Davy Fogel

David "Davy" Fogel, also known as "Big Dave" (born 1945), was a former loyalist and a leading member of the loyalist vigilante Woodvale Defence Association (WDA) which later merged with other groups becoming the Ulster Defence Association (UDA).

Born in London, Fogel was a former British soldier who had served in Northern Ireland before marrying a local Belfast woman and settling down with his family in Woodvale, Belfast.

Fogel was born in London, England and first arrived in Northern Ireland as a private in the British Army in 1965.

His job in the army was to look after the stores; this is where he first became acquainted with guns and learned how to use them.

When he left the Army in 1968, he married a Protestant girl from Belfast, and settled down with her in a modest house in Palmer Street in the Woodvale area of west Belfast, located at the top of the Shankill Road.

Palmer Street was close to the interface with the nationalist Ardoyne area and had been one of the worst hit streets in a series of riots that blighted this interface area.

In June 1970 at a pigeon fanciers' club, he militarised the Woodvale Defence Association (WDA) and trained them as a military unit.

He continued to instruct the new UDA recruits in military tactics and gave lectures on Army and police interrogation methods and urban guerrilla fighting.

He was the second-in-command to the WDA's leader and the UDA's first commander, Charles Harding Smith.

He worked as a machinist in Mackie's engineering plant until he was made redundant in 1970.

Thereafter he found casual work and collected unemployment benefits.

Fogel first became involved in the loyalist vigilante group the Woodvale Defence Association (WDA) in late June 1970 at a meeting held in a pigeon fanciers' club on Leopold Street just off the Crumlin Road.

He had gone to the meeting following the Battle of St Matthew's.

Three Protestants had been killed, and this had made such a strong impression on Fogel that he wanted to take direct action against the nationalist Catholic community.

When Fogel interrupted the meeting, shouting out that "talk was not enough", the WDA's leader Charles Harding Smith asked him to "put some order" into the men and give them military training.

Fogel took up Harding Smith's suggestion and quickly became his second-in-command.

In a candid interview with British journalist Peter Taylor, Fogel stated

"The first thing I did was to tell each likely man to find one more reliable man. Then I did the same with them. That way we got a decent number – about forty. I began to train the men as a military unit. We marched and drilled and used a field out in Antrim for some training – crawling over the grass, up rope ladders, hand-to-hand-combat, target practice. I showed them how to make fire bombs. We also carved wooden guns for our training. ... But it would be dishonest to pretend that real guns didn't exist."

He enjoyed the important position he held within the WDA, acknowledging that he "walked around the streets with the power of life and death over people".

In September 1971, the WDA and other vigilante groups merged into the umbrella paramilitary organisation known as the Ulster Defence Association (UDA) with Charles Harding Smith as its first commander and Fogel as the second most powerful man in the organisation.

He continued to train the new recruits to the local Woodvale UDA unit, of which there were many.

According to author Ian S. Wood, Fogel admitted the following: "I taught them about unarmed combat – you know, how to break a nose, burst an ear drum, dislocate a spine."

He also gave them lectures on guerrilla fighting and the methods of interrogation employed by the British Army and Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC).

The UDA saw its first gun battle with the Provisional IRA in December 1971.

Shortly afterwards the British Government suspended the Parliament of Northern Ireland (Stormont) and imposed Direct Rule from London.

Fogel was the leader of the UDA's B Company, 2nd Battalion, West Belfast Brigade and enjoyed much prestige in 1972, having erected the first UDA street barricades and roadblocks in Woodvale.

When Harding Smith and John White had gone to London to purchase arms and were subsequently arrested in April 1972 for gun-running, Jim Anderson, a glazier from Crumlin Road, assumed command of the UDA.

It was structured along military lines into battalions, companies, platoons, and sections and had continued to draw new members within its ranks, becoming the largest loyalist paramilitary organisation, having about 50,000 members in 1972.

Fogel had been a strong advocate of sealing off streets linking to nationalist areas and in July 1972 advocated shutting off Ainsworth Avenue even though it would have meant some fifty Catholic families living on the street would be cut off from the Springfield Road and held within the Shankill.

When the plan became known, William Whitelaw was called on by Ainsworth Avenue Catholics and units of the British Army, under Major General Robert Ford were sent to the area where a stand-off with the UDA ensued.

In the street negotiations it was agreed that, despite what Whitelaw had stated in the previous meeting, the UDA could erect small temporary barriers and loose plans were put in place for joint UDA-Army patrols, something that the UDA leadership announced at a press conference in the Europa Hotel that same night.

He left the organisation early in 1973 after he was ousted from power during an internal feud.

The UDA was legal at the time; it remained so until 1992 when it was eventually proscribed by the government.

Fogel took control of west Belfast during Harding Smith's absence, and became leader of the UDA's B Company which covered the Woodvale area.

At the end of May, Fogel organised the first UDA roadblocks and barricades, sealing off the Woodvale area into a "no go" zone which the UDA controlled.

Anderson, the de facto commander approved of his action and gave Fogel his full support, and the operation attracted much media and press coverage.

Time magazine described him as a "tough, salty Londoner" who commanded the Woodvale Defence Association.

In an interview with Time journalists, Fogel spoke of his contempt for the middle-class politicians that made up the Ulster Unionist Party.

In June, he and two other of his associates drove to Stormont to negotiate with the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, William Whitelaw, who made it clear to Fogel and the others his strong disapproval of their erection of permanent street barricades.

His fellow members in attendance at the meeting were Tommy Herron and Billy Hull.