Andrew Tyrie (born 5 February 1940) is a Northern Irish loyalist paramilitary leader who served as commander of the Ulster Defence Association (UDA) during much of its early history. He took the place of Tommy Herron in 1973 when the latter was killed, and led the organisation until March 1988 when an attempt on his life forced him to resign from his command.
Background
Tyrie was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, one of the seven children of an ex-soldier and a part-time seamstress. He was brought up in a two-bedroomed house in the Shankill Road. He was educated at the local Brown Square school and found work as a gardener with Belfast City Council. Tyrie's family lived in both Ballymurphy and New Barnsley, but were forced out of both heavily Catholic areas in 1969. The family returned to the Shankill. Tyrie's surname is an ancient Scottish clan name; his ancestors migrated from Scotland to Ireland in the early days of the Ulster Plantation. They first went to Dublin, however, before settling permanently in Ulster.
Tyrie's first involvement with loyalist paramilitaries came in 1967 when he was sworn in as a member of the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF), although he did not stay long as he felt that the UVF was doing too little about Protestants being forced out of Catholic areas, such as his own family. He soon fell in behind John McKeague, initially following him in the Ulster Protestant Volunteers, before joining his Shankill Defence Association (SDA) upon its foundation in 1969. Tyrie's power base within the SDA grew and he was a relatively high-profile figure on the Shankill when it was absorbed by the UDA in 1971.
Assuming leadership
The newly formed UDA was dominated by Charles Harding Smith in the Shankill area and by Tommy Herron in East Belfast. It was feared from early on that a feud between the two would follow if either one was picked to lead the UDA. As such, in March 1973 Tyrie was picked as a compromise candidate for the leadership, being seen by Herron and Harding Smith as someone they could dominate. The strategy did not work, however, as a feud between the two top men followed, with Herron killed in September 1973. Harding Smith remained as a challenge to Tyrie's control.
His new-found role of leader was bolstered by the events of the Ulster Workers' Council Strike of May 1974 in which he played a leading role. Having been a shop steward in his council days Tyrie became close to strike leader Glenn Barr and the UDA played a central role in marshalling the pickets and ensuring both order amongst the strikers and no picket crossing. Tyrie oversaw this aspect of the strike and was seen as one of the central figures, while the profile of the UDA grew as a result.
With Tyrie's profile boosted by the UWC strike, Harding Smith sought to move against Tyrie and used the pretext of Tyrie sending a delegation to Libya, with Muammar al-Gaddafi seen in many loyalist eyes as being firmly on the side of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA). Harding Smith tried to overrule Tyrie but a feud resulted and, after surviving two assassination attempts, Harding Smith was forced to leave Northern Ireland for good.
Political strategy
Tyrie had been a central figure in the strike and as such had close contact with many within the unionist establishment. However once the strike was over he was shunned by Harry West and Ian Paisley and as such he built up a resentment towards mainstream unionism that would inform many of his political decisions as UDA leader. He arranged an alliance with the Vanguard Progressive Unionist Party but when the Ulster Unionist Party and the Democratic Unionist Party declined to join this grand alliance of loyalism Tyrie became even more resolved to pursue a political path for the UDA without mainstream unionism. Tyrie was close to William Craig and had supported his calls to "liquidate the enemy" in 1972, although as Craig's political relevance diminished Tyrie's desire for a politicised UDA increased.
He broke further from the unionist position by calling for some coalitions with moderate nationalists in the Northern Ireland Constitutional Convention, albeit whilst adding that he had prepared the UDA for civil war if the initiative failed and severed all ties following the disastrous re-run of the UWC strike in 1977, during which the attempt not only failed but also saw four people inadvertently killed by the UDA and UVF. Tyrie underlined his split from unionism in 1982 by writing a play, This Is It, in which he savagely attacked Ian Paisley and his "Third Force"'s dabbling in paramilitarism.