Joe Bratty

Joe Bratty (c. 1961 - 31 July 1994) was a Northern Irish loyalist paramilitary and a leading member of the Ulster Defence Association's South Belfast Brigade. The head of UDA activity in the area during one of the organisation's most active phases, Bratty was suspected by security forces of playing a role in, or at least orchestrating, around 15 killings.

Bratty first came to attention in his native Ballynafeigh (an area in south Belfast) as a teenage street-fighter battling with local Catholic/republican youths and was responsible for altering the Workers' Party of Ireland slogan "Sectarianism Kills Workers" on the side of Havelock House to "Sectarianism Kills Taigs". Bratty, who was also known for his hatred of black people, also appended the initials of the Ku Klux Klan to this piece of graffiti. During his years as a street-fighter, Bratty, who had distinctive oriental shaped eyes, was given the nickname 'Chinky' by his Catholic opponents. Given the proximity of the two communities on the Ormeau Road, Bratty had grown up alongside Catholics and as such had for a number of years been accused of terrorising people he knew to be Catholic with beatings and intimidation before becoming involved in murder around 1990.

Eventually Bratty became head of the UDA in Ballynafeigh, leading his own unit from Annadale Flats. Bratty's unit struck on 7 September 1990 when they entered the house of a 34-year-old Catholic, Emmanuel Shields, and shot him dead as he lay in bed with his pregnant girlfriend. According to his family, Shields, who had a criminal record but not for republican activity, had regularly been targeted by Bratty and his associates for physical attack in the past and they had fired shots into his mother's house in nearby Burmah Street when he lived with her. Bratty christened his unit 'Ku Klux Klan', and members of the group, including himself, had the initials KKK tattooed on their arms.

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