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 Royal Army Ordnance Corps soldier who had served in Northern Ireland before marrying a local Belfast woman and settling down with his family in Woodvale, Belfast.

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

Early life Fogel was born in London, England and first arrived in Northern Ireland as a private in the Royal Army Ordnance Corps in 1965. His job in the Army was to look after weapon 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. 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.

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". He also gave them lectures on guerrilla fighting and the methods of interrogation employed by British security forces in Northern Ireland. 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. 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 British Army troops under the command of 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.

Fall from power Following Harding Smith's release from imprisonment and subsequent return to Belfast, there was a power struggle within the UDA. Harding Smith had declared to his men upon his return: "I'm the boss. I take orders from no one". Harding Smith became joint Chairman of the UDA with Jim Anderson while Fogel was interested in taking the organisation down a political path. He, along with UDA "enforcer" Ernie "Duke" Elliott, even had meetings with the Official Irish Republican Army (OIRA) in Dublin in an attempt to seek common ground and explore the possibility of reaching a working-class settlement with Catholics. He had been killed by a shotgun blast to the face. Rumours circulated that Elliott had been killed because he was a Marxist, something frowned upon in loyalism, and Fogel confirmed that Elliott had been a keen reader of the works of Che Guevara.

Fogel believed he was being set up by his associates and before long Harding Smith moved against him. Fogel was accused of embezzling funds from the UDA by Harding Smith, who also claimed that a senior Army officer had warned him that Fogel was, in some unspecified manner, a danger to the UDA and an informer. Fogel was even taken into custody by Harding Smith's men for a three-hour period during which he was warned that he must leave the Shankill. When Tommy Herron, the formidable East Belfast brigadier and the UDA's vice-chairman and spokesman, appeared on the scene to challenge Harding Smith's leadership, Fogel was ousted from his position of power. Fearing there would be an attempt on his life, Fogel left the UDA and Northern Ireland for good in January 1973, transferring to England for a life of safe obscurity.

Fogel's final involvement came just after he left Belfast when two journalists from the Sunday Times were brought to his home in southern England for an interview. In the course of the interview, Fogel informed them that the UDA had already imported several shipments of illegal arms, including one brought through the Port of Dublin. The revelations caused alarm among the UDA leadership as they were still presenting themselves as law-abiding and feared the organisation might face legal sanctions if their stockpiling of weapons came out.