Roy Garland joined TARA as a young man. TARA was a paramilitary organisation commanded by William McGrath. Garland was also asked to join the mysterious ‘London Belfast Committee’ by McGrath. Very little is known about it. Garland turned down the offer and, hence, did not discover its inner workings. Nonetheless, he suspected it was an MI5 front. McGrath often boasted of his links to British intelligence. Garland discovered that McGrath was an abuser of boys, girls and women, and tried in vain for years to put a halt to McGrath’s reign of terror at Kincora Boys’ Home. This nearly cost him his life.
Garland was one of the first Loyalists to engage in what later became known as the ‘peace process’.
In this article, Garland shines a little light on the ‘London Belfast Committee’. He also addresses the activities of Jay Wyatt, a member of TARA.
I first met Jay Wyatt when two friends saw me on TV and realised, they knew me. A short time later Jay and his friend arrived at my home dressed in rather flamboyant clothing. Jay was then lodging with relatives and had stored some weapons beneath his bed. The homeowner found these and called the police. Jay was arrested and held on remand but, it seems, never tried. He returned to the Tara Militia after being held briefly on remand.
He was never tried for the weapons but while on remand he was approached by an RUC man who asked if he knew a named Tara leader. Jay denied knowing the man but described the policeman, who I believe was a member of the Orange Lodge I had been a member of.
I was surprised to hear him refer to the London and Belfast Committee (LBC), which I had only heard of once years earlier from William McGrath who had tried to lead me to become involved in the LBC that I suspect was linked with British Intelligence. I refused to join partly because he would not explain what it was about. McGrath issued the invitation to join in the late 1960s or very early 1970s.
Jay was intelligent and capable, and his political views were constructive, but we had little contact after this. However, he had met McGrath at Faith House in East Belfast where another friend worked in an adjacent building. This man noticed several well dressed, distinguished looking men coming and going from Faith House, which was also McGrath’s home.
Later Jay Wyatt told me that when he was in London in mid 1974, he came across a copy of the Belfast Newsletter and was fascinated by Tara’s full-page article on Tara’s PROCLAMATION, which was plastered on walls in many parts of Belfast and nearby areas. He noted that Tara described itself as the “Hard core of Protestant resistance,” which he found fascinating.
The name Tara was of interest to British Israelites like McGrath who had formed Tara, the name of a place in County Meath. There during 1899 to 1902, British Israelites conducted a dig, believing the Biblical Ark of The Covenant and the remains of Princess Tea Tephi, said to be of the Davidic line, and an ancestor of British monarchs, were thought to be buried. This I believe explains why McGrath called his group Tara.
I had often driven McGrath to meetings throughout NI to give his lecture on ‘The Challenge of Ireland’ which he also gave few times in England and on one occasion while I was studying in England, he told me he was to give his lecture at a church in England whose minister he claimed was a Communist. This was very strange when part of his lecture involved warning about Communist plots against both parts of Ireland. I believe the church was Anglican, but it didn’t make sense to give such a lecture if the Minister was a Communist. I suspect the word ‘Minister’ might have been a cover name for a member of the LBC or a hardline element in MI5. I found it strange that I wasn’t invited to the lecture as I would have gone. The LBC was never mentioned by him again nor was it explained who the Communist really was.
McGrath’s Tara was an anti-Catholic paramilitary group whose democratic credentials were suspect, but Jay was welcomed into Tara. Jay said McGrath was a homosexual which was misleading in that the words sexual predator was more appropriate. He had abused many boys and some women during, and since, the 1940s. Jay claimed MI5 blocked attempts to report McGrath’s behaviour at Kincora where one boy was in pain after being raped by Tara’s OC.
I was present when the UVF walked from Tara, as I also left at that time. When Jay first met McGrath, he did not seem a typical Loyalist leader, his hair was disappearing, and he wore glasses and a cardigan. Jay said McGrath showed what he claimed to be Irish intelligence documents and had set up Tara platoons in parts of the Republic. He was known to have a contact in Irish Intelligence who shared his interests and was believed to be a sexual predator.
Tara was expected to play an important role when law and order broke down in NI and would be ruthless in crushing opposition. Tara’s activities stretched to Holland where attempts were made to acquire weapons and where they came across an enormous number of various kinds of weapons. Some Tara members became involved in South Africa, and one was killed there.
Jay was called to Faith House for an unusual session when a ‘night of the long knives’ was discussed and leading Unionists or Loyalists who refused to accept Tara’s plans were to be assassinated. Jay was told the man he met at Faith House was an Under-Secretary at Stormont and a friend of Tara and available to Tara. The man might have been a member of the LBC which Jay said was responsible for the leaflet The National Crisis of Faith. Jay thought ‘Under-Secretary’ was a cover name used by senior British Intelligence officials, or top MI5 people. Sadly, Jay Wyatt was drowned in a ‘swimming accident’, but I have no further details.
The London and Belfast Committee, which Jay called the Belfast London committee, was unusual but McGrath had spoken of it in the past. Jay said the refined gentleman they met at Faith House might have been a member of the LBC. The Minister at whose London Church McGrath had given his lecture could also have been an LBC member. This was committed to the future of Northern Ireland and was possibly linked with a hardline element in MI5.
At a very early stage when I was a teenager McGrath said he tried to prepare me for work with British Intelligence and the LBC might be a means of facilitating this. For this reason, he said I needed to learn to control my emotions, which conflicted with his claim that I had an emotional block. I was invited to join the LBC, but I had doubts about this and about McGrath and refused. He seemed shocked at this and said he and I were excluded from the LBC and other Committees. These practiced the principle that the end justified the means, and on this basis, McGrath engaged in anonymous letters and statements designed to influence events.
During a detailed discussion with the Under-Secretary the future of Northern Ireland was discussed. The English man said the European Economic Community of which the UK was then a member would lead to the NI border becoming obsolete and in practice we would be in a United Ireland. A European peace keeping force was expected to emerge as would a doomsday plan with support from sympathisers in the security services.
Tara leaders would contact Paramilitary leaders and senior figures in the Unionist Parties to urge participation in the plans. Anyone refusing to accept the plans, it was said, would be assassinated. Jay was told the Under Secretary at Stormont was a friend of Tara’s and would remain available to Tara. He and some of the Police, Army and UDR knew of Tara’s plans and were said to be supportive. I believe McGrath had tried to drive us into a dangerous sectarian war from which we would emerge badly weakened if not destroyed.
Further information on the dig for the Ark of the Covenant can be found here: https://www.newgrange.com/tara-ark-of-the-covenant.htm
A copy of McGrath’s TARA proclamation can be read and or downloaded here: