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Adair allies driven from Shankill

February 16, 2011

By Staff Reporter

At dead of night last Thursday, 100 armed loyalists wrecked the homes of his supporters on the Lower Shankill Road before dragging their wives and children screaming from their beds.
The group were then bundled into a cavalcade of cars and driven to Larne in County Antrim, where they were put on a ferry for Scotland and warned, under threat of death, never to return to Northern Ireland.
It had been the murder of John “Grug” Gregg, the UDA’s southeast Antrim brigadier the previous Saturday under Adair’s orders from his prison cell that proved a step too far and his erstwhile associates turned on him to save their own skins.
Up to 7,000 loyalists, many wearing UDA ties, attended Gregg’s funeral in the Rathcoole housing estate, where a volley of three shots were fired over the coffin.
All strands of loyalism, including the UDA, LVF, UVF and Red Hand Commando groups, were represented at the funeral in a strong display of solidarity apparently against Adair’s faction.
At the weekend, in a loyalist bar on the Shankill Road, Adair’s former supporters handed over their weapons and pledged support to the four remaining mainstream UDA brigadiers — effectively disbanding the notorious “C” Company he once controlled.
Gangs of youths, who once idolized the steroid-pumped Adair, roamed the streets of the Shankill, defacing murals in his honor and changing the soubriquet “Mad Dog” on gable walls to “Sad Dog,” indicating their repudiation.
Adair remains in Maghaberry Jail, where he was sent by order of the British government for breaking his early-release conditions. He is being kept in the women’s section of the jail for his own protection, though the prison is almost empty.
In Scotland, four of the group forced out of the Shankill, including Adair’s main henchman, John White, and his wife, Gina, were detained by anti-terrorist police, who reportedly found

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