co-founding...
, and Ernest Baird
Ernest Baird
Ernest Baird was a politician in Northern Ireland. Baird was born in County Donegalin the Irish Free State but moved with his family to Belfast at an early age....
, to a meeting with Stanley Orme
Stanley Orme, Baron Orme
Stanley Orme, Baron Orme PC was a British Labour Party politician. He was a Member of Parliament from 1964 to 1997, and served as a cabinet minister in the 1970s.-Early life:Stan Orme was born in Sale, Cheshire...
, the deputy to the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland
Secretary of State for Northern Ireland
The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, informally the Northern Ireland Secretary, is the principal secretary of state in the government of the United Kingdom with responsibilities for Northern Ireland. The Secretary of State is a Minister of the Crown who is accountable to the Parliament of...
Merlyn Rees, in which the government representative attempted unsuccessfully to have the strike terminated early.
Together with Vanguard Assemblyman Glenn Barr
Glenn Barr
Glenn Barr, OBE , is a former politician from Derry, Northern Ireland who was an advocate of Ulster nationalism. For a time during the 1970s he straddled both Unionism and Loyalism due to simultaneously holding important positions in the Vanguard Progressive Unionist Party and the Ulster Defence...
, Lyttle travelled to Libya
Libya
Libya is an African country in the Maghreb region of North Africa bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to the east, Sudan to the southeast, Chad and Niger to the south, and Algeria and Tunisia to the west....
where he met Colonel Muammar Gaddafi
Muammar Gaddafi
Muammar Muhammad Abu Minyar Gaddafi or "September 1942" 20 October 2011), commonly known as Muammar Gaddafi or Colonel Gaddafi, was the official ruler of the Libyan Arab Republic from 1969 to 1977 and then the "Brother Leader" of the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya from 1977 to 2011.He seized power in a...
about obtaining weapons and money for the loyalist cause. When Lyttle returned from the trip, which was largely unsuccessful, he was caught up in a loyalist feud
Loyalist feud
A loyalist feud refers to any of the sporadic feuds which have erupted almost routinely between Northern Ireland's various loyalist paramilitary groups since they were founded shortly before and after the religious/political conflict known as The Troubles broke out in the late 1960s...
between Tyrie and Charles Harding Smith for overall control of the UDA. Lyttle was with Harding Smith when the latter was shot and wounded by a pro-Tyrie sniper on the Shankill in January 1975; although following the attack Tyrie asserted his control and, with the help of Lyttle and fellow Shankill commanders John McClatchey and Tommy Boyd, soon regained control of the pivotal Shankill and neighbouring Woodvale areas. Harding Smith survived another shooting later in the year before leaving Northern Ireland for good. Lyttle was then appointed West Belfast Brigadier in his stead.
With the feud ended and firmly established as a loyal supporter of Tyrie, and with a reputation as one of the UDA's most articulate commanders, Lyttle was sent by Tyrie to the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
in order to solicit support and funding from interested groups. In 1977 he helped form a think tank with UDA Commander Andy Tyrie and South Belfast brigadier John McMichael
John McMichael
John "Big John" McMichael was a leading Northern Irish loyalist who rose to become the most prominent figure within the Ulster Defence Association as the Deputy Commander and leader of its South Belfast Brigade. He was also commander of the organisation's cover name, the "Ulster Freedom Fighters"...
; this was called the New Ulster Political Research Group. Along with Tyrie, McMichael, Glenn Barr and Harry Chicken, Lyttle was involved in the production of the group's 1979 policy document Beyond the Religious Divide in which the UDA advanced a policy of negotiated independence for Northern Ireland
Ulster nationalism
Ulster nationalism is the name given to a school of thought in Northern Irish politics that seeks the independence of Northern Ireland from the United Kingdom without becoming part of the Republic of Ireland, thereby becoming an independent sovereign state separate from England, Scotland and Wales...
.
Stevens Enquiry
In January 1990 Lyttle, along with his son, "Tosh", was arrested by the John StevensStevens Report
The Stevens Inquiries were three official British government inquiries led by Sir John Stevens concerning collusion in Northern Ireland between loyalist paramilitaries and the state security forces...
Enquiry team after his fingerprints were found on a stolen classified document which was a security forces list of suspected republicans
Irish Republicanism
Irish republicanism is an ideology based on the belief that all of Ireland should be an independent republic.In 1801, under the Act of Union, the Kingdom of Great Britain and the Kingdom of Ireland merged to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland...
, likely to be used by loyalist paramilitaries for targeting people to be assassinated by hit squads. He was brought before Belfast's Crumlin Road Court where he was convicted of receiving and passing on classified security force intelligence files and intimidating potential witnesses. Although he was sentenced to seven years imprisonment, he was released in 1994 on remission. It was later revealed that he was an informer working for the RUC's Special Branch. According to the Pat Finucane Centre
Pat Finucane Centre
The Pat Finucane Centre is a human rights advocacy and lobbying entity in Northern Ireland. Named in honour of murdered solicitor Pat Finucane, it operates advice centres in Derry and Newry, dealing mainly with complaints from nationalists and republicans...
, he was in charge of UDA Intelligence chief Brian Nelson and quartermaster William Stobie
William Stobie
William "Billy" Stobie was an Ulster Defence Association quartermaster and Royal Ulster Constabulary Special Branch informer who was involved in the shootings of student Brian Adam Lambert in 1987 and solicitor Pat Finucane in 1989.His 1990 admissions, to journalist Neil Mulholland, provided new...
. A former officer from the Force Research Unit
Force Research Unit
Force Research Unit is alleged to be a name used by a covert military intelligence unit established by the United Kingdom Ministry of Defence in the Intelligence Corps of the British Army based at Templer Barracks, Ashford in Kent. The FRU is alleged to have been formed between 1980 and 1981...
(the covert military intelligence agent-handling unit based in Northern Ireland) using the pseudonym "Martin Ingram
Martin Ingram
Martin Ingram is the pseudonym of an ex-British Army soldier who served in the Intelligence Corps and Force Research Unit . He has made a number of allegations about the conduct of the British Army, its operations in Northern Ireland via the FRU, and against figures in the Provisional Irish...
" suggested that Lyttle ordered Nelson, who was recruited by the FRU to infiltrate the UDA's intelligence structure, to compile targeting information on Catholic solicitor Pat Finucane prior to his killing in 1989. "Ingram" stated that he knew with "iron cast certainty" that Lyttle was working as an informer for Special Branch at the time of the Finucane killing. According to Andy Tyrie, Lyttle was reluctant to become personally involved in the Finucane killing, as he feared that his rank of brigadier would make him a likely target for the inevitable IRA retaliation. Stobie was later arrested and charged with Finucane's killing, although he was not convicted. UDA member Ken Barrett, who was also a Special Branch informer, eventually pleaded guilty to the killing in September 2004. Shortly before Lyttle's death in October 1995, BBC journalist John Ware
John Ware
John Ware was an African-American and later African-Canadian cowboy, best remembered for his ability to ride and train horses and for bringing the first cattle to southern Alberta in 1882, helping to create that province's important ranching industry.Ware was born into slavery in South Carolina...
interviewed him. Lyttle maintained that two RUC officers had originally proposed the idea of killing Finucane.
Two years prior to Finucane's assassination, Lyttle reportedly had asked Nelson to obtain details on top IRA figures. When the name Frederick Scappaticci came up, Nelson's FRU handlers became alarmed as Scappaticci—allegedly known as "Stakeknife
Stakeknife
Stakeknife is the code name of an alleged spy who infiltrated the Provisional Irish Republican Army at a high level, while working for the top secret Force Research Unit of the British Army...
"—was one of their most important agents, having infiltrated the Provisional IRA's Internal Security Unit
Internal Security Unit
The Internal Security Unit was the name given to the counter-intelligence and interrogation unit of the Provisional Irish Republican Army...
or "Nutting Squad" as it was commonly referred to. A substitute was eventually found in the person of Francisco Notarantonio, a retired IRA man of Italian parentage, who lived in the staunch republican stronghold of Ballymurphy
Ballymurphy
Ballymurphy may refer to:*Ballymurphy, Belfast - an area in Belfast, northern Ireland, known for the Ballymurphy Massacre.*Ballymurphy, County Carlow - a village in County Carlow, Ireland....
, which also happened to be the neighbourhood of Sinn Féin
Sinn Féin
Sinn Féin is a left wing, Irish republican political party in Ireland. The name is Irish for "ourselves" or "we ourselves", although it is frequently mistranslated as "ourselves alone". Originating in the Sinn Féin organisation founded in 1905 by Arthur Griffith, it took its current form in 1970...
President Gerry Adams
Gerry Adams
Gerry Adams is an Irish republican politician and Teachta Dála for the constituency of Louth. From 1983 to 1992 and from 1997 to 2011, he was an abstentionist Westminster Member of Parliament for Belfast West. He is the president of Sinn Féin, the second largest political party in Northern...
. On 9 October 1987, Lyttle sent out a UDA hit squad, headed by Sam McCrory
Sam McCrory (loyalist)
Sam "Skelly" McCrory is a former member of the Ulster Defence Association /"Ulster Freedom Fighters" , an Ulster loyalist paramilitary organisation...
using the cover name "Ulster Freedom Fighters" to Notarantonio's home where they shot him to death in his bedroom. Allegedly a party was held afterwards in Lyttle's Sydney Street West home to celebrate the killing. Lyttle would also throw a similar party following the assassination of Finucane.
The possibility of conspiracy became public through Lyttle himself, following the UDA murder of Loughlin Maginn at his home in Rathfriland
Rathfriland
Rathfriland is a village in County Down, Northern Ireland. It is a hilltop Plantation of Ulster settlement between the Mourne Mountains, Slieve Croob and Banbridge. It had a population of 2,079 people in the 2001 Census.-History:...
on 25 August 1989. Media coverage had insisted that Maginn was the innocent victim of a sectarian attack but Lyttle personally contacted members of the press to inform them that the UDA had good reasons for killing Maginn, whose name was on the list. In order to back up his claim Lyttle sent a copy of the list he received to a journalist. The uproar that followed the revelation that a senior UDA member was in possession of government documents led to Royal Ulster Constabulary
Royal Ulster Constabulary
The Royal Ulster Constabulary was the name of the police force in Northern Ireland from 1922 to 2000. Following the awarding of the George Cross in 2000, it was subsequently known as the Royal Ulster Constabulary GC. It was founded on 1 June 1922 out of the Royal Irish Constabulary...
Chief Constable Hugh Annesley
Hugh Annesley (police officer)
Sir Hugh Norman Annesley is a retired Northern Irish police officer. He served as Chief Constable of the Royal Ulster Constabulary from June 1989 to November 1996....
appointing Stevens, an officer in Cambridgeshire Constabulary
Cambridgeshire Constabulary
Cambridgeshire Constabulary is the territorial police force responsible for law enforcement within the ceremonial county of Cambridgeshire in the United Kingdom. In addition to the non-metropolitan county, the Police area includes the city of Peterborough, which became a unitary authority area in...
, to investigate the claims.
John McMichael killing
There were also allegations that Lyttle was involved in the killing of John McMichael, who was blown up by a booby-trap car bomb outside his LisburnLisburn
DemographicsLisburn Urban Area is within Belfast Metropolitan Urban Area and is classified as a Large Town by the . On census day there were 71,465 people living in Lisburn...
home on 22 December 1987. Although the IRA claimed responsibility for the attack, there were suggestions that members of the UDA helped set up the killing by passing on information to the IRA about McMichael to facilitate the assassination. It was alleged that after the signing of the Anglo-Irish Agreement
Anglo-Irish Agreement
The Anglo-Irish Agreement was an agreement between the United Kingdom and Ireland which aimed to help bring an end to the Troubles in Northern Ireland...
in 1985, McMichael had planned a UDA bombing campaign against the Republic of Ireland
Republic of Ireland
Ireland , described as the Republic of Ireland , is a sovereign state in Europe occupying approximately five-sixths of the island of the same name. Its capital is Dublin. Ireland, which had a population of 4.58 million in 2011, is a constitutional republic governed as a parliamentary democracy,...
; Lyttle, acting on orders of the security forces, was rumoured to have aided in the killing to prevent the proposed attacks from being carried out. Lyttle, in his turn, put the blame on his long-time rival James Pratt Craig
James Craig (loyalist)
James Pratt "Jim" Craig was a Northern Irish loyalist, who served as a fund-raiser for the Ulster Defence Association and sat on its Inner Council. He also ran a large protection racket from west Belfast's Shankill Road area, where he lived...
, the UDA's notorious "fundraiser", who had been under investigation by McMichael for his racketeering activities. There was much animosity between the two UDA men, as Craig had supposedly made Lyttle's daughter pregnant.
Removal from leadership
Following the televised Milltown Cemetery attackMilltown Cemetery attack
The Milltown Cemetery attack The Milltown Cemetery attack The Milltown Cemetery attack (also known as the Milltown Cemetery killings or Milltown Massacre took place on 16 March 1988 in Belfast's Milltown Cemetery...
by loyalist Michael Stone in March 1988, Lyttle released a statement claiming that Stone had operated alone without sanction from the UDA's Inner Council as he felt that such commando-style attacks would inevitably bring retaliation from republican paramilitaries, making open warfare between the two communities an actual possibility. Despite Lyttle's condemnation, Stone's action—in which three republicans were shot dead and more than 60 wounded—impressed many young loyalists who rushed to join the UDA. This change in membership profile was to have a profound effect on the make-up of the UDA leadership. With McMichael dead, Tyrie having resigned in March 1988 (following an attempt on his life) and even Craig being killed by UFF gunmen in October 1988, Lyttle was one of the few veterans to remain in power and his incarceration during the Stevens Enquiry was to prove the catalyst for his removal from command, with Tommy Irvine succeeding him as West Belfast brigadier. By 1989-90, information regarding UDA operations was being deliberately withheld from Lyttle "because he was thought to be not reliable". Held in Crumlin Road Gaol
Crumlin Road Gaol
HMP Belfast, also known as Crumlin Road Gaol, is a former prison situated on the Crumlin Road in north Belfast, Northern Ireland. It is the only Victorian era prison remaining in Northern Ireland and has been derelict since 1996...
from July 1991, word was sent into the prison by a new group of "Young Turks"—emerging leaders from the Shankill—that Lyttle was to be ostracised by the other UDA inmates. As a result of this edict Lyttle was moved into secure isolation on a wing of the prison usually reserved for prisoners under high risk of attack from other inmates, such as sex offenders; an area described by one of the new leaders, Jim Spence
Jim Spence (loyalist)
Jim Spence is a Northern Irish former loyalist activist. Spence became notorious for his time in the Ulster Defence Association , serving two spells as Brigadier in West Belfast...
, as "the wing with the bull roots [a local slang term of abuse]". As the 1990s progressed, Lyttle had no more direct involvement in the UDA as leadership on the Shankill passed to Johnny Adair
Johnny Adair
Jonathan Adair, better known as Johnny "Mad Dog" Adair is the former leader of the "C Company", 2nd Battalion Shankill Road, West Belfast Brigade of the "Ulster Freedom Fighters" . This was a cover name used by the Ulster Defence Association , an Ulster loyalist paramilitary organisation...
and other young, ambitious militants such as Stephen McKeag
Stephen McKeag
Stephen McKeag , known as Topgun or Top Gun, was a Northern Irish loyalist who became one of the most notorious figures within the Ulster Defence Association's 'C' Company in the 1990s...
who wanted a freer hand in dealing with Catholics than that afforded by Lyttle with the latter's alleged links to the security forces.
Death
Lyttle was released in 1994 on remission after having served three years of his seven-year sentence. He retired to DonaghadeeDonaghadee
Donaghadee is a small town in County Down, Northern Ireland. It lies on the northeast coast of the Ards Peninsula, about east of Belfast and about six miles south east of Bangor. It had a population of 6,470 people in the 2001 Census...
in County Down
County Down
-Cities:*Belfast *Newry -Large towns:*Dundonald*Newtownards*Bangor-Medium towns:...
, and it was there in his home that he died of a heart attack on 18 October 1995. He was 56 years old. His second son John is a journalist who writes for The Independent
The Independent
The Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...
. John described his father as a "hard man" who liked to read James Bond
James Bond
James Bond, code name 007, is a fictional character created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short story collections. There have been a six other authors who wrote authorised Bond novels or novelizations after Fleming's death in 1964: Kingsley Amis,...
novels, and watch western
Western (genre)
The Western is a genre of various visual arts, such as film, television, radio, literature, painting and others. Westerns are devoted to telling stories set primarily in the latter half of the 19th century in the American Old West, hence the name. Some Westerns are set as early as the Battle of...
and gangster films. Kevin Myers, who was personally acquainted with Lyttle in Belfast, called him "a violent man", but he admitted to having liked him nevertheless.