Joe Bratty (c. 1961 - 31 July 1994) was a Northern Irish loyalist paramilitant and a leading member of the Ulster Defence Association's South Belfast Brigade. The head of UDA activity in the area during one of the organisation's most active phases, Bratty was suspected by security forces of playing a role in, or at least orchestrating, around 15 killings.
Early years
Bratty first came to attention in his native Ballynafeigh (an area in south Belfast) as a teenage street-fighter battling with local Catholic/republican youths and was responsible for altering the Workers' Party slogan "Sectarianism Kills Workers" on the side of Havelock House to "Sectarianism Kills Taigs". Bratty, who was also known for his hatred of black people, also appended the initials of the Ku Klux Klan to this piece of graffiti. During his years as a street-fighter, Bratty, who had distinctive Asian-shaped eyes, was given the nickname 'Chinky' by his Catholic opponents. Given the proximity of the two communities on the Ormeau Road, Bratty had grown up alongside Catholics and as such had for a number of years been accused of terrorising people he knew to be Catholic with beatings and intimidation before becoming involved in murder around 1990.
UDA activity
Eventually, Bratty became head of the UDA in Ballynafeigh, leading his own unit from Annadale Flats. Bratty's unit struck on 7 September 1990 when they entered the house of a 34-year-old Catholic, Emmanuel Shields, and shot him dead as he lay in bed with his pregnant girlfriend. According to his family, Shields, who had a criminal record but not for republican activity, had regularly been targeted by Bratty and his associates for physical attack in the past and they had fired shots into his mother's house in nearby Burmah Street when he lived with her. Bratty christened his unit 'Ku Klux Klan', and members of the group, including himself, had the initials KKK tattooed on their arms.
Bratty, together with Stephen "Inch" McFerran, UDA military commander for the Ormeau area and RUC Special Branch agent, ordered the attack on the lower Ormeau branch of Sean Graham's bookmakers on 5 February 1992, an act resulting in the death of five civilian men. His right-hand man, Raymond Elder, was identified by witnesses as one of the gunmen in the attack, and fibres from the getaway car were found on his denims. Bratty was widely believed to have been present during the attack, although the rest of the team that Bratty sent was made up of UDA members from East Belfast rather than local members. Another gunman had been provided by UDA West Belfast Brigade leader Johnny Adair, who had first conceived of the action. Alex Kerr, Bratty's commanding officer as South Belfast brigadier, commended the attack, claiming that Lower Ormeau residents had been involved in shielding republicans before suggesting that the attack was revenge for the Teebane bombing.
In addition to the 5 February Ormeau Road shootings, Bratty's unit was allegedly involved in the murder of Michael Gilbride, a Catholic taxi driver who had settled in the Lower Ormeau area. Gilbride was killed outside his parents' home on Fernwood Street not far from Bratty's Annadale Flats base. Another victim was Donna Wilson, a Protestant and resident of Annadale Flats who had recently moved to the area from Tullycarnet, East Belfast. A number of residents had complained to Bratty in his role as local UDA commander about the noise of her stereo and he assembled a team of ten men armed with baseball bats who broke in, beat her to death (seriously injuring three of her companions) and wrecked the flat. In the end, only a sixty-year-old who had led the complaints to Bratty was charged in relation to Wilson's death. Bratty was also identified as the getaway driver for the attack in which Teresa Clinton, the wife of a Sinn Féin election candidate, was murdered in her Lower Ormeau home. Thomas "Tucker" Annett, one of Bratty's closest lieutenants, was identified as the main gunman although not charged. Annett died on 12 July 1996 as part of an internal UDA dispute when two fellow members of the organisation kicked him to death outside a bar on the Ormeau Road. One of the killers has since been identified as Stephen "Inch" McFerran.
Death
Bratty was first targeted in late 1991 by the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) when they decided to adopt the tactic of focusing on prominent loyalist paramilitaries alongside the security forces. Bratty's Annadale Flats home was attacked on 13 November, but Bratty was not at home and no one was hurt. Some time after this attack, Bratty moved from the Annadale Flats to live in Greenwood Lodge on the Upper Newtownards Road in East Belfast.