UDP Biopic on John McMichael

John McMichael was born in Belfast in 1948, moving to nearby Lisburn in his teens, marrying and settling there until his death in 1987. Against the backdrop of renewed violence in 1968 he worked in a local factory and in 1969 had his first child, Gary.

By the turn of the decade, the conflict had escalated to such a level that the police and British Army were unable to protect the community from the IRA and towns across the country were being destroyed by republican no-warning bombs. In interface areas loyalists were under constant attack and the community established its own form of security as local residents banded together to protect their streets and housing estates from republican gangs. These groups of people quickly became structured as local defence units. In 1972 these groups from right  merged together under the umbrella of the Ulster Defence Association which came to number more than 60 000 men and women. The UDA armed itself, initially to protect loyalist areas but later to engage the IRA and other republican groups proactively.

John McMichael joined the UDA in Lisburn in 1972 and his intellect and strong leadership qualities made for a speedy rise through its ranks and by 1975 he was in command of Lisburn battalion and soon after, the UDA's South Belfast Brigade, putting him on the ruling council of that organisation where he remained until his death.

Brigadier John McMichael

He played an important role in the 1974 Ulster Workers Council strike and became the public spokesperson for the UDA from the late 1970's. He was secretary of the Ulster Political Research Group, which produced a document in 1979 called, 'Beyond the religious divide', promoting an argument for a self governing independent state with protective safeguards for minorities.  He formed the Ulster Loyalist Democratic Party in 1981. The ULDP was formed as vehicle for political expression for the UDA. The ULDP was not constituted as a fully functioning political party, although it unsuccessfully contested a number of local election, and became defunct by 1984. In 1985 he had a second child, Saul and in 1986 he remarried.

He played a key role in the organisation of resistance against the Anglo-Irish Agreement¹ and became a well known figure in the civil disobedience campaign which culminated in the Day of Action, a one day national strike in 1986. In that same year he co-founded the Ulster Clubs, an organisation that brought together the broad spectrum of the unionist public to effect grassroots action on unionist rights.

He headed the UPRG formulation of the 'Common Sense' proposals which were the only unionist proposals for the replacement of the Anglo-Irish Agreement with a more broadly acceptable democratic framework. Despite having campaigned against the imposition of the Anglo-Irish Agreement for more than a year, the traditional unionist leadership had failed to develop any credible alternative. The 'Common Sense' proposals were a grassroots loyalist response to the political vacuum and were presented to provoke debate within unionism and across the entire community. The proposals were published early in 1987 and John McMichael spent much of his time for the rest of that year promoting them across the country and campaigning for a greater emphasis on finding a political resolution to the conflict.

On 22nd December 1987, at the age of 39,  John McMichael was murdered by the IRA. A bomb was placed under his car and it exploded in the driveway of his home as he was about to set out to deliver Christmas turkeys to the families of a number of loyalist political prisoners. Reacting to the murder the Catholic Primate of Ireland, Cardinal Tomas O'Faigh described John McMichael as 'a man of peace.

John McMichael's son Gary formed the UDP in 1988 and now leads the party on the basis of the political principles his father set out before he was murdered.

Gary McMichael gives a speech in at the John F. Kennedy Library, America

There is no section of this divided Ulster community which is totally innocent or indeed totally guilty, totally right or totally wrong. We all share the responsibility for creating the situation either by deed or acquiescence, therefore we must share the responsibility for finding a settlement and then share the responsibility of maintaining good government.

- John McMichael, 1987

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1. You can seen an example of this here: