We can never can respect
IRA victim’s dad speaks for many on politician’s mixed legacy
HUNDREDS of people walked with Martin McGuinness’s coffin yesterday as it was carried through the streets to his Derry home.
The terrorist turned peacemaker died in hospital from a rare heart condition. He was 66.
Senior Sinn Fein figures helped carry the coffin, which was draped in an Irish flag.
News of McGuinness’s death was, inevitably, met with mixed reactions.
As a one-time senior commander in the Provisional IRA, the former deputy first minister of Northern Ireland undoubtedly had blood on his hands.
But Colin Parry, whose 12-year-old son Tim died when the IRA bombed Warrington in 1993, summed up the attitude of many.
He said: “We can never forgive him but we can respect the man he became.”
Prime Minister Theresa May said: “While I can never condone the path he took in the earlier part of his life, Martin McGuinness ultimately played a defining role in leading the republican movement away from violence.”
Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said she got to know McGuinness recently through their work in the British Irish Council and the Joint Ministerial Committee.
She added: “Martin will be remembered for his commitment, alongside that of Ian Paisley, to bringing peace and reconciliation to Northern Ireland.
“He grew up in Northern Ireland’s troubled past, but without his hard and brave work to bridge the divide, peace would not have been achieved.”
Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams said his lifelong friend had been a “passionate republican who worked tirelessly for peace and reconciliation and for the reunification of his country”. He added: “Throughout his life, Martin showed great determination, dignity and humility and it was no different during his short illness.” But Stephen Gault, whose father Samuel died in the IRA’s Remembrance Day bombing in Enniskillen in 1987, said he would remember McGuinness only as a terrorist. He added: “If he had been repentant, my thoughts might have been slightly different. “But he took to his grave proud that he served in the IRA. There was no remorse or repentance from him even up to his death.”
McGuinness had a leading role in the IRA for many years at the height of the Troubles.
He was second in command of the terror group in Derry when members of the Parachute Regiment shot dead 13 civilians on Bloody Sunday in 1972.
But he later renounced violence and become chief negotiator during the Northen Ireland peace process.
Few would have believed it possible, but McGuinness formed a remarkable friendship with his ertswhile bitter enemy, the late Democratic Unionist leader Dr Ian Paisley.
They got on so well they were nicknamed the Chuckle Brothers.
In 2007, Paisley became Stormont’s first minister, with McGuinness as his deputy.
The Sinn Fein politician also