Roy Garland

Infobox Politician | name=Roy Garland


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birth_place=Northern Ireland

Roy Garland is a newspaper columnist for the nationalist "Irish News" and a member of the Ulster Unionist Party.

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. [http://www.bbc.co.uk/northernireland/learning/eyewitness/changing/voices/garland.shtml BBC NI - Eyewitness] ]

Garland inherited a family business producing bleach, firelighters and disinfectant. Garland later became a prominent opponent of William McGrath and helped expose his involvement in the Kincora Boys' Home scandal. [Chris Ryder, "The RUC: A Force Under Fire"]

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."

Garland subsequently returned to the UUP, aiming to support a non-sectarian unionism.

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".

References