Ulster Resistance

A Loyalist paramilitary style organisation which was formed on 10 November 1986 by Ian Paisley, then leader of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), Peter Robinson of the DUP, and Ivan Foster. The initial aim of Ulster Resistance was to bring an end to the Anglo-Irish Agreement. Following a rally in the Ulster Hall in Belfast, other rallies were held in towns across Northern Ireland. The group was organised in nine 'battalions' and members wore a red beret. In November 1988 there was an arms find in County Armagh and the subsequent arrest of a former DUP election candidate brought accusations of links between DUP politicians and armed paramilitary groups. The DUP claimed that party links with the organisation had ended in 1987. Two members of Ulster Resistance were arrested in April 1987 in Paris along with a South African diplomat. It was claimed that there had been an attempt to exchange information on Shorts' missile technology for weapons. In the late 1980s some former members of Ulster Resistance joined another grouping called Resistance.