Loyalist paramilitary motivation has always retained something of the visceral, anti-Catholic, anti-Republican response that first gave it a rebirth at the start of the Troubles in 1966. That rebirth was a direct reply to the celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the 1916 rising. Other reasons for becoming a Loyalist paramilitary presented themselves as the Troubles wore on: revenge for IRA atrocities; fear that a ‘doomsday’ situation was approaching in which ‘Ulster’ would be thrust out of the Union and placed at the mercy of the IRA; a sincerely held belief that it was a man’s duty to
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