Jimbo Simpson

James "Jimbo" Simpson, also known as the Bacardi Brigadier, is a Northern Irish loyalist paramilitary. He is most noted for his time as Brigadier of the North Belfast Ulster Defence Association (UDA). After falling from grace, Simpson spent a number of years outside Northern Ireland. He returned to Belfast in 2014 in a move related to an ongoing loyalist feud.

Simpson, a native of the Tiger's Bay area of north Belfast, joined the UDA in the early 1970s, claiming later that he did so as he felt that "there was no one to defend our streets from republicans in the New Lodge [a neighbouring Catholic district]". He would go on to assume command of the North Belfast brigade, making him one of the six Inner Council members that led the UDA. He had taken over from Brigadier Tom Reid, who in his turn had succeeded the notorious Davy Payne following the latter's arrest in 1988.

Simpson was, along with Jackie McDonald, John Gregg and Billy McFarland, one of the brigadiers on stage during Johnny Adair's "Loyalist Day of Culture" on the Lower Shankill on 19 August 2000. In a move that Simpson and the other brigadiers were unaware of, Adair used the day as the starting point for a bloody loyalist feud with the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF). For his part Simpson was reluctant to join the fight against the UVF but many within his brigade admired Adair and some became openly involved in the feud, not least David Greer, who had been involved in the Loyalist Day of Culture when Adair's men attacked the UVF stronghold, the Rex Bar. Greer was killed by the North Belfast UVF on Mountcollyer Street on 28 October whilst two days later the Tiger's Bay UDA retaliated by killing Herbert Rice, a 63-year-old Progressive Unionist Party (PUP) activist who had been in the UVF in the late 1960s.Tommy English, an Ulster Democratic Party (UDP) spokesman and veteran street-fighter, was killed by the UVF that same night in Newtownabbey, and before long John Gregg's UDA South East Antrim Brigade joined the growing feud.

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