Combined Loyalist Military Command

The Combined Loyalist Military Command is an umbrella body for loyalist paramilitary groups in Northern Ireland set up in the early 1990s, recalling the earlier Ulster Army Council and Ulster Loyalist Central Co-ordinating Committee.

Bringing together the leaderships of the Ulster Defence Association, the Ulster Volunteer Force and the Red Hand Commando, the CLMC sought to ensure that the groups would work towards the same goals. The group was made up of a number of 'Liaison Officers' who were senior figures from the paramilitary groups themselves, as well as from the Ulster Democratic Party and the loyalist Progressive Unionist Party. The UDP was made up of representatives from UDA and the PUP was made up of representatives from both the RHC and UVF.

The CLMC first tested the idea of a ceasefire in 1991 when it called a halt to all action from 29 April to 4 July of that year. The only breach of the 10-week ceasefire was the killing by the Ulster Freedom Fighters of Eddie Fullerton, a Sinn Féin Councillor in Buncrana, County Donegal. The UDA justified the killing, insisting that the ceasefire only applied within Northern Ireland. The ceasefire indicated that the CLMC was open to the possibility of ending its campaign and a line of negotiation was opened afterwards with Robin Eames, the head of the Church of Ireland.

The only paramilitary action claimed in the name of the CLMC was a rocket attack on Crumlin Road Prison on 13 December 1991, in retaliation for an IRA bomb in the prison on 24 November 1991 which killed two loyalist prisoners. An RPG-7 was fired at the canteen block where republican prisoners were having their evening meal but the rocket bounced off a window grille and failed to explode

After a long process of consultation with members and activists across Northern Ireland, the CLMC called a ceasefire on 13 October 1994, bringing loyalists fully into the peace process. The ceasefire was announced at a press conference at Fernhill House in the Glencairn area of the Shankill. Former UVF commander and PUP politician Gusty Spence read out the ceasefire statement which included an apology for the innocent victims of loyalist violence.

"In all sincerity, we offer to the loved ones of all innocent victims over the past twenty-five years, abject and true remorse. No words of ours will compensate for the intolerable suffering they have undergone during the conflict."

The ceasefire, however, proved difficult to maintain and in 1996 the CLMC was forced to distance itself from the murder of Catholic taxi driver, Michael McGoldrick by the UVF's Mid-Ulster Brigade. They were further embarrassed by television pictures that year showing loyalists at Drumcree Church being led against the security forces by Billy Wright, at the time the leader of the Mid-Ulster UVF. Following the unsanctioned killing of a Catholic taxi driver by his brigade, Wright, along with the Portadown unit of the Mid-Ulster UVF, was stood down by the UVF's Brigade Staff (Belfast leadership). Wright was soon expelled from the UVF for his renegade actions along with a number of his followers who soon reconstituted as the Loyalist Volunteer Force, continuing without ceasefire.

Despite no longer having full control of Loyalism, the CLMC carried on and supported the signing of the Belfast Agreement. However, since then the CLMC has effectively ceased to exist as the UVF and UDA were embroiled in a loyalist feud over Johnny Adair and commitment to the Agreement has wavered. Overall control of Loyalism has largely been lost to the CLMC and, whilst it is still theoretically maintained, it is no longer the important body that it once was.