I would see myself as having went through a process of change, where when I was an active member of the UVF, I felt that I was engaged in a war, unconventional as it may have been, but I felt fully justified in the actions that I was taking at that time. However, during the course of the conflict, one searches for better ways to deal with the conflict, and I would now be very much an advocate of dialogue and politics to resolve our differences, rather than violence. Especially with the new political dispensation of the Good Friday Agreement, I think everybody has got an adequate means of expressing their political views without recourse to violence.
In terms of other people's perceptions of what you did as a member of the UVF, they might say your action was sectarian, they might say your action was loaded with hatred, they might say that what is required from you is a degree of contrition?
I wouldn't agree with that. I felt that there was a war, again unconventional as it may have been, and on the issue of sectarianism, to me it just happened that most violent Republicans, if not all, were Catholics and religion didn't enter into my thoughts at that time.
On the contrition point of view, I certainly don't wrestle with my past: I obviously would regret very much all the deaths that have been caused in this conflict. I regret being raised in a society that was engaged in political violence, and I felt the need to involve myself in it by advocating peaceful resolutions of conflict: I feel that's the only reparation I need to make and hopefully the future generations will not go down the same way that ours did.
