Goodbye Sam, Hello Samantha

The Telegraph has introduced a new online newsletter called Characters, which reprints choice obituaries from recent years. As the obits have long been the best thing in the paper, I naturally signed up for this one – and today they came up with a gem from 2007. It's the obituary of one Sammy Duddy, who has the surely unique job description 'Loyalist Paramilitary for the Ulster Defence Association and notorious drag queen who went by the stage name of Samantha'. Sammy, or rather Samantha, was known in the 1970s as the Dolly Parton of Belfast. She was a star of the cabaret circuit, her risqué jokes and extravagant drag outfit – fishnet tights, wig, falsies and heavy make-up – going down particularly well in Loyalist pubs and clubs (was Ian Paisley a fan, I wonder?). Duddy was a founder member of the UDA, but doesn't seem to have been regarded as a major figure in the organisation, and in 1981, in the wake of the Kincorra boys' home scandal, he was ordered to drop the drag act, grow a…