Adair himself was a member of the NF Skinz, who graduated from soccer hooliganism to terrorism. These boys were once just an ordinary gang of thugs who were then elevated into defenders of the people. They are not just motivated by drugs, that's facile. Even with their leader back in prison this weekend, the police officer said this closely knit group still has the capability to cause mayhem and sectarian carnage on the streets of Greater Belfast. Their stronghold is the Lower Shankill estate, a maze of publicly owned houses close to the nationalist Unity Flats and Antrim Road.
Unemployment is high, educational achievement low.
When the inter-loyalist violence erupted on the Shankill Road last Saturday, C company's first move was to 'cleanse' their base of any supporters of the rival Ulster Volunteer Force. Some of the families were targeted because their sons played in the Shankill Protestant Boys, a flute band with UVF connections. By the middle of last week anyone with even a tentative link to the UVF had been forcibly expelled from the Lower Shankill estate. Agnes Street links the Shankill with the Crumlin Road where UFF member Jackie Coulter and former loyalist activist Bobby Mahood were killed on Monday. For Shankill residents the street has become the dividing line between the two halves of their community.