Letters | 20 December 2008

Why did Gatland resign?

Sir: The uproar over the strange case of Maria Gatland McGuire seems almost incomprehensible from a Belfast perspective. At the beginning of December she was compelled to resign as the cabinet member for education on Croydon council when it was revealed that she was also Maria McGuire, who famously was involved with the IRA leadership in 1971–72. Maria McGuire is the author of an interesting book, To Take Arms — A Year in the Provisional IRA, published in 1973. The book makes clear that she has made a radical break with the IRA’s violent campaign. It seems that the final straw came on 21 July 1972, Bloody Friday, when at least 22 car bombs were detonated in Belfast, killing 11 people and injuring 130.

Why, given her clear rejection of terrorism, sustained over many decades, has Maria Gatland had to resign her position? After all, Martin McGuinness was deemed to be a fit person to be Minister for Education in Northern Ireland as long ago as November 1999 and, indeed, he is today one half of the collective political First Citizen of Northern Ireland.