The Ulster Protestant Association (UPA) were a loyalist paramilitary group organised in Belfast in August 1920 to prevent Northern Ireland being included in an independent Irish Free State.[1] [2]
In 1921, plumber and UPA Thomas Pentland was arrested for the murder of a Catholic named Murtagh McStocker, supposedly a member of the IRA, but was acquitted.[3]
The UPA were also associated with the 1922 murders of Catholic civilians in Ballymacarrett. John William Nixon was alleged to be associated with the UPA.[4]
In 1923 a police report described the Association as dominated by "the Protestant hooligan element [whose] whole aim and object was simply the extermination of Catholics by any and every means." Bomb attacks were made against children, crowds leaving Mass and onto crowded trains.[5] Their headquarters was in an East Belfast pub, with a flogging-horse upstairs to punish members who violated UPA rules.[6]
The UPA is said to have provided many members of the murder gangs active in Belfast during 1921–22. Other Protestant gangs active at that time were: the Imperial Guards, Crawford's Tigers and the Cromwell Clubs.[7] Many UPA members were recruited into the Ulster Special Constabulary, the infamous "B Specials."[8]
Although it is sometimes said to have dissolved in 1922, a hardcore remained active, murdering several Catholics in the mid-1930s.[4]
The UPA fought side-by-side with the IRA during the 1932 Outdoor Relief riots, swapping places in order to confuse Royal Ulster Constabulary policemen.[9]
The name was also used as a cover name by the loyalist group "Spirit of Drumcree" in 1998.[10]