Tommy Herron (1938 – 14 September 1973) was a Northern Ireland loyalist and a leading member of the Ulster Defence Association (UDA) until his death in a fatal shooting.

[4] Gusty Spence has suggested that Herron, like Shankill Butcher Lenny Murphy, took on the mantle of a "Super Prod", or individual who acts in an affectedly extreme Ulster Protestant loyalist way, to deflect any potential criticism of his Catholic roots.

Herron was a leading member of the UDA, which was the largest loyalist paramilitary organisation in Northern Ireland, from its formation and emerged at the group's top man in East Belfast.

A thirteen-member Security Council was established in January 1972 with Herron a charter member of this group, although control lay in the west of city with Charles Harding Smith emerging as chairman of the new body.

[14] For much of 1972 Herron's main rival Charles Harding Smith, the leader of the West Belfast UDA, was absent from the scene after being arrested in England on gun-running charges.

During his absence control on West Belfast went into the hands of Davy Fogel and his ally Ernie Elliott, both of whom had been influenced to varying degrees by left-wing rhetoric.

In early 1973 an east Belfast publican was interviewed anonymously by The Sunday Times and he claimed that Herron would regularly send one of his men to the pub to ask for a contribution to the "UDA prisoners' welfare fund".

The publican stated that he knew if he refused to contribute his windows would be smashed or the pub shot at, making the fund simply a protection racket.

[citation needed] Soon after the meeting with Fogel, and to many people's surprise, Herron called for "both sides" – loyalists and republicans – to stop assassinations, claiming that if they did not, they would face "the full wrath of the UDA".

This time Harding Smith had decided to not only return to sectarian killings but to set up a group within the UDA, the Ulster Freedom Fighters (UFF), to be dedicated solely to this aim.

Herron told Stone "wrong side, kid", indicating that he believed the murder had been perpetrated by the rival faction of the UDA.

[29] Criticism came from Brian Faulkner and other moderate unionists, when on 10 June a UDA member exchanging gunfire with soldiers on the Beersbridge Road, East Belfast, shot and killed a Protestant bus driver.

[28] Herron's campaign was again hit in June, when his East Belfast UDA headquarters were raided by the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) and two illegal guns and a quantity of ammunition were seized with two men arrested.