Page "Billy Wright (loyalist)" Paragraph 8

In the more strongly loyalist environment of Portadown, nicknamed the " Orange Citadel ", Wright was, along with other working-class Protestant teenagers in the area, targeted by the loyalist paramilitary organisation, the Ulster Volunteer Force ( UVF ) as a potential recruit.

On 31 July 1975, coincidentally the night following the Miami Showband killings, Wright was sworn in as a member of the Young Citizen Volunteers ( YCV ), the UVF's youth wing.

The ceremony was conducted by swearing on the Bible placed on a table beneath the Ulster banner.

He was then trained in the use of weapons and explosives.

According to author and journalist Martin Dillon, Wright had been inspired by the violent deaths of UVF men Harris Boyle and Wesley Somerville, both of whom were blown up after planting a bomb on board The Miami Showband's minibus.

The popular Irish cabaret band had been returning from a performance in Banbridge in the early hours of 31 July 1975 when they were ambushed at Buskhill, County Down by armed men from the UVF's Mid-Ulster Brigade at a bogus military checkpoint.

Along with Boyle and Somerville, three band members had died in the attack when the UVF gunmen had opened fire on the group following the premature explosion.

Boyle and Somerville had allegedly served as " role models " for Wright.

Boyle was from Portadown.

However in his 2003 work The Trigger Men Dillon broke from this version of events and instead concluded that Wright had actually been sworn into the YCV earlier in 1975.

Wright's sister Angela told Dillon that her brother's decision to join the UVF had in fact had nothing to do with the Miami Showband killings and Dillon then concluded that Wright had encouraged this version of events as he felt linking his won UVF membership to the activities of his heroes Boyle and Sommerville added an origin myth to his own life as a loyalist killer.