William Smith (loyalist)

William Smith
Smith at Fernhill House, October 1994
Born	(1954-01-26)26 January 1954 Belfast, Northern Ireland
Died	8 June 2016(2016-06-08) (aged 62)
Other names	Plum
Citizenship	British
Occupation	Prison orderly Shipyard worker
Years active	1971 - 2016
Employer	Crumlin Road Gaol Harland and Wolff
Known for	Ulster loyalism
Notable work	Inside Man, Loyalists of Long Kesh - The Untold Story (2014)
Political party	Progressive Unionist Party
Movement	Ulster Volunteer Force Red Hand Commando
Criminal charge	Attempted murder
Criminal penalty	Ten years imprisonment
Criminal status	Released after five years
Parent(s)	Charles William and Isobel Smith
Relatives	Margaret, Elizabeth, Nan, Gordon and Jean (siblings)

William "Plum" Smith (sometimes erroneously spelt Smyth) (26 January 1954 – 8 June 2016) was a Northern Irish loyalist, former paramilitary, and politician. He had been involved in Ulster loyalism in various capacities for at least forty years.

Smith was born in Mountjoy Street on Belfast's Shankill Road into a poor Ulster Protestant family, the son of shipyard worker Charles William Smith and his wife Isobel. He had three older sisters, Margaret, Elizabeth and Nan (the latter dying in infancy before he was born), a younger brother Gordon and a younger sister Jean. There was rumoured Native American ancestry in his family; therefore in his youth he acquired the lifelong nickname "Plum" after The Beano character Little Plum. He was raised in a working class home where his parents sent him to Sunday school and taught him to respect the law. Like many of his contemporaries from similar backgrounds on both sides of the divide, the outbreak of the socio-political\religious conflict that came to be known as the Troubles in 1969 saw him become involved in paramilitarism.

Following the introduction of internment in 1971, Smith worked for a time as an orderly in Crumlin Road Gaol where he served six months for rioting against the British Army in the Highfield estate. Unbeknownst to the prison authorities, Smith was working as a mole for the imprisoned Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) leader Gusty Spence, passing on information about the conditions in which the internees were being held.

Around this time Smith was a member of the vigilante group and was part of a group within the SDA that later became the Red Hand Commando, including founder John McKeague, who decided to form a new, more active organisation. In 1972, Smith was a founder-member of this new group, which quickly became an elite squad augmenting the UVF.