Senior loyalist Billy Mitchell who died 11 days ago, worked with LINC (Local Initiatives for Needy Communities) an initiative of the Church of the Nazarene fostering peace, reconciliation and social justice. Nazarene evangelism is closely linked with a “compassionate ministry for justice, freedom and dignity for all, especially for those who cannot speak for themselves”.

This is a fitting description of Billy Mitchell’s work. Billy was associated with evangelicalism since his mother was a Baptist Sunday school teacher in the 1940s. Through listening to Ian Paisley as a teenager he became interested in politics and joined the Ulster Protestant Volunteers. By the early 1970s he was a senior UVF officer and one of loyalism most radical thinkers churning out new ideas and questioning tribal unionism. He was acutely conscious that old style unionism had neglected, marginalised and abused working people.

He rejected the dangerous nonsense preached in his name and tried to foster a new rational unionism. But his re-thinking took place while loyalists were under vicious attack from republicans and many unionists tried to damn them as weak on the Union. Ministers in the Irish Government lent credence to unionist paranoia through the arms plot while the British Government appeared weak and vacillating and Paisley thunder on and on.

Despite the risks Billy Mitchell engaged with all shades of opinion and realised that Cathal Goulding leader of the Official IRA, was trying to take the gun out of politics. Better relationships were formed with members of the Workers Party though Billy sometimes questioned their stance as perhaps more dangerous than that of the Provisionals. He appealed to the latter to stop killing UDR men and women and encouraged loyalists to stop attacks on Catholic public houses and break the connection with sectarianism - with limited success.

Billy Mitchell underestimated the value of his early work for which in any case, he received little thanks. He claimed his progressive views flowered after imprisonment in 1976 but he had already espoused radical ideas before this. Despite terrible hardship, prison proved in some respects liberating. It removed Billy from the turmoil of conflict and gave him space to think. He could bounce ideas off Gusty Spence, David Ervine, Billy Hutchinson and others critically analysing how and why they had been led into a violent cul-de-sac. Nothing was considered sacred or beyond criticism, least of all the baleful influence of what passed for traditional unionism.

Billy had no Damascus Road conversion but came to a gradual realisation that we are spiritual beings before making a “reasoned rediscovery” of his spiritual roots. By November 1979 he made “a conscious decision” to dedicate his life to Jesus Christ and allow his “social and political actions to be moulded and informed by spiritual values”. When Billy emerged from jail in 1990 fellow loyalist Eddie Kinner asked if he was interested in politics. He responded hesitantly but was favourably impressed and joined the PUP. Billy never looked back. He could have chosen an easier path but he enjoyed working with all sides out of a deep love for his people – the disadvantaged working class. This was his background and he never forgot it.
Some years ago he and I shared a platform at a New Lodge Festival with Gerry Adams in the audience. Billy spoke directly from the podium, “Sure you must be an Ulster Scot with a name like Adams!” Gerry responded, “No, I’m Scotch Irish” which brought hearty laughter from the audience.

Billy Mitchell was warm-hearted. He respected others, including those who talk, or fail to talk, about bringing loyalists in from the cold. But for Billy the major unionist parties had become cold houses once loyalists had the temerity to question the supposed wisdom of which unionists claimed to be the exclusive custodians.

In Billy’s funeral cortege, priests and clergy, members of Sinn Fein and other republicans, ordinary people, Catholic and Protestant from north and south mingled peaceably with hundreds of UVF men deep in thought. But the rest of the world passed by oblivious of what had happened. With the exception of one UUP MLA and David Ervine MLA, no elected politician or leader of any other political party was to be seen. Things have changed - but not that much - since Billy Mitchell and others ploughed lonely furrows during the early 70s seeking better futures for us all.

This article by Roy Garland was first published in The Irish News on 31 July 2006

Why it wasn't too late to talk to Billy....by Roy Garland

Why did leading members of Sinn Fein attend the funeral of a former UVF man?
And how did a man who served time for loyalist crime come to earn the
respect and friendship of prominent republicans? Roy Garland explains the
extraordinary legacy of Billy Mitchell.

The congregation at the funeral of loyalist Billy Mitchell was certainly a
mixed one. Dawn Purvis, chair of the PUP, Liam Maskey, brother of Alex
Maskey MLA, and pastors of the Church of the Nazarene, all took time to
speak movingly about his life. And at the end of the service, which took place three weeks ago, crowds poured on to the street, joining hundreds waiting outside to pay their last
respects.A piper led the cortege and, as we slowly followed the hearse, I became
aware of Sinn Fein members, official republicans, rank and file and also
leading UVF men, churchmen, priests and people from the north and south
silently walking alongside.And I couldn't help but think what a fitting tribute this was to a man who
devoted his life to creating a better future for all.

My interest in Billy Mitchell goes back to the early 70s, when he was one of
a number of UVF men struggling to find a better way forward.
He would talk fearlessly about nationalists and republicans having every
right to be such, and to express their aspirations openly.
He also rejected the fears being whipped up by demigods, making what seemed
an astonishing statement: "We have nothing to fear from a united Ireland."
Of course, many actions of the UVF seemed to belie such ideas, but they
lived and moved in a sea of sectarianism. And, by the early 90s, I discovered that I shared a lot in common with Billy.

Both of us came from working class evangelical homes but had been caught up
in a religious fundamentalism that saw Protestant Ulster as a sacred cause
demanding sacrifice and obedience. Billy struggled with this and ultimately realised that genuine faith is to be expressed in love of one's neighbour - and even of one's enemy.
Billy Mitchell's dad had died in the 1940s and his mother reared him and his
brother in a rickety hut on the Hightown Road in Glengormley on the
outskirts of Belfast. The toilet was, he told me, made of "corrugated tin" in which "you s**t in a
bucket over a wooden plank". His granddad "buried it in a big pit and covered it with ashes" and a solidcover lest anyone fall in. In the house there were books on Protestant reformers, the Siege of Derry, Foxes Book of Martyrs and Bible prophesies, but as a teenager Billy danced
the night away to Elvis Presley, Cliff Richard and the Beatles. Schooling ended when he was 14, but his teacher commended his use ofEnglish. His first job was with the Belfast Telegraph as a "copy boy". Billy's mates suggested they go to hear "Big Paisley" and they began
attending the church and Ulster Hall rallies. He went mostly for, "political reasons" but the preaching led him to read the books back home.

Billy then joined a loyalist band and an Orange lodge and helped organise
Paisley's Ulster Protestant Volunteers with Noel Docherty.
But after Noel was imprisoned Billy moved on to become a senior UVF officer
and a regular scribe for study groups questioning the direction they were
going in. UVF leaders also engaged in discussion with Northern Ireland Labour Party
politicians - reportedly the only ones prepared to help the UVF move in a
new direction. During the winter of 1973/4 Billy Mitchell issued an appeal on behalf of the
UVF calling on "all Ulstermen to pause, to stretch out the hand of
forbearance and conciliation, to forgive and forget, and to join in making
for the province they love a new era of peace, contentment and goodwill".

A Council of Ulster under a neutral chair was also envisaged with
representations to be made to it by all sides of the community.
This dramatic gesture was generally ignored ... but not by everyone.
Right wing unionists issued vicious condemnations suggesting the UVF had
gone Communist. Even elements within the intelligence services depicted the 'new thinking'
in as negative a light as possible. The result was a coup d'etat by
hardliners. A vicious feud followed and it involved terrible killings. Billy was
arrested and a "supergrass" trial followed. It ended with heavy sentences meted out to him and most of the UVF in south east Antrim. Billy found this painful and would not talk about it.
It seems he did not pull the trigger but shared the guilt. While in jail, however, he read extensively in theology and politics and became particularly fond of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German theologian hanged by the Nazis for plotting against Hitler. Billy had become an accomplished, if unacknowledged, scholar who would not be easily manipulated.

In 1990 when Billy was released, loyalists again urged politicians to make
peace but the appeals fell on deaf ears. Billy joined the PUP and with the support of his church, devoted his life to transforming loyalist organisations and communities.
Being highly respected he could address the UVF directly and became central
to the two-years-old East Antrim Conflict Transformation initiative - a PUP/UVF leadership attempt to deal with the legacy of the conflict and channel youthful energies into constructive areas.
The legacy was defined by Billy to include the existence of armed groups,
the culture of violence, interface difficulties, criminals masquerading as
loyalists and whole communities marginalised, demonised, stereotyped and
blighted by sectarianism. Billy said armed loyalists were simultaneously engaging in an internal
consultation process and needed time and space to succeed.
A focus group complimented this by seeking to transform communities by
enriching the quality of people's lives and address their many issues.
"Critical friends" from across the community monitored and constructively
criticised the work and also tried to address concerns about loyalism in the
wider society. A forum meets quarterly receiving reports from local groups, for whom it
provides a safe space. Billy chaired the last meeting when over 120 participants represented seven different areas. Observers included PSNI, local government officers, political observers,
Church people and others.

Trevor Ringland, of the One Small Step Campaign, accompanied me to the last
meeting on June 6, 2006 and we were deeply impressed and moved as young and
older people, many who had never spoken publicly, delivered reports.
Issues being addressed included a Young Citizens Forum, flags, sectarianism,
murals and bonfires. Others ranged from hockey, soccer coaching and fitness training to community safety, senior citizens, anti-social behaviour, heritage, cultural and
historical interests, outdoor pursuits with police, projects to tidy and
enhance areas, youth painting projects, drugs awareness, employment skills,
child protection, women's groups, first aid, food hygiene, home safety,
cancer awareness, beauty treatment, neighbourhood mediation, cross border
relationships, mediation and leadership training, team building, information
sessions with the police ombudsman, human rights, a community garden,
citizens' advice, healthy living, fuel poverty, codes of conduct for bands
and much more besides. I was astounded. I had never before witnessed anything so constructive and visionary undertaken by any political party on such a scale and there in the centre
sat Billy Mitchell. He had defied the inertia, pessimism, sectarianism and class division that
for so long have bedevilled this community. Sadly within a few weeks of the meeting Billy Mitchell died suddenly. His funeral took place on July 25. He now seems irreplaceable, but his work continues. As early as the late 70s he came to realise that the Ulster question was not religious in the conventional sense, but rather a "question of humanity".
This insight remains central to Billy Mitchell's own, and hopefully lasting, legacy.

This article was first printed in the Belfast Telegraph on 17 August 2006

Billy Mitchell, a tribute....by Anthony McIntyre

Long before I first met Billy Mitchell in the late 1990s, I was familiar with him and some of the events that were to shape his life. In 1977 in Crumlin Road Prison for the three week duration of my trial, there was much talk about 'the Carrick men' of which he was a central figure. Around 25 UVF members or associates were on trial for killing a brace of UDA men during one of the periodic internecine feuds that broke out between the two main loyalist bodies. Then, loyalist feuds were always supported by republicans. It was like a form of blood sport in which our role amounted to nothing more than enthusiastic spectators. The thawing in relations between those engaged in armed activity in either community in the 1970s was a long way off.

The Carrick men had a reputation for being a tough bunch. The evidence against them did not appear strong, being for the most part made up of accomplice testimony. In most other courts they would have been in with a fighting chance. But this was Northern Ireland where the rules of Lord Diplock prevailed. The need to clear police books often formed the basis of a conviction. The amount of innocent men who went down for life would in any normal society have given rise to considerable alarm. In Lord Diplock's legal world guilt or innocence was of secondary importance.
Their trial coincided with our own. Two of their number on bail for lesser charges would sometimes be placed in the holding cell in the bowels of Crumlin Road courthouse alongside us for dinner, where we would converse on our chances before the beak and aspects of prison life. One day one of them was there alone and he explained that the other during the course of his evidence from the witness box had fingered him for a loyalist killing. Shortly after that he, like the rest of us, was serving a life sentence. That's how it was in those days.

Billy Mitchell was one of those 'Carrick men' sentenced to life. He had been a key player in the UVF. Before being imprisoned he had met both Official and Provisional IRA leaders for talks, on one occasion sharing a hotel room with one key Provisional. He is also said to have liaised with the IRA's Gerry Kelly while both were held in the cages of Long Kesh. He seemed suitably placed to serve as an interlocutor, having in 1974 composed a pamphlet in which he argued for rapprochement between unionists and nationalists. When in prison around 1978, if memory does not deceive me, along with fellow UVF member Billy Hutchinson, he wrote in similar vein to a local newspaper.

Released in 1990 having served 14 years, Billy threw his immense energy into securing peace. In 1994 along with Liam Maskey he formed the Intercomm group which worked to eliminate interface sectarian tension. His column in the North Belfast News was an attempt to reach out to nationalists without compromising his own belief in the value of the union with Britain. At the time of his death he was said to be working on a position paper at the request of the PUP, of which he was a member, believed to articulate the need to wind up the UVF.

Brought up in Glengormley Billy Mitchell had first hand experience of the ravishing effects of poverty. A friend of his quipped that Billy lived 'in a tin hut he used to pretend was a bungalow.' It armed him with a social conscience. This coupled with a strong religious affirmation, lent to Billy Mitchell's political conviction a hybrid of Christianity and Marxism which resembled the liberation theology of Catholic radicals in Latin America. Although some locked in a Leftist time warp, unable to think outside the formalistic loop, steadfastly refused to acknowledge that any loyalist could be a repository of progressive thinking. Billy was never slow to face down the challenge. In one internet exchange with a Marxist addicted to dogma he, with consummate ease, emerged on top.

Billy Mitchell had few doubts that the union was secure. He was a staunch supporter of the Good Friday Agreement which he felt anchored the type of political perspective that had informed his activity in the UVF. He found the critique mounted by republican critics of Sinn Fein persuasive. He felt it was so straightforward that he professed puzzlement at the failure of other republicans to share it. Always sensitive, if he thought he offended an opponent he was quick to ring up and apologise. I was the recipient of some of those calls but could never see the point. I had many vigorous disagreements with him but never found him offensive.

Billy Mitchell was one of the early contributors to The Blanket where his writings attracted a wide readership. He also edited The Other View with Tommy McKearney, both of whom appeared together on BBC's Hearts and Minds to explain the purpose of the magazine. Then it was news. Today few would bat an eyelid at such a venture because of the success of people like Billy Mitchell in habituating the public to it. Along with Tommy McKearney and two other republicans I sat in a pew near the front of the Church of Nazarene for his funeral service. Other republicans were dispersed throughout the mourners both inside the building and in its grounds. The church is situated at the back of a union jack festooned loyalist estate in Carrick. Years ago I would never have considered setting a foot within miles of the place. Now, it doesn't give rise to a second thought. Billy Mitchell had encouraged enough tolerance to make our presence unremarkable.
At his requiem service a touching double oration was delivered by Liam Maskey and Dawn Purvis. Elsewhere Maskey paid tribute to the man he described as his friend: 'Billy took great risks for peace. He went into republican communities to talk to people despite his history. He also guaranteed my safety when I went into loyalist areas.' It was an experience I had come to share. On one occasion accompanied by another republican, I was brought by Billy into the heart of a loyalist estate near Antrim town in a bid to broker an end to interface violence.

Often I would bump into him in the town as he sauntered through it with his wife Mena. They seemed inseparable. As a family man those who loved him most were hardest hit by his passing. Mena, his son Cameron and daughter Julianne were clearly distraught during his funeral service.
A well read loyalist with a deep interest in a diversity of subjects, Billy Mitchell's contribution to intellectual life was immense. Never an academic, he was nevertheless the intellectual equal of those who have graced the universities. While he had a lot left to give before his untimely death at the age of 65 years, it will come as consolation to those who knew him that his ideas on diversity and tolerance will survive him by many years.

This article, by Anthony McIntyre, first appeared on The Blanket website, http://lark.phoblacht.net/ on 31 July 2006