I would say a life of two halves - he played a huge part in bringing about the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, but of course during his IRA years was instrumental in some terrible deeds. If there is an after life, I'll leave it to his maker to make the final judgement.
Lord Tebbit has said a fair bit about his passing today which I totally agree with and defend his right to say, especially after what the IRA did to him, but this one sentence sums up my views.......
'There can be no forgiveness without a confession of sins'
No emotion here, no anger, no rejoicing no relief.
Twenty nine years ago last Sunday since a good friend and comrade Derek Woods was killed on the Andersontown Road along with David Howes, both in my regiment. I was young then and still feel as young now but events catch up with us all in the end. I still cant work the whole NI thing out and gave up trying a long time ago.
It must have been incredibly difficult for the queen to have met him and to shake his hand but she did and the two got on very well. To be a member of a terrorist organisation he deserves every criticism but also grudging praise for his role in securing peace.
I came face to face with McGuinness in, I think 1998, and in the weirdest of circumstances.
I was sitting on the Heathrow Express waiting to leave Paddington. It was a few days before Christmas. On the front page of the paper I was reading were the pictures from the previous day's meeting at Downing Street. Blair, Adams, and McGuinness, smiling and shaking hands. Talk of a historic peace agreement.
The doors started to close and there was a kerfuffle as a group scrambled to get in. They installed themselves in the open standing space in front of me. I was gobsmacked to see it was them. McGuinness, Adams, two other blokes and two women.
Now I'm the type of person who believes in "engaging" with politicians and public figures at every chance, believing it promotes democracy. But a raging conflict kicked off in my head. I'd grown up with the IRA terror, and never had an ounce of sympathy for its tactics. Taken on the leftie apologists in the Student Union. Part of me wanted to say, "you fuckers, you nearly killed my sister with the Harrod's bomb" . Another part of me looked back at my paper, and thought, this is really good news, especially for the long suffering people of Northern Ireland. Should I not embrace that thought and wish them a Merry Christmas?
I never resolved that battle on the 15 minute journey, and felt vaguely angry with myself. I feel just as conflicted today.
In the end, the fact is that he turned the Republicans away from armed conflict. You can say that he also spearheaded said armed conflict in the first place. But wars end when people on both sides realise there has to be a better way.
Isn'the acknowledging the "good" he done just doing things on his terms? i.e. I'm gonna be directly and indirectly involved in bombings, shootings and beatings, then once I've had enough of doing that, I'll go about it the acceptable way. The way that most of the people I've killed tried to do it from the start
I think history will judge him better than some of us. You can understand people not forgiving a former IRA commander with blood on his hands, but he was instrumental in the peace process which has prevented much bloodshed. The problem is, you can't create the people to deal with, enemies have to deal with each other and they have to put aside the hatred. The Rev Ian Paisley found it possible to actually strike up a friendship with him and he was as hardline a unionist as they come. The Queen shook his hand. I think the healthy position is to respect the man he became rather than the man he was. Accepting that, some people rightly can never forgive him for what the IRA did to their families. But there are people on the other side with a hatred of the British with good reason too. You can't hate for ever and when all of us are dead and gone the foundations McGuiness helped build will be his legacy - I hope.
Every death is, in some way, a tragedy, including those with which Martin McGuinness was associated during the Troubles, but also his own.
I hold no truck with the IRA, or any other terrorist organisation, but, in any conflict resolution with such groups, it is necessary to talk with men of violence. It is equally necessary that those with whom you talk can bring their colleagues with them away from the bullets and bombs to the ballot box. In this McGuinness (and Adams) were hugely successful, and across the world you see other similar groups attempt to mimic their success. With the loss of David Ervine, the loyalist terrorists lost their only hope of a similar leader.
I don't have to like people to be able and willing to work with them (though the evidence suggests that McGuinness was personally likeable), it's the result that matters.
I will say RIP, because in my mind that is associated with others living in peace. The truth is that Northern Ireland can little afford to lose him, as with Ian Paisley (and who would have thought in the 1980s and 1990s that that might be the case), particularly with the additional pressures of today's politics.
Comments
If you wanna know what I'd do, Cabes, sink it like the Titanic.
Good ridence
Can you undo the horrendous things you have done? Unkill the innocent that you killed? No
he should have been behind bars for life for his crimes not lauded as a part of the "peace process "
'There can be no forgiveness without a confession of sins'
Twenty nine years ago last Sunday since a good friend and comrade Derek Woods was killed on the Andersontown Road along with David Howes, both in my regiment. I was young then and still feel as young now but events catch up with us all in the end. I still cant work the whole NI thing out and gave up trying a long time ago.
To be a member of a terrorist organisation he deserves every criticism but also grudging praise for his role in securing peace.
RIP
Scumbag
I was sitting on the Heathrow Express waiting to leave Paddington. It was a few days before Christmas. On the front page of the paper I was reading were the pictures from the previous day's meeting at Downing Street. Blair, Adams, and McGuinness, smiling and shaking hands. Talk of a historic peace agreement.
The doors started to close and there was a kerfuffle as a group scrambled to get in. They installed themselves in the open standing space in front of me. I was gobsmacked to see it was them. McGuinness, Adams, two other blokes and two women.
Now I'm the type of person who believes in "engaging" with politicians and public figures at every chance, believing it promotes democracy. But a raging conflict kicked off in my head. I'd grown up with the IRA terror, and never had an ounce of sympathy for its tactics. Taken on the leftie apologists in the Student Union. Part of me wanted to say, "you fuckers, you nearly killed my sister with the Harrod's bomb" . Another part of me looked back at my paper, and thought, this is really good news, especially for the long suffering people of Northern Ireland. Should I not embrace that thought and wish them a Merry Christmas?
I never resolved that battle on the 15 minute journey, and felt vaguely angry with myself. I feel just as conflicted today.
In the end, the fact is that he turned the Republicans away from armed conflict. You can say that he also spearheaded said armed conflict in the first place. But wars end when people on both sides realise there has to be a better way.
With that thought, RIP.
I hold no truck with the IRA, or any other terrorist organisation, but, in any conflict resolution with such groups, it is necessary to talk with men of violence. It is equally necessary that those with whom you talk can bring their colleagues with them away from the bullets and bombs to the ballot box. In this McGuinness (and Adams) were hugely successful, and across the world you see other similar groups attempt to mimic their success. With the loss of David Ervine, the loyalist terrorists lost their only hope of a similar leader.
I don't have to like people to be able and willing to work with them (though the evidence suggests that McGuinness was personally likeable), it's the result that matters.
I will say RIP, because in my mind that is associated with others living in peace. The truth is that Northern Ireland can little afford to lose him, as with Ian Paisley (and who would have thought in the 1980s and 1990s that that might be the case), particularly with the additional pressures of today's politics.