UDA South East Antrim Brigade
It is unclear when South East Antrim (SEA) was first designated as a brigade area although its first recognised leader was Alan Snoddy and he held the title of Brigadier by at least 1979.
[8] Gregg, Colin Gray and Gerry Welsh were immediately arrested by the waiting British Army, who had doctored the bullets to reduce their lethality.
[12] As the oldest member, English usually chaired the meetings of this Inner Council, although he often struggled to control UDA West Belfast Brigade brigadier Johnny Adair.
[15] English was a strong advocate of political means and pushed for the UDA to call a ceasefire in the early 1990s, a position that was anathema, at that point, to Adair.
[19] In late August 1997, the brigade became involved in simmering tensions with fellow loyalist paramilitaries in the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF).
[20] Although the UDA was officially on ceasefire, the South East Antrim Brigade remained active in late 1998 and early 1999, undertaking a series of pipe bomb attacks on Catholic properties.
[21] Gregg, who was noted for his sectarian beliefs, insisted that such attacks were necessary in order to prevent the "greening" of places such as Carrickfergus and Antrim, a process he claimed had already happened in Glengormley where the Catholic population had experienced significant growth.
He told author Ian S. Wood that he had only supported the Combined Loyalist Military Command ceasefire in an effort to ensure the release of imprisoned friends.
[27] However, in late 2002 a UDA member originally from the Woodvale Road who had moved to Rathcoole was attacked after it emerged that he was a friend of Joe English, the former brigadier who had since been exiled from the area by Gregg for his anti-drugs stance.
[31] Gregg was back in command by October, at which point he was one of the brigadiers who passed the resolution expelling Adair from the UDA for his involvement in the attempted murder of Jim Gray.
[40] As of 2014, the South East Antrim Brigade is no longer considered part of the wider UDA and their brigadier does not attend meetings of the organisation's ruling Inner Council.
[46] In March 2014 the South East Antrim Brigade was widely reported as being behind a "rampage" in which up to 100 people, some of them wearing masks, attacked a number of residential properties in Larne.
[48] Assistant Chief Constable George Hamilton described the incident as a "power trip" by the brigade, and suggested that it was an attempt by the group to assert their dominance over the local community.
[52] On 29 May 2017 Colin Horner, a friend of Gilmore and former UDA member, was fatally shot in front of his three-year-old son at a busy shopping centre in Bangor, County Down.
[60] On 3 January 2019 police reported a baby in a pram narrowly escaped injury after homes were attacked in Co Down by South East Antrim UDA members.
[63] The threats were condemned by Peter Vandermeersch of Independent News & Media and Seamus Dooley, assistant General Secretary of the National Union of Journalists, and by Amnesty International UK.
[63][64] Patsy McGlone, Stephen Farry, Steve Aiken and Doug Beattie also condemned the attacks and were subsequently warned by the PSNI of threats from the South East Antrim UDA.
[66] In July 2021, Doug Beattie, the leader of the Ulster Unionist Party, told the BBC that the South East Antrim UDA had threatened to kill him twice.
[67] South East Antrim UDA, now under the name "Real UFF" (not to be confused with the dissident group RUFF) issued threats to loyalist Jamie Bryson.
[68] In July 2024, the Irish Independent reported that the South East Antrim UDA had made death threats against a Mediahuis journalist and this was being investigated by the PSNI [69]
