Smallwood, Raymond Robert (‘Ray’) (1950–94), loyalist paramilitary and politician, was born in Derry city; his surname at birth was Smallwoods. In the early 1970s he moved to the Belfast area, where he worked in a mill and as a delivery man. He joined the UDA, acquiring the nickname ‘Speakeasy’. He became a close associate and family friend of John McMichael (qv), whom he worshipped. On 16 January 1981 Smallwoods was the driver for a three-member loyalist squad arrested by British forces after shooting the republican activist and former MP Bernadette Devlin and her husband, Michael McAliskey. Devlin was hit seven times as she tried to shield her children, was permanently injured, and barely survived; McAliskey was wounded three times. Controversy surrounds the failure of the army to intercept the gunmen before their attack, and the relationship between this attack and earlier murders of H-block activists claimed by the South Belfast UDA. Smallwoods was sentenced to fifteen years’ imprisonment.
On his release in 1989 Smallwood shortened his name and became active in the Ulster Democratic Party (UDP), eventually becoming its chairman. He acted as mentor to the future UDP leader and negotiator of the Belfast agreement Gary McMichael (who called him ‘my best friend’). Smallwood claimed to have renounced violence but refused to apologise for his attack on Devlin; the journalist Jim Campbell claimed that he privately expressed regret at his failure to kill her. After his death a police source claimed Smallwood was second or third in command of the UDA South Belfast brigade. Unlike many prominent loyalists he maintained a modest lifestyle.
Smallwood advanced a political agenda based on McMichael's document of 1987, Common sense, which advocated power-sharing and a bill of rights as an alternative to the Anglo–Irish agreement. He provided regular political analysis of current events to the UDA inner council, acting as its principal adviser (most observers discounted IRA claims that he was a member of the inner council). In 1991 Smallwood acted as spokesman for a re-formed Ulster Loyalist Co-ordinating Committee, established as an umbrella group for loyalist paramilitary organisations; this evolved into the Combined Loyalist Military Command. He helped to compile loyalist magazines such as the UDA's New Ulster Defender, engaged in welfare work for loyalist prisoners, and acted as the main point of contact between journalists and the UDA. Many found him charming and reserved; some thought him mildly sinister. One journalist called him ‘the nearest replica loyalists had to a Sinn Féiner’ (Suzanne Breen, Irish Times, 12 July 1994), a view inspired by his habitual response to UDA violence – namely, that while opposing all violence he recognised that loyalist violence was reactive and would continue while republicans pursued a ‘military agenda’.
Smallwood was regularly interviewed in 1993–4 despite concerns that his increasing media profile was making him a target. Devlin was ‘sickened’ when he appeared in a BBC documentary in October 1993. Smallwood outlined UDP policies to the 1993 Opsahl commission (which thought the party's position ‘recalcitrant’). In the 1993 local elections he stood unsuccessfully for Lisburn borough council; in December of that year he helped to formulate the loyalist response to the Downing Street declaration.
Smallwood's role in brokering the loyalist ceasefires of 1994 remains a matter for debate. Sources aligned with the UDA present him as the key figure in the loyalist negotiations. UVF sources present him as influential though not dominant and note his occasional reluctance to abandon the UDA's traditional policy of Northern Ireland independence. Smallwood was certainly a leading intermediary in negotiations between paramilitaries, Northern Ireland office officials, the Irish government, and unionist parties. He was in regular contact with a peace group including priests at Clonard monastery; this group visited his house after his death and one of the priests led prayers. It has been claimed, however, that in mid 1994 he opposed an immediate loyalist ceasefire.
On 11 July 1994 Smallwood was shot dead by the IRA outside his home at Lisburn as his wife watched. His murder aroused widespread condemnation; in view of his role in negotiations, the provocative date, and attacks on several other prominent loyalists in the same period, it was seen by some commentators as a deliberate attempt to destabilise loyalism and provoke violent retaliation. (Other suggested motives for this wave of violence include a republican desire to show their supporters that their ceasefire was being undertaken from a position of strength, and a deliberate attempt to target particularly violent or articulate loyalists.) DUP politicians Peter Robinson and Sammy Wilson were criticised for helping to carry Smallwood's coffin (the year before they had joined widespread condemnation of the Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams for carrying the coffin of an IRA bomber who had killed nine protestant civilians).
Steve Bruce has argued that the death of Smallwood, by removing the only UDP leader who combined political skills with a high-profile paramilitary record and close ties to the UDA's military leadership, had serious implications for the long-term stability of the UDP. The secrecy surrounding Smallwood's career makes it difficult to assess his full significance, and the paucity of loyalist political talent may have led to exaggerations of his stature. He was, nonetheless, someone who sought political engagement, a peace negotiator as well as a man of violence; perhaps, like others who filled the same dual role and died as a result, his memory will survive as a focus for wishful thinking.
Ray Smallwood married twice. His first marriage ended in divorce. In November 1982 he was briefly allowed to leave prison to marry Linda Part. They had three sons.