Johnny Adair

Johnny Adair (nickname: Mad Dog) was the leader of a Belfast "company" of the loyalist paramilitary organisation Ulster Freedom Fighters (UDA/UFF).

The IRA bombing of a fish shop on the Shankill Road in October 1993 was probably an attempt to assassinate Adair and his associates. The IRA claimed that the office above the shop was regularly used by the UDA for meetings and one was due to take place shortly after the bomb exploded. (The bomb went off early, killed one of the IRA men and nine Protestant civilians). The UFF retaliated with a random attack on the Rising Sun bar in Greysteel, near Londonderry, which killed seven people with no paramilitary connections.

Undercover officers from the Royal Ulster Constabulary recorded months of discussions with Adair, in which he boasted of his activities, producing enough evidence to charge him with directing terrorism. He was convicted and sentenced to 16 years in the Maze prison.

In January 1998, Adair was one of five Loyalist prisoners visited in the Maze prison by British Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Mo Mowlam. She persuaded them to drop their objection to their political representatives continuing the talks that led to the Good Friday Agreement in April that year. He was released early as part of a general amnesty for political prisoners after the Agreement.

In 2002, Adair was a key part of an effort to forge stronger ties between the UDA/UFF and the Loyalist Volunteer Force (LVF), another major loyalist paramilitary organization in Northern Ireland. The most open declaration of this was a joint mural depicting Adair's UDA "C company" and the LVF. Other elements in the UDA/UFF strongly resisted these movements. Many UDA members disliked his overt association with dealing drugs, which was also a trademark of the LVF. A loyalist feud began, and ended with several men dead and scores evicted from their homes. On 25 September, 2002, Adair was expelled from the UDA/UFF along with close associate John White, and the organization came under severe pressure to split. There were attempts on Adair's and White's lives.

Adair returned to prison in January 2003, when his early release licence was revoked by Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Paul Murphy, on grounds of engaging in unlawful activity.

On February 1, 2003, UDA divisional leader John Gregg was shot dead along with another UDA member, a killing widely blamed on Adair's C Company - Gregg was one of those who organised the expulsion of Adair from the UDA. On February 6, about 20 Adair supporters including White fled their homes for Scotland, widely seen as a response to severe intimidation: the graffiti "Johnny Adair and John White, Dead men walking" was seen in Belfast.

He was released from prison again on January 10th 2005. He immediately left Northern Ireland and joined his family in Bolton, Lancashire. The police in Bolton have questioned his wife about her involvement in the drugs trade, and his son was jailed for selling crack cocaine and heroin.

One of Adair's trademarks when he was making a name for himself in the UDA was to drive around nationalist areas wearing a Celtic jersey to allay suspicion. (Celtic F.C. have a strong association with Irish nationalists.) He got away with this before his face was known to his republican enemies. However, he soon began to court publicity, and many of his former colleagues maintain that this was his downfall. He once remarked to a Catholic journalist that she was the first "live" Catholic to ride in his car. He once authorised a severe beating of his son, Johnathan, who had disrespected a powerful colleague of Adair's.