UVF: Behind the Mask is the gripping new history of the Ulster Volunteer Force from its post-1965 incarnation to the present day. Aaron Edwards blends rigorous research with unprecedented access to leading members of the UVF to unearth the startling inner-workings of one of the world’s oldest and most ruthless paramilitary groups. Through interviews with high-profile UVF leaders, such as Billy Mitchell, David Ervine, Billy Wright, Billy Hutchinson and Gary Haggarty, as well as their loyalist rivals including Johnny Adair, Edwards reveals the grisly details behind their sadistic torture and murder techniques and their litany of high-profile atrocities: McGurk’s Bar, the Dublin and Monaghan bombings, the Miami Showband massacre and the Shankill Butchers’ serial-killing spree, amongst others. Edwards’ life and career has led him to the centre of the UVF’s long, dark underbelly; in this defining work he offers a comprehensive and authoritative study of an armed group that continues to play a pivotal role in Northern Irish society.

Now that Northern Ireland’s “troubles” appear to be over, with old enemies the DUP and Sinn Féin sharing power, what will happen to the hard men of loyalism? The Ulster Volunteer Force emerged during the first sparks of Northern Ireland’s Troubles in the mid-1960s. Their campaign of violence quickly marked them out as one of the most extreme loyalist groups. Henry MacDonald and Jim Cusack provide a fascinating insight into the UVF’s origins, growth and decline. They follow the careers of some of the key players in the UVF, including Gusty Spence, Billy Wright and David Ervine. They catalogue the atrocities in which the UVF were involved, including the Dublin and Monaghan bombings; the emergence of the notorious renegade Shankill Butchers; and the various bloody feuds that have infected loyalism. They trace the paramilitary organisation from the violent margins, through the horrors of the 1970s and 1980s, to its shaky 1994 ceasefire and its crucial (if sometimes reluctant) role in the peace process that led up to the signing of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998.

Growing up in the Shankill area of Belfast and living through the sectarian turmoil of the late 1960s, Billy Hutchinson joined the UVF in the early 1970s. In 1974, at the age of just 19, he was sentenced to life in prison, and it was in the cages of Long Kesh that he first came under the influence of loyalist icon Gusty Spence. Hutchinson spent much of the 1980s as overall Commanding Officer of UVF/Red Hand Commando prisoners, and upon his release, became involved with the recently established Progressive Unionist Party. As an authentic link between the UVF and the PUP, he was at the forefront of negotiations that led to the Belfast Agreement and was the UVF’s point of contact during the weapons decommissioning programme. Written with candour and honesty, this is a lively first-hand account of an extraordinary life and reveals previously hidden episodes of both the Northern Ireland Troubles and the high-profile negotiations that led to the Belfast Agreement of 1998. rom Tartan gang member to leading loyalist paramilitary, and from progressive unionist politician to respected Belfast City Councillor, My Life in Loyalism is Billy Hutchinson’s remarkable story.

The 1998 Belfast Agreement promised to release citizens of Northern Ireland from the grip of paramilitarism. However, almost a decade later, Loyalist paramilitaries were still on the battlefield. After the Peace examines the delayed business of Loyalist demilitarization and explains why it included more fits than starts in the decade since formal peace and how Loyalist paramilitary recalcitrance has affected everyday Loyalists. Drawing on interviews with current and former Loyalist paramilitary men, community workers, and government officials, Carolyn Gallaher charts the trenchant divisions that emerged during the run-up to peace and thwart demilitarization today. After the Peace demonstrates that some Loyalist paramilitary men want to rebuild their communities and join the political process. They pledge a break with violence and the criminality that sustained their struggle. Others vow not to surrender and refuse to set aside their guns. These units operate under a Loyalist banner but increasingly resemble criminal fiefdoms. In the wake of this internecine power struggle, demilitarization has all but stalled. Gallaher documents the battle for the heart of Loyalism in varied settings, from the attempt to define Ulster Scots as a language to deadly feuds between UVF, UDA, and LVF contingents. After the Peace brings the story of Loyalist paramilitaries up to date and sheds light on the residual violence that persists in the post-accord era.

The Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) was established in January 1913 as a militant expression of Ulster Unionist opposition to the Third Home Rule Bill. Academic historians have tended to overlook Ulster Loyalism and this book provides the first comprehensive study of the UVF in this period. Using previously neglected sources, it demonstrates that the UVF was better armed and worse trained with the involvement of fewer British army officers than previous historians have allowed. It suggests that the UVF was quite capable of seizing control of Ulster and installing the Ulster Provisional Government in the event of Home Rule being implemented in 1914. This book is essential reading for military and Irish historians, their students, and general readers interested in modern paramilitary forces.

Northern Ireland's Lost Opportunity is a unique in-depth investigation into working-class Loyalism in Northern Ireland as represented by the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF), the Red Hand Commando (RHC) and their political allies.In an unorthodox account, Tony Novosel argues that these groups, seen as implacable enemies by Republicans and the left, did develop a political analysis of the Northern Ireland conflict in the 1970s which involved a compromise peace with all political parties and warring factions – something that historians and writers have largely ignored. Distinctive, deeply informed and provocative, Northern Ireland's Lost Opportunity is the first study to focus not on the violent actions of the UVF/RHC but on their political vision and program which, Novosel argues, included the potential for a viable peace based on compromise with all groups, including the Irish Republican Army.

This accessible new book looks at how and why individuals leave terrorist movements, and considers the lessons and implications that emerge from this process. Focusing on the tipping points for disengagement from groups such as Al Qaeda, the IRA and the UVF, this volume is informed by the dramatic and sometimes extraordinary accounts that the terrorists themselves offered to the author about why they left terrorism behind. The book examines three major issues: what we currently know about de-radicalisation and disengagement how discussions with terrorists about their experiences of disengagement can show how exit routes come about, and how they then fare as ‘ex-terrorists’ away from the structures that protected them what the implications of these findings are for law-enforcement officers, policy-makers and civil society on a global scale. Concluding with a series of thought-provoking yet controversial suggestions for future efforts at controlling terrorist behaviour, Walking Away From Terrorism provides an comprehensive introduction to disengagement and de-radicalisation and offers policymakers a series of considerations for the development of counter-radicalization and de-radicalisation processes. This book will be essential reading for students of terrorism and political violence, war and conflict studies, security studies and political psychology. John Horgan is Director of the International Center for the Study of Terrorism at the Pennsylvania State University. He is one of the world's leading experts on terrorist psychology, and has authored over 50 publications in this field; recent books include the The Psychology of Terrorism (Routledge 2005) and Leaving Terrorism Behind (co-edited, Routledge 2008)