Tara (Northern Ireland) - Decline

Decline

Tara failed to attract much interest as its ideas were too esoteric for most loyalists. By 1971 McGrath's relationship with his deputy Garland had declined, as the two began to differ over ideology, whilst Garland had also been informed by some young members of Tara that McGrath had made passes at them. Garland broke from Tara soon afterwards and confirmed to the UVF that their suspicions about McGrath had been correct. A war of words erupted between the two groups, with McGrath and Tara regularly attacked in the pages of UVF magazine Combat and McGrath undertaking a letter-writing campaign to the press accusing the UVF of being a communist organisation. McGrath sought to boost the ailing movement by linking up with John McKeague, a member of the Free Presbyterian Church, leading figure in the Shankill Defence Association and founder of the Red Hand Commando who shared McGrath's sexual attraction to young men and boys. The pair met in Kincora boy's home, where McGrath took up a position in 1971, to discuss trading weapons for their respective groups. Around this time McGrath also made contact with another leading homosexual unionist, Sir Knox Cunningham, and secured funding for Tara from him.

Nonetheless by 1974 Tara had an estimated 300-400 members, which was significantly less than the group had at their 1969 peak. In an attempt to inject some life into the group, which unlike the UVF and UDA was not active in shooting or bombing attacks, McGrath imported a quantity of rifles, machine guns and ammunition from hard-line Protestants with whom he had close links in the Netherlands. The group continued to speak of a coming "doomsday" scenario in which they would have to take the lead in battling the Irish government and returning the island to its pre-Catholic roots, although beyond some drilling Tara undertook no real activity. According to Steve Bruce the group did little beyond releasing occasional threatening statements but was quickly superseded by the UVF and eventually the UDA. The group was known to spread rumours about senior unionist figures whom it felt were too moderate.

A 1981 arms find damaged the group whilst McGrath had already been caught up in the Kincora House scandal. McGrath pleaded guilty to fifteen charges related to child sex abuse in December 1981 and was sentenced to four years imprisonment, representing the effective end of the by then near moribund Tara. The name reappeared in 1986 when a leaflet denouncing the Anglo-Irish Agreement and predicting again the onset of the doomsday scenario was circulated although this seems to have been the work of a handful of die-hards rather than a reorganised movement.