And I've heard of that quaint "custom", however, I was there on a rainy day, so I don't care.

And I need some extraneous source to get the "gift of gab" like I need a hole in the head.

Having said that, Blarney Castle is gorgeous, and on a rainy day, quite scary up on the parapets.

with the UDF?  Maginnis was prolly in charge of at least a company or soldiers, and large proportion of which were runing guns at one point or another, or who participated in kneekappings, extortion and other murders.  If he went into the politics after serving in the UDR he was almost certainly an operative at the time of serving. He'd have certainly turned a blind eye at times or he could never have proceeded into the Party.

lovely bunch of lads. My god.  You must be young.

There were repeated allegations throughout the UDR's history that many of the units's members were covertly aiding the loyalist paramilitary groups in Northern Ireland often through dual-membership. Many of these allegations have since been shown to be accurate from information contained in official declassified documents.[5]

Original Anti-UDR posterOn 3 May 2006 the British Government released documents that showed overlapping membership between British Army units like the Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR) and loyalist paramilitary groups was a wider problem than a "few bad apples" as was often claimed. The documents include a report titled "Subversion in the UDR" which details the problem. In 1973;

an estimated 5-15% of UDR soldiers were directly linked to loyalist paramilitary groups,
it was believed that the "best single source of weapons, and the only significant source of modern weapons, for Protestant extremist groups was the UDR",
it was feared UDR troops were loyal to "Ulster" alone rather than to "Her Majesty's Government",
the British Government knew that UDR weapons were being used in the killing of Roman Catholic civilians by loyalist paramilitaries. [6]
Despite knowing that the UDR had problems and that over 200 weapons had been passed from British Army hands to loyalist paramilitaries by 1973, the British Government went on to increase the role of the UDR in maintaining order in Northern Ireland. This was part of the wider "Normalisation, Ulsterisation, and Criminalisation" strategy to quell the violence of the IRA.[7]

Two UDR soldiers, who were also members of the Ulster Volunteer Force, were convicted of the 1975 killing of three members of the pop group the Miami Showband in a UVF attack.

In 1983, UDR soldiers, known as the UDR Four or Armagh Four, were arrested in the murder of Adrian Carroll. All were convicted but an appeal led to the release of three of the group in 1992. [8]

In 1989, 28 UDR soldiers were arrested by the Royal Ulster Constabulary as part of the Stevens Inquiry into security force collusion with paramilitaries. Six of those arrested were later awarded damages over their arrests.

In 1999 David Jordan, a former UDR soldier, allegedly broke down in a bar and admitted to being part of a patrol that killed nationalist councillor Patsy Kelly in 1974. Jordan also implicated former Democratic Unionist Party Northern Ireland Assembly member Oliver Gibson in the murder [9]

That is guilt by association. And then he got a peerage.  There are by and large the men who he lead as a commisioned officer in the British Army.

reputation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/...

heavens. Real charmers.

http://thegreatweeazoo.blogspot.com/...

and plenty of accusations.  

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/...

http://www.irishblogs.ie/...

Tory-Lite.  A political pain in the ass like the Greens in the US.

get with the programme. And as to character assassins:

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/...