Background
Gatland was born Maria McGuire, to a middle-class family, and lived in the suburb of Churchtown, Dublin.
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Maria Gatland
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She was educated at Saint Anne"s School and then University College Dublin, where she studied English language and literature.
Career
She moved in the upper echelons of the organisation and had an affair with Dáithí Ó Conaill (later a Continuity Ireland Republican Army chief-of-staff), whom she accompanied to the European continent on an arms buying expedition. The expedition came to nothing because it was reported in the British Press and Conaill and McGuire abandoned the mission. After an Ireland Republican Army bomb went off on Bloody Friday in Belfast killing nine and maiming over 100, McGuire decided to leave the Ireland Republican Army. She was told by the authorities if she did so she would receive Special Branch protection.
In the late summer of 1972 she appeared in London and wrote a series of articles for The Observer, went into hiding, and wrote a book about her experiences in the organisation called To Take Arms, A Year in the Provisional Ireland Republican Army which was published in 1973.
She says that she never hid her past When the Conservative Party found out about her Republican past she stepped down as a council cabinet member in early December 2008.
She was subsequently re-elected as a councillor in the 2010 and 2014 local elections.
Politics
At the same time Gatland was suspended by the party, but was later accepted back to the Tory fold.
Membership
Provisional Irish Republican Army]
She is also a former Council cabinet member for education, a post she resigned from after being exposed as a former member of the Irish Republican Army (Ireland Republican Army). McGuire became a member of the Ireland Republican Army in the early 1970s. In 2002 Maria Gatland was elected as a member of the Conservative Party to Croydon Council as a councillor for Croham ward and in 2006 became Croydon"s cabinet member for education.
