‘KINCORA BOY’S HOME: The sordid-Honey-Pot of Child Molestation, Loyalism & State Agents’ by Donal Lavery

A few years ago, I had the privilege of meeting a man named Roy Garland at a cultural talk in North Belfast. Little did I know that this mild mannered and pleasant man was the infamous whistle-blower, dubbed ‘’Mr. X’’ by the journalist Chris Moore’s book, who exposed the paedophile ring operating at the former East Belfast Boy’s Home. The scandal is now subject to ongoing scrutiny, with calls having been made for it to be included in the Historic Institutional Abuse Inquiry which the Westminster Government has set up (falling on death ears).

In a nutshell, and for those unfamiliar with the issue, Kincora was run by a Christian fundamentalist and Loyalist die-hard called William McGrath, who was a member of ‘Ireland’s Heritage’ Loyal Orange Lodge based in Clifton Street, Belfast. This shadowy figure established a doomsday paramilitary group called Tara, which had advocated for Irish reunification so that it could unleash a militant campaign to ignite a Protestant reformation-type campaign as a means of ‘civilising’ the majority Catholic population on the island. McGrath’s activities as part of a paedophile ring among Loyalism and the Unionist/British Establishments led him to be blackmailed into working for MI5. Basically, he led other Loyalists and political figures into the collective rape of young boys, who the security services could then recruit and blackmail based on their knowledge of these repugnant activities. Of course, the intelligence services do this sort of thing (blackmail) as routine practice, and it presently calls into question the vulnerability of those involved in ‘Dissident Republican’ splinter-groups to these squalid coercive ordeals, when you gather that some are compromised via links to petty criminality.

I read a book recently called the War of the Windsors: A Century of Unconstitutional Monarchy,  which alleges that Lord Mountbatten was a confidant of McGrath’s and a visitor to Kincora. Shockingly, there exists a plethora of information, including a chapter in Martin Dillon’s book God & the Gun, which mentions the names of figures close to McGrath and this whole affair. As a budding journalist, I became obsessed with informing as many people as possible about the whole thing, leading me to speak to many people with some insight into the episode and long nights of research. I recall putting all the information together before one cold Winter night with the rain beating down outside and actually having to grasp my own sanity at the fear and reality of the state, in an apparent ‘democracy’, being systemically involved in using young boys as bait to recruit informants/agents.

David Irvine, God rest his soul, provided a number of journalists with a list of names who had been reported to him as being members of the paedophile ring. There had always been a rightful suspicion that the same people were behind the murder of young Brian McDermott, a child who was killed and the body satanically hacked to pieces/burnt, before being dumped in the River Lagan in the 70s. This raised questions of a most unholy alliance, between occult elements and the Loyalists/Unionist/British politicians involved. Additionally, a paedophile child psychiatrist who was then working at the Children’s Hospital in Belfast had been involved in referring a number of young boys to the home over the years it was open; a man who had the former Secretary of State/Attorney General (Patrick Mayhew) attend his professional disciplinary meeting of investigation into his perverse activities – which appallingly decided to allow him to continue to practice medicine with children after he had been convicted of sexual offences.

There was one thing certain about McGrath though, he was not going to talk. He had been trained by MI5 to smuggle arms from South Africa and frequently crossed the Iron Curtain on intelligence missions. But to the day he died, he stayed quiet, after a risible length of time in jail. A pastoral worker in Ian Paisley’s Free Presbyterian Church claimed that she raised concerns repeatedly to Dr. Paisley about McGrath regarding this man’s ‘’corruption’’. Likewise, he was reported to have made sexual advances towards young men within the Loyalist ranks, bragging about his apparent ‘’friends in high places’’ status, to keep their mouths shut. There are some noteworthy parallels with the Father Brendan Smyth case and this, beyond the miserly length of jail sentence involved for the perpetrators. For one, it raises the question of whether the Roman Catholic Hierarchy were being politically blackmailed (to advocate an anti-republican line?) by British Intelligence regarding threatened exposure of Smyth’s (and others) activities and their systemic cover-up of the whole affair.

But more importantly than all of that and perhaps the most pertinent reason that Kincora has not been fully investigated – those involved in the rape and torture of children are not only still around (alive too, for the most part), but some are still prominent in politics and Establishment circles. Let me clarify that I believe child sexual abuse is among the most heinous and revolting of crimes, with life imprisonment being too lenient. But given this squalid set of circumstances and people’s suspicions of what was happening, it helps to explain why there existed a veil of silence (in both communities) during the conflict when it came to the issue. It was being used to recruit and coerce people into becoming state informants within the world of paramilitaries, politics and the Establishment. Why else would senior doctors have allowed this child psychiatrist to continue their trail of abuse after such findings? It was a sick and rotten reality which continues to stain.

Personally, as with Princess Diana’s case, I don’t think the full disclosure of what went on at Kincora and by whom will ever fully enter the public domain. Why? Because it would rock the system of governance, law and order, under which we live. The process is being delayed as long as possible so as to allow for many of the figures involved simply to die with the passage of time. For if one of the accused were to ‘’sing’’ like the proverbial canary, it would lead to a systematic review into wholeheartedly reforming all of the institutions under which we live to comply with maximum regulations of transparency and accountability. It would precipitate a real democratic revolution to ensure it never, before the eyes of God, can happen again. I would of course still advocate for anyone with any information whatsoever about past or present abuse, suspected or certain, to provide it to the police as soon as possible to allow for due process. But when it comes to the spooks and spies in our midst who ruined so many people’s lives, let us all hope that they will in time face an absolute judgment for their sins, if not in this life then in the next.