Ulster Defence Association

The Ulster Defence Association is identified in the account as a loyalist paramilitary group. Its brief appearance during the Price sisters’ hunger strike is striking because it places the group on the same side of a public demand as supporters of the republican prisoners, without erasing the political division between them.

Appearance during the hunger strike

As the sisters and their fellow prisoners refused food at Brixton Prison, the case drew public attention and support. Among the responses was a statement by the Ulster Defence Association urging the authorities either to return the women to Northern Ireland or to let them die. The account presents this as an unexpected intervention from a loyalist organization in a dispute centred on republican prisoners.

Significance in the narrative

Dolours Price wrote that she was amazed by the endorsement. She took it as evidence that, at a moment of crisis, a shared Irish identity could cross the divide between loyalists and republicans. The episode does not suggest that the Ulster Defence Association abandoned its loyalist position; rather, its brief support for the demand makes the hunger strike’s capacity to unsettle political boundaries visible.