Sir MIchael Hanley

On 16 September last Paul Graham told RTE’s ‘Liveline’ that he had been sexually abused by a senior figure in the Orange Order. Although not named, the abuser was Thomas Passmore, the County Grand Master of Belfast Loyal Orange Lodge.  That Passmore was a paedophile will not come as news to the Northern Ireland Office, MI5 and MI6. In 1973 he was named in a press briefing prepared by the British Army at Lisburn, Northern Ireland. The briefing concerned Tara, a Loyalist paramilitary organisation led by William McGrath, the notorious child rapist and Housefather at Kincora Boys’ Home. McGrath, who acted as an agent for MI5 and MI6, was convicted for child rape in 1981. To its credit, a number of senior military figures in the British Army tried to put an end to the abuse of children at Kincora. Foremost among them was Captain Colin Wallace. He and his military colleagues were thwarted by the NIO, MI5 and MI6, especially by a senior MI5 officer called Ian Cameron. Cameron was once a runner for the post of Director General of MI5. Those organisations and the PSNI persist to this day in covering up the full extent of the abuse at Kincora and elsewhere. The 1973 Tara Press Briefing (’73 TPB) described how ‘other people closely associated with McGrath and aware of his activities are, Thomas PASSMORE, Rev PAISLEY, Rev Martin SMYTH, James MOLYNEAUX and Sir Knox CUNNINGHAM QC MP’. In July 2018 Village published an article entitled ‘Kincora’s Smoking Guns: The Documents With Hugh Mooney’s Handwriting On Them’ which included a description of ’73 TPB. The ‘Kincora’s Smoking Guns’ article also described a number of other documents which demonstrated that the British Government knew about the sexual abuse of children at Kincora Boys’ Home long before the scandal was exposed by The Irish Independent in 1980. In addition, it demonstrated how a number of journalists Wallace had briefed remembered the Tara briefing. If that wasn’t enough, a number of Wallace’s colleagues at British Army HQ, Lisburn, also confirmed they knew about McGrath. Regrettably, Judge Hart who conducted a lighweight inquiry into Kincora was unable to comprehend the significance of any of this before he published his lamentable mistake-riddled report in 2017. Paul Graham’s RTE interview can be heard at https://www.rte.ie/radio/radioplayer/html5/#/radio1/21620062 Passmore was not named during the RTE interview but is the Orange Order figure mentioned briefly (at 13 minutes 30 seconds). The fact that Passmore abused Paul Graham would explain why he did nothing to halt the rape of children perpetrated by his friend and brother Orangeman William McGrath when he was informed about it. It is extremely unlikely that Paul Graham was Passmore’s only victim. Richard Kerr, who was a resident at Kincora, has long since described how he too was abused by Orangemen. The reference to Passmore in ’73 TPB was not highlighted in the ‘Kincora Smoking Guns’ article as its focus was on other aspects of the Kincora scandal. However, a copy of the 1973 document was reproduced in full in the printed edition of Village. WAS THOMAS PASSMORE AN MI5 AGENT? Thomas Passmore JP, was a senior Loyalist politician and Orangeman who operated at the highest levels of Unionist politics in the 1970s and 1980s. He became County Grand Master of Belfast Loyal Orange Lodge in 1973. He was unmarried and lived in Townsend Street, Belfast. He was not only an associate of McGrath but purchased the printing press which McGrath’s paramilitary group Tara used for its publicity. Passmore published an evangelical magazine with it. Like McGrath, Passmore believed that the Protestants of Ireland were descendants of one of the lost tribes of Israel. He was briefly a member of the Woodvale Defence Association in 1970s. It was set up by Alan Moon who was soon replaced by Charles Harding Smith who later became Chairman of the UDA. Passmore later became Chairman of the Woodvale Unionist Association. It supported the Ulster Workers Council (UWC) strike that brought down the 1974 power-sharing Government of 1974. Roy Garland was a member of Tara but walked out of it in 1971 when he discovered that McGrath was abusing boys. He immediately began trying to put a stop to it by telling the Orange Order of which McGrath was a senior member. Passmore was one of those who blocked the taking of any action against McGrath. He may have done this for any one of three reasons: first, because he wanted to protect a fellow child abuser; second, because he was being blackmailed by MI5 and MI6 for whom McGrath was an agent; third, because by 1973 he had become an MI5/6 agent. Perhaps it was a combination of all of the foregoing. Roy Garland persisted in his efforts to put an end to McGrath’s abuses but  met brick walls everywhere he turned. In 1976, the IRA killed Passmore’s father in an attack which he claimed was aimed at him. When Merlyn Rees was NI Secretary, MI5 smeared him and other Labour politicians as part of what they called Operation Clockwork Orange. One of the smears was that he was easy on Republican paramilitaries, especially his release of internees. Passmore reflected these views perfectly. On 3 December 1975 The Belfast Telegraph reported that ‘Mr. Thomas Passmore, said the fact that an ex-detainee had been killed while working with a bomb exposed the foolishness of Mr. Rees’ security policies…’ Passmore opposed the short-lived and unsuccessful 1977  United Unionist Action Council (UUAC) strike. It was led by Ian Paisley of the DUP and Ernie Baird, then leader of the United Ulster Unionist Movement (UUUM). The strike was disrupted by the release of an anonymous document which bears all the hallmarks of an MI5 dirty trick. It portrayed some of the UUAC leaders as homosexuals, something that was deemed reprehensible in Loyalist circles at that time. On 23 April, 1977,  Passmore launched a verbal attack on the strike which was due to commence in early May. One of his allegations was that a member of the UUAC had been