SHE WAS Ireland's answer to Patty Hearst, the wealthy American socialite who joined the Symbionese Liberation Army after they kidnapped her in 1974. Though far from being an heiress, Maria McGuire came from the pleasant middle-class Dublin suburb of Churchtown. She had attended University College Dublin and, in normal times, might have gone on to be a teacher or a civil servant and never made the headlines.
But those weren't normal times. The international student revolt of the late 1960s had an impact on UCD, and the college, then located mainly at Earlsfort Terrace in central Dublin, was thrown into turmoil. The Troubles in the North added an extra, more lethal dimension.
I recall seeing McGuire at a meeting of the English literary society in UCD around that time. Even this normally-quiescent group felt the shockwaves of the Paris événementsof May 1968 as well as the wave of agitation unleashed by the students at Queen's University Belfast who set up the People's Democracy movement.
As an arts freshman, I recall being taken aback by the vehemence of McGuire's verbal assault on a senior academic at that long-ago gathering in Newman House on St Stephen's Green. She was unhappy with the way the English department was being run and the striking brunette made her feelings known in no uncertain terms.
But this was nothing compared with my shock at reading Fergus Pyle's great scoop on the front page of The Irish Timeson October 25th, 1971 about a month-long mission by McGuire and the Provisional IRA leader Dáithí Ó Conaill to buy arms and equipment on the Continent. There was an accompanying photograph showing a smartly-dressed McGuire, then aged 23, sitting in a Paris cafe with Ó Conaill as they told Pyle - who later became the paper's editor and died in 1997 - their story.
McGuire revealed that, after taking her degree in English literature in 1968, she had spent a year in Andalusia and two years in Madrid studying psychology but came back to Ireland in July 1971 to join the IRA (who later denied she was ever a member of their military wing). "I believe this is a crucial time in Ireland's history," she said, "and I couldn't have forgiven myself if I had not come back."
The pair had quite a sum of money to disburse. Ó Conaill denied reports that the amount was $500,000, saying it was "in the region of £100,000", which was still a very large sum and at least equivalent to €2 million in today's terms. The money was intended for the purchase of "rocket launchers, light machine guns, automatic rifles and sub-machine guns, with appropriate ammunition".
McGuire met Ó Conaill for the first time at a Sinn Féin meeting on August 21st, 1971, shortly after the introduction of internment without trial in Northern Ireland, which aroused strong nationalist and republican sentiment in the country.
They left Ireland separately on September 24th but teamed up afterwards to carry out their mission. Ó Conaill said: "A linguist was vital in this operation and Maria was capable and confident in conducting negotiations."
Ó Conaill had come across in the public mind as the epitome of the puritanical IRA member, whose devotion to the cause left no room for other pursuits except perhaps the odd céilí dance at the local Gaelic League centre. Eyebrows were raised at the news that he had been, as he put it himself, "enjoying the sights of Amsterdam" with an attractive young woman.
At this time, Dutch police seized 166 crates of weapons, including Czech-made bazookas, rocket launchers, grenades, rifles and ammunition at Schiphol airport. Fleeing from capture, Ó Conaill and McGuire spent almost a week hitch-hiking and travelling by train through Belgium and France on their way back to Ireland.
SHE TOLD A press conference in Dublin on October 30th that there was "nothing improper in my association with Mr Ó Conaill". Speaking at a rally alongside him in Dublin's Mansion House on November 1st she said: "Let us bypass the politicians. This is revolution, and the essence of revolution is action."
However, her gradual disenchantment with the Provisionals culminated in her leaving the movement after the events of July 21st, 1972, known as Bloody Friday, when up to 22 bombs were detonated in Belfast in just over an hour, killing nine people and injuring 130.
The following year, McGuire published a book entitled To Take Arms: A Year in the Provisional IRA. Much of the content had already appeared in the Observer.
Reviewing it for The Irish Times, journalist and political activist Máirín de Búrca was especially critical of the way the author elaborated on her "affair" with Ó Conaill, "in such a fashion as to cause the maximum distress to his wife and family".
De Búrca wrote: "It is fairly obvious that she broke with Ó Conaill because she knew that he had lost the fight for the leadership and would now never become chief of staff. In fact, she backed a loser: what more natural than that she should drop him without compunction? After all, she wanted 'action'."
McGuire disappeared from the headlines after that. She moved to London and in 1976 married Mervyn Gatland, who is since deceased. Little was heard of her until 2002, when she was a successful Conservative Party candidate in the British local elections in May of that year. She became a senior Conservative Party figure on Croydon Council in Greater London, with special responsibility as a council "cabinet member" for education.
NOW BLONDE RATHER than brunette, she was confronted with her past at a public meeting this week and promptly resigned from her education post. The Croydon Advertiser reported that Peter Latham, a leader of the local Save Our Schools campaign, referred to her as "Cllr McGuire". Latham said he had been reading a book about the IRA which "you, Cllr Gatland, might have heard about as you are Irish".
According to the newspaper, Gatland has been suspended by the ruling Conservative group on the local authority, pending an investigation. 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."
From the Provos to the Tories: Maria McGuire had come a long way.
• Deaglán de Bréadún is the author of The Far Side of Revenge: Making Peace in Northern Ireland (Collins Press, 2008, 2nd Edition)
