Man who turned swords into ploughshares

Martin McGuinness was an IRA commander who became friends with his most implacable enemy.

His partnership atop Stormont’s power-sharing administration with fundamentalist unionist leader the Rev Ian Paisley would have been unthinkable in the days when republican bombs were ripping Northern Ireland and Great Britain’s cities to shreds.

Ex-first minister Dr Paisley was the Dr No who vowed to smash Sinn Fein but eventually said yes to sharing power with his foe, in an often jovial partnership that saw them dubbed the Chuckle Brothers.

Mr McGuinness was the extremist who once defended the slaughter of police and soldiers for a united Ireland but finally offered the hand of friendship to Britain and to unionists and toasted the Queen.

His partnership with the DUP leader as deputy first minister at Stormont was a shining example of peacemaking and, in 2009, he dubbed dissident republicans who killed a police officer as traitors to Ireland.

Mr McGuinness’ own version of Irish patriotism evolved from gunboat diplomacy to a ballot box struggle that was to see Sinn Fein become pre-eminent among nationalists and demolish a century-old unionist majority at Stormont after a party vote surge in 2017.

The Saville Inquiry into Bloody Sunday in 1972 said he “probably” carried a sub-machine gun during the massacre of 13 unarmed civil rights protesters by soldiers in Londonderry. He admitted to being second-incommand of the Provisionals that day.

The steely-eyed and bluntly-spoken young man was a ruthless proponent of republican violence, which caused more than half of the 3,600 killings between 1969 and 1998, in opposition to British rule in Northern Ireland but became a senior member of Sinn Fein as the conflict neared its end.

He was integral to nearly every major decision taken by the republican movement over the last 30 years, promising to lead it to a united Ireland. He did not succeed.

The former butcher from the Bogside in Derry negotiated the 1998 Good Friday peace agreement and secured IRA arms decommissioning in 2005.

He is survived by his wife Bernie and four children.