The response to the news of the sudden death of former UDA chief Sam "Skelly" McCrory has been vast and varied.
Thousands of people turned to social media, flooding his Facebook page with messages of sadness, regret and deep condolences, describing him as a true gentleman, a solid friend and revealing how he helped so many in times of need.
Others reacted with less sympathy and open disgust for a man who simply viewed Catholics "as the enemy".
Read more: Former UDA chief dies after fall down stairs in exile
It is believed McCrory, who served seven years in the Maze Prison in the 1990s for terrorist activities, died as a result of head injuries after a fall down concrete steps at his flat in Kincaidston, Ayr, on Sunday.
A one-time senior member of the UFF C Coy, headed by his life-long friend Johnny "Mad Dog" Adair, he had moved to Scotland on August 2, 1998, to nurse his long term partner Harry – who died the following January after sustaining serious injuries in a car crash.
In an interview, McCrory said: “I came over [to Scotland] to look after my partner. I came here on a Sunday and I nursed him until he died on January 10, 1999. I was in love with the guy and the guy was in love with me. We worshipped each other.
"Death is a strange thing. I should have been used to it because I’ve lost many people. But I’ll never ever forget that day. He was a lovely man, a delightful man and he would have given me the earth and I would have given him the stars out of the sky."
Now the spectre of death lingers again amongst McCrory's friends and family.
This week, 23 years on, a funeral is being prepared for the former loyalist terrorist who is understood to have suffered catastrophic injuries in a fall down steps while under the influence of alcohol, an addiction he had been battling on and off in recent years.
He was 57 when he died on Sunday. He was just seven when his career in violence started, pelting bricks and stones across barricades in his native West Belfast. By 17 he was firmly in the sights of the loyalist paramilitaries on the lookout for willing fighters.
And at 18 he was recruited into the UFF, the Ulster Freedom Fighters, who are believed to be responsible for more than 100 murders. At 27 McCrory was in jail facing 16 years of incarceration.
In an interview with Danny Dyer for his "Deadliest Men" TV series, McCrory revealed: “I grew up seeing British soldiers coming into my country, houses burning, buses being blown up, rioting, shootings.
“I was about four or five when my dad was a vigilante, a vigilante who worked to protect us from what we thought were the enemy, the nationalist community, Catholics, republicans.
By seven years old he was already a law breaker, the start of a crime career that lasted decades. He said: “I used go round the doors to collect milk bottles for petrol bombs that night to protect the area and you’d get a couple of bob to go to the shop to get yourselves sweets.
"If you weren’t collecting bottles you were throwing stones over the barricades. It was drummed into us, I just thought Catholics were the enemy and they thought the same as us, that we were the enemy.”
Ten years after supplying milk bottles to rioters and stoning the authorities and neighbouring streets, McCrory was deep in the sense of vicious, loyalist paramilitary action.
He said: “ I’m a good friend and a bad f****** enemy. I’m not proud of what I did but it had to be done. I had to be dedicated to it.
“The IRA had the upper hand so we decided to fight fire with fire and fight the IRA on a level battlefield and they didn’t like it.
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“People will tell you violence is wrong but I once had a policeman tell me if you believe in it, then you can’t take that belief away.
“I had a strong belief that what I was doing was right. I didn’t do it to fill my pockets full of money. I risked my freedom and I risked my life. We were the businesses, there was no one better than us.”
In his youth, McCrory had formed a racist skinhead gang along with future UDA brigadiers Johnny Adair and "Fat" Jackie Thompson.
In 1987 aged 23, McCrory was linked to the murder of Francisco Notarantonio who was shot dead by the UDA in October 1987.
And in July 1992, McCrory, Thompson and two others were on a murder mission to assassinate IRA leaders Brian Gillen and Martin Lynch. At 6.50am while driving over Finaghy Railway Bridge, his path was blocked by a police car and as he tried to escape from a car with fellow members of an C Coy hit team, the British Army opened up on it with rifles.
McCrory had in his possession an AK47 assault rifle, Browning double barrel magazine, an SMG double magazine and a sledgehammer, and he said, “going on a military operation to eliminate high level IRA targets”.
A total of 33 rounds were fired by the Army and the RUC that morning and McCrory was arrested, tried and convicted of conspiracy to commit murder and possession of fire arms with intention to endanger life. He was sentenced to 16 years in jail and was sent straight to the loyalist wing at the infamous Maze prison, outside Lisburn, Co Antrim.
In the run up to the paramilitary ceasefires in 1994, McCrory represented loyalist prisoners in talks with SDLP leader John Hume and Northern Ireland Secretary of State Mo Mowlam inside the Maze Prison where he was "military commander". He said: “Some of my happiest times, some of my funniest times were spent in [the Maze].”
In 1998, after serving almost seven years he was one of 499 prisoners released under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement.
McCrory, like his mentor and best friend Adair, was exiled to Scotland after a loyalist feud and the pair spent their time watching their backs, still aware they lived in danger. But McCrory said he accepted what could happen to him.
And he was filmed back in Belfast being interviewed by actor Danny Dyer as part of his Deadliest Men TV series, visiting his former West Belfast neighbourhood where he had built a formidable reputation.
He was stopped at the port in Scotland, recognised by a police officer but with all papers in order, he was allowed to proceed. In Belfast, he wore body armour, knowing his face was on many people’s watch list ahead of a potentially violent end.
On the way to the ferry, he said: “If I’m born to be shot dead in Belfast, I’m not going to drown in the sea and that’s just a fact of life. People don’t frighten me, they don’t worry me and I don’t give them a second’s thought. Belfast is a long distant memory for me and I have good memories and I have bad memories.”
McCrory, believed to be the first openly gay loyalist paramilitary, survived his day in his former hunting grounds of West Belfast and returned to Ayr and his flat and his little dog without incident.
No longer needing to live a double life, he had a loyalist tattoo removed from his face, espoused multi-cultural society where people can live without prejudice, and he often travelled to London for Pride marches, the former racist skinhead fully accepted into the LGBTQ community.
He admitted hiding his true identity through his active terrorism years, and explained: “I found it very hard at the time. In the culture of the political situation, political situation, gays weren’t needed, it was like, ‘here’s another problem’. I think some of my close friends knew but it was dead secretive.
“I had to watch where I was going because of who I was and who I was attached to because of the tattoos. Being gay I had to watch who I was socialising with and where I was going just in case someone decided to set me up and I’d be [shot dead].”
Few would have thought the hard man of the Shankill would end his days dead at the bottom of a flight of stairs, not the victim not of a long awaited assassination attempt but a simple fall.
What happens now is between McCrory and the universe. But he was clear he knew things might not go his way in the end. He said: "My past is my past until the day I die that will follow me, and I can’t change it. But I can move on, I hope the rest of society can move on too. Your past is one of those things, and [mine will] come back to haunt me, and rightly so I’m a convicted terrorist."
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