Coleraine bomb 50 years on: 'Massacre spurred me on to join the UVF'

Today he is one of six councillors representing the town on Causeway Coast and Glens Borough Council.

A member of the PUP, he is also a former UVF member who joined the group in late 1974.

He then spent 13 years behind bars, which he says was for wounding with intent and explosives offences.

He told the News Letter that he had already been on a "slippy slope" towards paramilitarism in 1973, but that the Coleraine bomb had been one of the "catalysts" for his decision to join.

He intends to go to the unveiling of the new memorial on Monday, having already been to the unveiling of the plaque at the bombsite last year.

"We felt the shock," he told the News Letter, recalling the detonation.

"You felt the shudder. We knew right away it was a bomb.

"We didn't go down 'til about an hour after. There was like just a gaping hole in the Railway Road off-licence.

"It was a big shock in Coleraine, because Coleraine had been very peaceful, you know? The Provos hadn't really hit it too hard.

"It hardened a lot of attitudes. It was one of the reasons I ended up where I did."

Councillor Watton believes that councillor McGlinchey had planted the second bomb - the one that did not kill anyone - while those who planted the fatal device were never caught, with at least one of them fleeing to America.

All the same, it was a "joint enterprise" and councillor McGlinchey was sentenced accordingly.

Councillor Watton said he also recalls the wave of loyalist retaliation attacks in the immediate aftermath of the bomb.

It was put to him that people will say the UVF he signed up to is no different from the IRA - both were bombing people.

"I know they'll say that but I'm not worried what they'll say, because end of the day I knew what I was.

"I was one of those people had never been in trouble in my life.

"It wasn't just me, there was hundreds of men done just the same. Very respectable, very hard-working families, worked all their days. It just wasn't me.

"This thing about 'a small minority' - there was thousands of us. There was 40,000 men in the UDA at one time, for God's sake.

"People just forget these things. I don't forget them."

So what's the difference between what the UVF and IRA were doing?

"It was tit-for-tat. Retaliation. The IRA were going absolutely mad at the time. I know we were doing the same thing, but I'm telling you now 90% of it was retaliatory."

He said that through his work as a councillor he has kept a lot of other young men out of prison.

"Not that I get any thanks for it," he added.

Is he sorry for joining the UVF?

"I've already been on record that I'd never apologise for trying to fight militant Irish republicanism. No chance."

He also said: "At the end of the day, it wasn't about the UVF that day [June 12, 1973], or me. It was about the ordinary working people of Coleraine."

In 1973 alone the IRA killed 38 Protestants and 28 Catholics.

The UVF killed 21 Catholics and eight Protestants.

More from this reporter:

• Only in Northern Ireland… Report into paramilitarism declines to mention any paramilitaries

• Call for new law to curb ‘cultural acceptance of terror’ after alleged 'Up the Ra' incident involving Edwin Poots

• Gardai survivor of IRA landmine trap says people singing paramilitary 'propaganda' is the last thing he wants to hear

• Just the facts: As pro-IRA chanting spreads across Ireland here are the hard numbers behind the IRA's insurrection