Billy Wright (loyalist) - Loyalist Icon

Loyalist Icon

Owing to his uncompromising stance as an upholder of Ulster loyalism and opposition to the peace process, Wright has, since his death, become the most revered loyalist icon and cult figure in the history of the Troubles. His image adorns countless murals in housing estates in Portadown and elsewhere throughout Northern Ireland. However one of the most well-known of these, that on a wall near Portadown F.C.'s Shamrock Park home ground, was removed in 2006 with a mural of George Best painted in its stead. His picture appears on tee shirts, fridge magnets, key rings, and plates. He is regarded as a martyr and hero by hardline loyalists; many of whom have tattoos bearing his likeness. It is considered to be a status symbol in Portadown for loyalist men and women to display a Billy Wright tattoo on one's arm, leg, or back. Some of his more ardent devotees even have them on the private parts of their anatomy. His successor Mark "Swinger" Fulton had one tattoed over his heart. Most of these tattoos were created by a Bolton-based member of Combat 18, who tattooed many LVF supporters with Wright's image at houses in Portadown's loyalists estates whilst visiting for the Twelfth.

Immediately after his death, his grave became a shrine. One teenaged girl in North Belfast set up a shrine to Wright in her bedroom complete with his photographs. She explained to a journalist, "I'm not interested in pop stars. Billy was a real Loyalist hero and I like to go to sleep at night looking at him". Gunmen at a paramilitary display in Portadown in 2000 told journalists: "He did what he had to do to ensure that our faith and culture were kept intact." Wright was also taken up as an inspiration by Johnny Adair and the UDA West Belfast Brigade. In the immediate aftermath of Wright's killing Adair told his main gunmen Stephen McKeag and Gary Smyth that they had a free hand to "avenge" Wright's death, with McKeag almost immediately launching a machine gun attack on a bar in a mainly Catholic area despite the UDA being officially on ceasefire. The West Belfast Brigade would later reference Wright as a true loyalist who had been a victim of the UVF in a leaflet circulated to foment a feud between the UDA and the UVF. Despite this the two men had had a fractured relationship during Wright's life and according to Adair's sometime girlfriend Jackie "Legs" Robinson, Adair had told her that Wright was a "bastard" when the UVF leader attended a party at Robinson's house. Robinson wrote the incident off as jealousy on Adair's part as Wright was already well established as a leading figure in loyalism by that stage whilst Adair was still making his name.

The Belfast Telegraph newspaper summed up Billy Wright as having been "one of the most fear-inspiring loyalist paramilitaries in Northern Ireland since the Shankill Butchers in the 1970s". Peter Taylor offered an alternative insight into the reputation of Billy Wright by suggesting that popular myth had laid many killings and atrocities at Wright's door when there was actually little evidence to back them up.