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This article provides an overview of the Red Hand Defenders.

History
The Red Hand Defenders (RHD) is a loyalist paramilitary group in Northern Ireland. It was formed in 1998 by loyalists who opposed the Belfast Agreement and the loyalist ceasefires. Its members were drawn mostly from the Ulster Defence Association (UDA) and Loyalist Volunteer Force (LVF). The name had first been used by Red Hand Commandos dissident Frankie Curry in 1996 and he was the leading figure in what was a somewhat unstructured organisation until he was killed in 1999. The group is an adversary of the Irish Republican Army terrorist organization and Irish nationalists seeking to relinquish rule of the six counties of Northern Ireland by the United Kingdom. . In essence, Catholic nationalists aspire to be part of the Republic of Ireland, while Protestant unionists wish to preserve their ties with Great Britain. The resulting long-term conflict in Northern Ireland is often referred to as “The Troubles”. The red hand of Ulster is a loyalist symbol of Northern Ireland generally linked with Protestants. The RHD was recognized as a terrorist group by the U.S. Department of State in 2001. The group does not appear to receive external aid. It has been alleged that the RHD name has been used as a cover for the Loyalist Volunteer Force (LVF) and the Ulster Defence Association (UDA) so the organizations can claim on the surface to have honored 1998 ceasefire agreements. ,, ,   Similar accusations have been made regarding the Orange Volunteers, another Protestant paramilitary extremist group that emerged in 1998. Interestingly, claims of responsibility by the RHD for certain attacks have overlapped with the Orange Volunteers. McDonald (2001) characterizes the ceasefire agreements as “official fiction”. The LVF denies these claims, indicating the war and their terrorist activities have come to an end. Loyalist Volunteer Force members were aware that any breach of the ceasefire could result in the return to jail for those paramilitary prisoners freed as part of the Good Friday Agreement of April 1998. This essentially served as an incentive for the groups to develop a cover name. As a result, the actual existence of the RHD has consistently been called into question.

Ideology
The Red Hand Defenders uses violence toward the goal of maintaining British control in Northern Ireland. The group opposes the peace process and peace agreements, including the Good Friday Agreement. Their tactics include murder, bombings and arson, with victims often including Catholic civilians. However, the victimization of Catholics appears to be more politically-based rather than focused upon religion. .  The religious emphasis nonetheless exacerbates the underlying political problems. The group’s “soft” civilian targets have included Catholic schools and Catholic postal workers, as well as homes and businesses. The Council on Foreign Relations indicates the membership of the RHD, LVF and Orange Volunteers likely overlap. These loyalist paramilitary extremist organizations are generally comprised of young Protestant males from Northern Ireland. The weapons utilized by the RHD include homemade pipe bombs, handguns and grenades.

Attacks
The RHD emerged when it claimed responsibility for a blast bomb attack on 7 September 1998 during a loyalist protest in Portadown. The loyalists had been protesting against the decision to ban the Orange Order from marching through the town's mainly Irish Catholic and Irish nationalist quarter (see Drumcree conflict). The attack killed a Catholic Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) officer. Since then, the RHD has claimed responsibility for killing a further ten people. Of the eleven people the RHD claimed to have killed, nine were civilians, one was a former UDA member and one was an RUC officer. It has also claimed responsibility for many pipe bomb attacks, mostly on the homes of Catholics. The group admitted to shooting a Catholic man, Brian Service, to death while he was walking home in North Belfast on October 31, 1998, and to an attack on a pub in West Belfast earlier that day One of the RHD's most notable attacks was the assassination of human rights lawyer Rosemary Nelson on 15 March 1999. She had represented alleged Irish republican paramilitaries, the family of Robert Hamill, and the Garvaghy Road Residents Association. Nelson had been working with Prime Minister Tony Blair toward resolving the conflict in Northern Ireland. She had also testified in Washington, D.C. about the plight of attorneys who were subjected to harassment and threats as a consequence for representing Irish nationalists. Nelson further informed that she and her family had been the recipients of death threats. The murder of Nelson was a significant setback to the peace agreement due to a fear of the need for retaliation. . Additionally, this murder constituted the first high notoriety attack since the 1998 Good Friday Agreement. In August 2001, the RHD claimed responsibility for an attempted pipe-bomb attack on a Sinn Fein Member of Parliament and an attempted car bomb attack at a fair shortly thereafter where streets were filled with civilians, though both plots were thwarted by police officials. The RHD also claimed responsibility for the murder of a journalist named Martin O’Hagan in September 2001, who was shot to death while walking home from a pub with his wife. O’Hagan had previously been threatened by an Ulster Volunteer Force member, Billy Wright, who became the leader of the LVF and was subsequently killed in the Maze Prison in Northern Ireland. The attack may have stemmed from the journalist’s report on alleged clandestine connections between terrorist groups and security forces in Northern Ireland.

According to the U.S. Department of State, the RHD claimed responsibility for killing a total of five individuals in 2001. In 2002, the RHD accepted responsibility for the murders of a Catholic teenager and a Catholic postman (with the UDA and the Ulster Freedom Fighters (UFF) also subsequently claiming responsibility for the attacks), and additionally bombed the residence of a prison officer. The group is also responsible for victimizing Catholic families in bombing attacks throughout Northern Ireland. On January 16, 2002, a news report indicated the RHD submitted a statement agreeing to “stand down” at the request of the UDA and the UFF after threatening Catholic postal workers and teachers. The sincerity of the statement was immediately called into question. The RHD resumed their involvement in violent activity in the form of a nail-bomb attack on a well-known republican several months later. The RHD successfully separated itself from the UDA in February 2003 with the murder of UDA member John Gregg, who had attempted to kill Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams almost two decades prior. The attack on Gregg may have stemmed from disapproval with the RHD that had been expressed by the UFF. The RHD is believed to have engaged in periodic bombings and shootings in 2003, and further claimed responsibility for an attack in September 2004.

Future of the Organization
It is anticipated that the RHD will remain active in Northern Ireland, continue to incite religious conflict, and interfere with efforts toward a peaceful resolution to “The Troubles”. The RHD will likely continue to pose a threat and engage in “small-scale terrorism in Northern Ireland,” despite apparent dissension and/or a lack of organization amongst loyalist groups. One of the RHD group members was arrested in relation to a bomb threat hoax in June 2001. ., , However, several RHD members remain at large. As noted by McDonald (2011), the killers of journalist Martin O’Hagan have still not been brought to justice a decade after the incident, despite promises to the contrary, while O’Hagan’s fellow journalists continue to be subjected to death threats.