Tory councillor quits over IRA link
Updated on 02 December 2008
A Tory councillor and education chief has quit after admitting she worked for the IRA in the 1970s.
Maria Gatland resigned as a cabinet member on Croydon Council after being exposed as the author of a "kiss and tell" book about the provisionals.
In the book it describes how, among other tasks, she acted as an interpreter for the movement on an arms-buying trip to Europe.
The council appears to have been unaware of her past because the book was published in 1973 under her maiden name, Maria McGuire.
A spokeswoman for Croydon Council said: "The council has been advised that Maria Gatland has resigned as cabinet member for children, young people and learners.
"This follows emerging news of her connection to the Provisional IRA - which has come as a complete shock to Croydon."
Ms Gatland's book - To Take Arms: My Year With The IRA Provisional - was described in a review in Time magazine in 1973 as a "kiss and tell story" about her relationships with the movement.
It was written after she became disillusioned with the provisionals, and fled to England.
The turning point apparently came when 20 bombs were detonated in Belfast on July 21, 1972, killing 11 people and injuring more than a hundred.
"Almost for the first time, I wondered about the crippled and the widowed and the lives that had been changed forever," she wrote.
She is believed to have been sentenced to death by the IRA as a result.
Her activities only emerged after cryptic clues in a public meeting on Monday.
According to newspaper reports, Peter Latham, a leader of the local Save Our Schools campaign, referred to her as "Councillor McGuire".
Dr Latham added that he was a devotee of Irish history and had been reading a book about the IRA which "you, Councillor Gatland, might have heard about as you are Irish".
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