Why Sammy Duddy is on this page

Andrew Samuel Duddy (25 August 1945 – 17 October 2007), known as Sammy, was a Northern Irish actor, having joined the Ulster Defence Association (UDA) shortly after its formation in 1971. He later became a leading member of the Ulster Political Research Group (UPRG), which provided political advice to that organisation.

Duddy was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, and grew up in a large Ulster Protestant family in the “Hammer” area of the city, located in the lower Shankill Road. He had eight siblings. His father was originally from Derry but had settled in Belfast and served in the B Specials during World War II. Duddy was born shortly after the war ended.

He attended a local secondary modern school where he displayed a talent for writing, and would often compose valentines for his classmates in return for Dinky cars or pens. At the age of 15, Duddy was apprenticed to a letterpress printer. His father held the same occupation.

Duddy was initially known in Belfast for his drag queen act, performing in the city’s clubs and pubs as “Samantha”. His costume consisted of a long, black wig, fishnet tights, prosthetic breasts and heavy make-up. He once performed for British troops on tour.

At the outbreak of the violent religious and political conflict known as “the Troubles” in the late 1960s, he became involved in loyalist vigilante groups. He joined the paramilitary organisation, the Ulster Defence Association (UDA) in 1971, the year it was formed. By that point living in the Westland estate, a loyalist enclave in north Belfast close to the republican Ardoyne and Newington areas, he was sworn in as a UDA member at a ceremony in the Westland community centre at which he had to swear allegiance to the movement on a Bible in the presence of a UDA colonel.

Known as a “court jester” by his associates, he never took much of an active military role in the UDA, although he was considered “handy with his fists”. On one occasion during the Ulster Workers’ Council Strike in May 1974, he physically barred Reverend Ian Paisley from entering the Vanguard Unionist Progressive Party headquarters where an important meeting was being held by the Ulster Workers’ Council Co-Ordinating Committee and chaired by Glenn Barr.

Sources

• Wikipedia — article.
• Wikidata Q7409742.

Heritage notes

Family root: diaspora-likely.

The directory threads Sammy Duddy back to the Ó Dubhda clan story via the surname-variants reality — the same family carried these spellings as it scattered. See the septs and the diaspora for the wider pattern, or the Clan DNA Project for the genetic connections being mapped now.