Kincora's smoking guns - Village Magazine

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July-August 

AST APRIL

Village

published an article

about Hugh Mooney, the Trinity Col-

lege Dublin graduate and ex-

Irish

Times

sub-editor, who went to work

for the Information Research Depart-

ment (IRD), the UK’s black-propaganda

department. The IRD was attached to the For-

eign and Commonwealth Ofﬁce (FCO). Since

then more information has emerged about

Mooney. It primarily relates to the squalid Kin-

cora Boys Home child-sex-abuse scandal but

also to the Dublin and Monaghan bombings of

1974, and the smearing of politicians. This ar ti-

cle will conﬁne itself to Kincora. We will return

to the other scandals in forthcoming editions.

THE SCANDAL THAT

CONTINUES TO HAUNT THE

BRITISH ESTABLISHMENT

The Kincora scandal is not a par t of history and

should not be consigned to it any time soon. It

is a livid wound on the British body politic. It

resembles a festering disease which still has

the power to corrupt those in MI5, MI6, the

Ministry of Defence (MoD), Whitehall and else-

where, who have the misfor tune to be assigned

to maintain the ongoing cover-up that sur-

rounds it. The reason that the truth about it is

still so sensitive is because of the signiﬁcance

and inﬂuence of the senior Loyalist paramilitar-

ies, DUP and Ofﬁcial Unionist politicians the

blackmail operation behind it managed to

ensnare. The scandal did not end in the 1980s

when it was exposed by the

Irish Independent

On the contrary, the Loyalist blackmail victims

were exploited for decades, certainly well into

this century.

The scandal became an indigestible truth for

TV and print editors in the UK in the 1980s, and

remains so to date (with the exception of

Chan-

nel 4 News

and a tiny handful of

independent-minded British journalists). The

news wallahs of the UK would rather crouch

down before the Powers That Shouldn’t Be than

investigate it. Yet they criticise the likes of the

Russian media for doing precisely what it is

they are actually doing – wilfully ignoring and

covering-up embarrassing State secrets.

MOONEY AND THE 1973 TARA

PRESS BRIEFING (’73 TPB)

Hugh Mooney’s handwriting appears on a 1973

document which was prepared by the British

Army at Lisburn, NI, to brief journalists about

Tara, a Loyalist paramilitary organisation led

by William McGrath, the Housefather at Kin-

cora. McGrath was convicted for child rape in

1981. According to Hugh Mooney, the document

was written by Mike Cunningham. It was fur-

nished to Captain Colin Wallace, a British Army

psychological operations (PSYOPS) ofﬁcer at

Lisburn.

At this time Wallace and the British Army

were not aware that MI5 and MI6 were running

a vile blackmail operation involving the rape

of children at Kincora. This would generate a

lot of trouble for Wallace later on when Ian

Cameron of MI5 derailed his career with venal

lies because Wallace was persisting in his

attempts to end the child rape at Kincora.

Mooney lef t HQ NI at the end of 1973, so the

Tara document must have been created before

then.

PETER BRODERICK TELLS

THE TRUTH, SUPPORTS COLIN

WALLACE AND LOSES HIS JOB

Not everyone working in intelligence in NI

swam in MI5’s river of ﬁlth. Peter Broderick,

who was Wallace’s boss at British Army HQ NI

in 1973 and 1974, was one such person. He

instructed Wallace to disclose the information

in the 1973 Tara Press Brieﬁng (’73 TPB) to

journalists. Moreover, years later he had the

integrity to state on public record that he had

By Joseph de Búrca

The

documents

with Hugh

Mooney's

handwriting

on them

Kincora's smoking guns

Colin Wallace: his attempt to save the child rape victims of MI5 cost him dearly; William McGrath,

child rapist and British Intelligence agent

POLITICS

July-August 

3 5

initialled it. He made this disclosure to two

journalists, Paul Foot of the

Daily Mirror

and

Private Eye

, and Barrie Penrose of

The Sunday

Times.

Wallace retained a copy of ‘73 TPB. It

described how the ‘OC’ or Ofﬁcer-in-Command

of Tara was “William MCGRATH. He is a known

homosexual who has conned many people into

membership [of Tara] by threatening them with

revealing homosexual activities which he him-

self initiated. He is a prominent ﬁgure in

Unionist Party politics and in the Orange

Order”.

Also that McGrath “uses a non-existent evan-

gelical mission as a front for his homosexual

activities and also runs a home for children on

the 236 Upper Newtonards Road, Belfast (Tel:

B'fast 657838)”.

Sufﬁce it to say, this was the address and

telephone number of Kincora.

When Peter Broderick was given ‘73 TPB, he

scrawled the words “Clerks IP” across the top

of it. “IP” stands for Information Policy, the unit

Wallace worked for. In 1990 Broderick spoke

frankly to the renowned journalist Paul Foot

about the ’73 TPB document. On 8 February of

that year, Foot reported in the

Daily Mirror

that,

“This week, for the ﬁrst time, Peter Broderick,

Wallace’s boss at the time – 1974 - conﬁrmed

to me that he saw the document (The TARA

press brief used by Wallace to highlight

McGrath’s homosexuality and his role in run-

ning a children’s home) and wrote on it. ‘That

is a cer tainly my writing’, he told me. ‘I saw the

document and approved it’”.

Peter Broderick also conﬁrmed this to Barrie

Penrose of

The Sunday Times

on 11 February

1990.

‘73 TPB also bears the handwriting of Lt

Colonel Adrian Peck, who was head of PSYOPS

at HQNI i.e. GSO1 Information Policy in 1973

and early 1974.

Broderick – a hero of this story - was pushed

out of the MoD for telling the truth and sup-

porting Colin Wallace.

OTHER JOURNALISTS

SUPPORT COLIN WALLACE

A number of journalists have conﬁrmed that

they either saw ‘73 TPB or received a brieﬁng

from Wallace in 1973 about Tara based on the

information that was contained in it.

Kevin Dowling of the

Sunday Mirror

was one

of them. He gave the NI Historical Institutional

Abuse Inquir y (aka the Hart Inquir y), which last

year found widespread abuse of children, “a

copy of a telex he had sent to his editor in

1973” as a result of information furnished to

him by Wallace. The telex stated that “accord-

ing to Mr. Wallace the Commanding Ofﬁcer of

Tara was William McGrath and a homosexual”

and that “McGrath apparently uses a non-exist-

ent evangelical mission as a front to entice

young Protestant men into homosexuality.

Once in they are potential blackmail victims

and soldiers of Tara”.

So, we have a string of journalists, Colin Wal-

lace and Peter Broderick all conﬁrming the

authenticity of ‘73 TPB which bears the hand-

writing of no less a ﬁgure than Lt Col. Peck and

also Hugh Mooney.

David Blundy was another journalist who

was not afraid to tell the truth. He was killed

by a sniper aged 44 in 1989.

On 13 March 1977,

The Sunday Times

published an article entitled: “The Army’s

Secret War in Northern Ireland” by David

Blundy. It reported that at a British Army brief-

ing in 1974 “at which a

Sunday Times

reporter

was present, attempts were made to link Pais-

ley with the Protestant para-military group

called Tara, a small, obscure and ineffective

group as Ulster’s para-military organisations

go.

The Sunday Times

has a copy of an Army

intelligence summary on Tara which contains

accurate details about its organisation…One

member, which the summary names, is called

a “homosexual and has conned many people

into membership by threatening them with

revealing homosexual activities which he had

initiated”.

HUGH MOONEY’S

HANDWRITTEN INSERTION

ABOUT ROY GARLAND

A man called Roy Garland had been involved in

Tara but had resigned in 1972. He then spent

years trying to expose McGrath and Kincora

and became another of the heroes of this

appalling saga. He was one of those who told

Captain Brian Gemmell of British military intel-

ligence about the scandal only for Ian Cameron

of MI5 to shut down Gemmell’s inquiries. See

Village

March 2017.

A handwrit ten note appears on the 1973 Tara

The truth about Kincora is still

so sensitive is because of the

inﬂuence of the senior Loyalist

paramilitaries, and Unionist

politicians the blackmail

operation behind it ensnared

‘Ian Cameron of MI5 derailed

Colin Wallace’s career because

he tried to end the child rape at

Kincora’

The smoking-gun document; Wallace in the company of Lord Alexander during his time at NI HQ in

the 1970s

Lt Colonel Adrian Peck and Peter Broderick.

Broderick was later pushed out of the Ministry

of Defence for telling the truth about Kincora to

the media and for supporting Colin Wallace

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July-August 

Press Brieﬁng which refers to Garland and records

that “he said he resigned” from Tara. These

words were added in by Hugh Mooney's hand

and are entirely accurate.

THE PSYOPS MEETING HUGH

MOONEY ATTENDED ABOUT

KINCORA

The Hart Inquiry at least establishes that Hugh

Mooney had known something about Kincora. At

paragraph 6 of Hart Inquir y document KIN-200535

it is recorded that: “Mr. Mooney said [he] recalled

one meeting referring to the Kincora Boys’ Home,

but no reference to it as a homosexual honey-trap

run by MI5. IP [PSYOPS] had only been interested

in TARA the alleged Protestant paramilitary

group”.

So what was the meeting about then? PSYOPS

ofﬁcers did not convene to discuss the weather.

Their operations were mainly directed at paramili-

tary groups such as Tara. Why would a PSYOPS

meeting take place during the relentless and mur-

derous bedlam of 1973 with Kincora Boys’ Home

on the agenda, if it did not relate to McGrath,

TARA, sexual abuse, or all three of these topics?

One thing is certain: Hugh Mooney’s account

of the PSYOPS meeting is at odds with the Hart

Inquiry’s conclusion that Kincora was not referred

to by name at Army HQ NI as early as 1973.

MOONEY IDENTIFIED THE

AUTHOR OF ‘73 TPB AS ‘MIKE’

CUNNINGHAM OF THE MOD

The words “Some off-the -cuff information on

Tara for the Press” appear at the top of ‘73 TPB.

According to the Har t Inquir y (see KIN-190004 and

KIN-190002), Hugh Mooney asserted that the

handwriting was that of ‘Mike Cunningham’. Mike

Cunningham was in fact John Cunningham.

Mooney, it must be stressed, was not asked by

Hart to give evidence to his inquiry. Instead, Hart

relied on a number of documents which con-

cerned Mooney.

For his part, Wallace was aware that Cunning-

ham was an MoD ofﬁcer who had been assigned

to the Army Intelligence staff at HQ NI in 1973/74.

Cunningham, it appears, later went on to join

MI6.

There is no evidence that Cunningham was

ever interviewed by the RUC, or that he provided

a statement about ‘73 TPB to any of the many

Kincora inquiries including the one led by the cal-

lous and deceitful Sir George Terry, Chief

Constable of Sussex, a bent cop whose true

legacy is that he protected child rapists and ena-

bled them to commit countless further violations

of vulnerable children in care. Judge Hart certainly

deserves credit for exposing the lies of Terry in

his 2017 report.

Although the Har t Inquir y did acquire a copy of

‘73 TPB, there is no evidence that Har t asked Cun-

ningham to provide him with any evidence about

it.

Assuming Mooney is correct about Cunning-

ham being the author of '73 TPB, he is another

of those who emerge from this abyss of lies and

horror with credit: he tried to put a halt to the

rape of children at Kincora through the produc-

tion of the ‘73 TPB. Had he been asked to give

evidence to Hart, he would have undoubtedly told

the truth.

Bearing in mind that ‘73 TPB also bears Hugh

Mooney’s annotation, it is most unfortunate that

Hart did not speak to Mooney either. Mooney

died last December.

Hart did not have the advantage of talking to

Broderick either who appears to have died before

Hart would have had an oppor tunit y to make con-

tact with him.

Hart failed to realise the signiﬁcance of ’73

TPB; moreover, failed to use it as a basis for con-

cluding that the British State knew what was

really afoot at Kincora i.e. the exploitation of the

children at the home for intelligence purposes.

MOONEY’S FINGERPRINTS ON

YET ANOTHER DOCUMENT

According to the Hart Report, Tara was of no sig-

niﬁcance to the Security Forces until 1974. Yet

another document involving Hugh Mooney

debunks this error.

In 1973 Colin Wallace asked Gerald Bartlett of

the

Sunday Telegraph

to see if he could ﬁnd out

anything about Tara.

Village

can reveal here for

the ﬁrst time that a memo headed “Tara” which

was dated 19 October, 1973, was sent by Mooney

to Ms. Judith Bunbury at the NIO after Bartlett

interviewed members of Tara. Mooney’s memo

states:

1. “I understand that you have interest in this

extremist Protestant organisation and I attach

a recent proclamation.

2. This and the booklet

by Clifford Smith (of

which I attach a copy)

were sent to PR by

Gerald Bartlett of the

Sunday Times

(sic),

who obtained it from

Tara in the course of

an interview that he

had with the leaders

recently. [Bartlett

actually worked for

the

Sunday

Telegraph

3. Bartlett told Colin

Wallace of PR that the

Rev Ian Paisley is

implicated with Tara,

according to Tara

leaders. The booklet

is interesting since

[Clifford] Smith is

known to be close to

Paisley and has given

sermons in Paisley’s

POLITICS

Mooney also admitted that Colin

Wallace had told him about the

sex scandal at Kincora - casting

further doubt on Government

claims that the security forces

had no knowledge of the long-

running rape of children in care

David Blundy, another journalist who was

not afraid to tell the truth. He was killed by a

sniper aged 44 in 1989.

Roy Garland, ex-Tara but unquestionably one

of the heroes of the Kincora saga

Bent cop: Sir

George Terry,

former Chief

Constable of

Sussex and a de

facto friend and

protector of child

rapists throughout

the UK. His

dishonesty was

exposed by the

Hart Report.

July-August 

3 7

church”. The memo was copied to Army Intel-

ligence at Lisburn and reinforces the fact that

the NIO, IRD and British Army Intelligence had,

at the very least, an interest in Tara prior to

October 1973, and that Wallace was encourag-

ing the press to do likewise.

MOONEY TALKS FRANKLY TO

THE

SUNDAY CORRESPONDENT

The disputed ﬁndings of the Hart Report are fur-

ther undermined by a report in

The Sunday

Correspondent

newspaper dated 18 March 1990.

Kevin Toolis, one of the newspaper’s more accom-

plished reporters, secured an interview with

“Hugh Mooney, a former Foreign Ofﬁce ‘black

propagandist’ expert who had worked in the

same unit in Northern Ireland as Wallace”. The

report went on to say that, “Mooney also admit-

ted that Mr Wallace had told him about the above

sex scandal at the Kincora boys home in Belfast

- casting further doubt on Government claims

that the security forces had no knowledge of the

long-running rape and bugger y of children in care.

‘I do know he mentioned it. He was dropping it

in and feeling his way. He kept pushing it. But I

could never understand why. I thought it was

totally irrelevant to our concerns. I did get the

feeling he was pushing this”.

In the extremely unlikely event that Hugh

Mooney was somehow misquoted by the

Sunday

Correspondent

, there is absolutely no evidence

that he made any sor t of a complaint to the news-

paper about it.

Despite the extremely serious nature of what

Mooney revealed to Toolis, neither the RUC, nor

the Har t Inquir y appear to have asked either man

to make a formal statement about any of the

issues raised in this article, or to provide them

with any sort of evidence.

ACCORDING TO MOONEY’S

LETTER OF 4 DECEMBER 1992,

THE MINISTRY OF DEFENCE

MISLED THE HOUSE OF

COMMONS

There is yet more. In the early 1990s the House

of Commons Defence Committee investigated

some of the claims made by Colin Wallace. Hugh

Mooney was aware of what was going on and

sent a let ter dated 1 December 1992 to the “Infor-

mation Department” of the FCO. It read as

follows:

“Dear Margaret,

Since talking to you about the House of Commons

Defence Commit tee’s special report on Colin Wal-

lace, I have had a chance to look at the documents

and fear that the Ministry can be accused of mis-

leading the Committee.

In his letter dated 14 February, the clerk to the

committee asked for a copy of a document relat-

ing to TARA reproduced on page 292 of Paul

Foot’s [book], Who Framed Colin Wallace [i.e. the

‘73TPB’]. In reply, the private secretary said: ...

“We have not been able to establish whether this

is an ofﬁcial document.

This is surprising since the MoD has identiﬁed

the of ﬁcial who originated the document from his

distinctive italic note which said ‘Some “off-the-

cuff” information on TARA for the Press’. I myself

recall passing the document to Wallace. Other

manuscript notes on the page show that it was

entered as page 45 of Information Policy ﬁle at

Headquarters Northern Ireland. All of this is

known to Wallace and his supporters, who can

be expected to raise it. The MoD will be found to

have lied and Wallace’s credibility will have been

increased”.

FATAL HART FAILURE

There are many former residents of Kincora and

other care homes whose lives were blighted and

in some cases destroyed by what happened to

them in the 1960s and 1970s. Like countless other

sex abuse sur vivors, a large number of them lead

miserable, lonely and isolated lives. The truth

needs to be told by the British Government for

their sake.

Despite the fact the Hart Report has brought

much useful information to light – and is to be

commended for so doing – it cannot be taken as

the last word on this appalling scandal.

The news wallahs of the

UK criticise the likes of the

Russian media for doing what

they themselves do – wilfully

covering-up embarrassing

State secrets

Hugh Mooney

A thorn in the side of the British Establishment, the late Paul Foot, a rare example of a British

journalist who had the guts to take on MI5. He died in 2004 aged 66 of a heart attack. On the

right, his book on Colin Wallace.

Kevin Toolis, the signiﬁcance of his hugely

important interview with Hugh Mooney in the

Sunday Correspondent was overlooked by the

Hart Inquiry.

Sir Anthony Hart: his inquiry was deﬁcient