Rebel turned architect of a lasting peace
MARTIN McGuinness will be remembered for two things. In the first half of his adult life, he was a leader of a ruthless, disciplined and terrifyingly destructive Provisional IRA campaign, which was the largest contributor to the loss of some 3,500 lives in a 25-year conflict.
While not without effect, it was making no progress in its main aim of bringing about a United Ireland by forcing British withdrawal. Allowing for some overlap or transition, in the second half of his political life, he became not only a lead peacemaker and negotiator in long and difficult discussions, but finally a person who for nearly ten years implemented, as deputy first minister, the Good Friday Agreement and its successors.
It cannot be disputed that by the late 1960s Northern Ireland, after decades of discriminatory one-party unionist rule designed to encourage nationalists to leave, was ripe for revolt. While the civil rights campaign brought the issue to the fore, British and unionist efforts to stave off the collapse of the government of Northern Ireland in the early 1970s led to a fork in the road for nationalists. While some, like fellow Derryman John Hume, were determined to create a new constitutional political force, the SDLP, that would actively participate in a politics with changed rules, others resorted to the traditional method of armed resistance to finish, as they would have it, the job of freeing Ireland.
THE disintegration of the unionist government did not mean the collapse of the will of the unionist community to resist forced incorporation in a United Ireland, nor was there ever as much political support in Britain, as Irish republicans imagined, for a capitulation to the IRA or for the idea that the territory of Northern Ireland and a majority of its people were surplus to its requirements.
Martin McGuinness indisputably belonged originally to the fighting wing of the IRA, and came to a leadership position at a very early age. He was respected by his own, and a court conviction made it unnecessary for him to deny his IRA involvement, even if there was no agreement on the dates. One of the strengths he was able to use was that he did not have to prove anything about himself. In the 1970s, there was a Protestant butcher in Co. Donegal who was being harassed by local republicans. He appealed to Martin McGuinness, who had also been in the butcher’s trade, and who, having investigated the circumstances, came down in his favour. The butcher later emigrated to Canada, where he wrote about the case, with a favourable mention of McGuinness, despite a wide gulf in political outlook. On the other hand, in the summer of 1994, McGuinness had no apologies to make about the IRA’s assassination of Ray Smallwoods, a UDA leader, once involved in the attempt on the life of Bernadette McAliskey, but who had latterly become a leading loyalist strategist.
In the 1980s, following the hunger strikes and the election of three of its victims prior to their deaths, the republican movement under Northern leadership operated for a substantial period of time on the twin strategy of armalite and ballot box, but, ultimately, one cramped the other.
Martin McGuinness was with the party’s president Gerry Adams, one of a tight leadership group who realised from around 1990, if not earlier, that the armed campaign could not progress further and that there was a need to develop an alternative political strategy.
Separate and strictly compartmentalised overtures were made to both the British and Irish governments, who provided interlocutors to meet and communicate with them in conditions of the greatest secrecy. While the prevailing orthodoxy in both countries was that democratic governments must not talk to terrorists until they had first stopped, the reality was that neither strong sermons from the pulpit nor further political condemnations of campaigns of violence would have any effect without some form of direct and authorised contact and persuasion and relationship-building.
While engaged in one avenue of exploration with a covert representative of the British government and a couple of local intermediaries, Martin McGuinness was also engaged in another dialogue centred on a draft declaration of principles between taoiseach and prime minister, which would clarify the basis on which a United Ireland could come about peacefully, and which would allow Sinn Féin to participate fully in politics and in peace negotiations.
Meetings in Dundalk, Co. Louth, between 1992 and 1994 arranged by Fr Alex Reid in the Redemptorist Monastery, and lasting two or three hours at a time, took place generally at about six-week intervals, over high tea brought up from the kitchens, with discussions over text preceded by a review of all elements of the more general political situation that might be relevant. They were between Martin McGuinness, who was always accompanied by one other member of the leadership group, and the Taoiseach’s special adviser, myself, with Fr Reid also present. The meetings were generally friendly, courteous and relaxed, but also purposeful on both sides. They were backed up by written exchanges between the Taoiseach and Gerry Adams and occasional communications, not directly responded to, purporting to come from the IRA Army Council. The rhythm of meetings was not affected by security events, because it could have been dangerous to allow acts of violence to function as either stick or carrot.
At a certain point, the then taoiseach Albert Reynolds handed over the paper to the British cabinet secretary.
Six months later, with substantial additions after soundings reflecting unionist and loyalist concerns, as well as those of the British government, it was promulgated as the Downing Street Declaration.
Some months further on, after clarification and confidencebuilding measures by the Irish government, as well as discussion as to what immediate steps could be expected following a ceasefire, an IRA ceasefire was called. A week later, Albert Reynolds, John Hume and Gerry Adams joined hands on the steps of Government Buildings.
The peace process has gone through three stages – the establishment of a ceasefire, negotiations towards a peace agreement and a political settlement to underpin the ceasefires (both IRA and loyalist), and then the implementation of the agreement, which extended over a ten to 12-year period. Throughout this time, the close partnership between Adams and McGuinness ensured that Sinn Féin remained a cohesive force, despite having eventually to take very difficult decisions to decommission weapons and support the police. No-one who negotiated with them found it easy, but a major part of their concern was to bring the vast bulk of the movement with them.
In four areas, McGuinness was able to bring his movement forward.
HE had a conciliatory and non-ideological approach to commemoration. He approved the building of the Messines Tower commemorating the sacrifices of the First World War, and last year himself unveiled a plaque in a restored part of Richmond Barracks remembering Francis Ledwidge, the soldier poet, who died in the trenches in 1916.
He had, long before the rest of his party colleagues, a positive attitude to the European Union, and eventually brought them round to his point of view. As deputy first minister, he greeted and accepted the hospitality of Queen Elizabeth. His biggest achievement, however, was to help bed down the institutions of the Good Friday Agreement, and to work continuously and, as far as possible, constructively with DUP first ministers Ian Paisley, Peter Robinson, and Arlene Foster. His friendly approach to people, as exemplified in particular by the cordiality of the unlikeliest partnership of all with Ian Paisley, did help enormously to smooth the way to a functioning peace in Northern Ireland.
He set an example in this and other encounters for many others.
It was most unfortunate that a breakdown in trust in the Executive at the end of 2016 coincided with the serious deterioration in his health. His role had inevitably involved a great deal of diplomatic restraint in the interests of making peace durable, and he was not slow to denounce the residue of republicans not prepared to move on.
Sinn Féin today is in a dominant position among nationalists in Northern Ireland, and the third largest party in the Republic. The successful shift from militant and violent nationalism to constitutional republican politics has been a major transformative achievement, which has won international recognition, and McGuinness played a key role in making it happen.
For that reason, many from far outside the ranks of Sinn Féin will mourn his passing.
It is to be hoped that his prestige and example will help sustain both peace and democratic institutions in the North for a long time to come.
A court conviction made it unnecessary for him to deny his IRA involvement