Roy Garland
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Roy Garland is a newspaper columnist for the nationalist Irish News and a member of the Ulster Unionist Party.
[edit] Early life
In the 1960s, Roy Garland became convinced that the Northern Ireland civil rights movement was a front for the Irish Republican Army and Catholic Church which would lead to the persecution of Protestants. As a result he got deeply involved in paramilitarism, Orangeism and Unionism.[1]
Garland inherited a family business producing bleach, firelighters and disinfectant. This enabled him to give substantial sums of money to activists he supported. One of these people was William McGrath of Tara, an evangelical anti-Catholic group. However, Garland later became a prominent opponent of McGrath and helped expose his involvement in the Kincora Boys' Home scandal.[2]
Garland also joined the Orange Order and the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP). After a few years, he had grave doubts about the direction these movements were taking, and eventually left them. According to Garland, "...there was a lot of twisting of the rules, and also I heard stories about people within our organisation attacking Catholics and I felt that this wasn't right, this was not the war, you know, to protect ourselves - this was actually an aggressive war."[1]
Garland subsequently returned to the UUP, aiming to support a non-sectarian unionism.[1]
Roy Garland is a journalist and writer for the Irish News. He is also the author of several books including Gusty Spence and The Ulster Volunteer Force: Negotiating history.[1]
