Timeline From apprentice butcher to IRA chief... then Stormont politician

May 23, 1950

James Martin Pacelli McGuinness is born in Londonderry. After leaving school at 15, he is rejected for a job as a car mechanic for being a Catholic and becomes a butcher’s apprentice instead.

January 30, 1972

Mr McGuinness is second-incommand of the IRA in his home city. Thirteen civil rights protesters are shot dead by Parachute Regiment soldiers on a date that became known as “Bloody Sunday”.

1973

Dublin’s Special Criminal Court convicts him of IRA membership after he is arrested near a car containing explosives and ammunition. He receives six months’ imprisonment.

November 20, 1974

Shortly after being released from prison, he marries Bernadette Canning in a ceremony in Donegal. The couple would go on to have four children.

August 27, 1979

Mr McGuinness is IRA chief of staff when Lord Louis Mountbatten is killed by an IRA bomb near Sligo. Hours later, 18 paratroopers from the British Army are killed in an IRA ambush in Co Down.

May 5, 1981

Bobby Sands, a member of the Provisional IRA, dies while on hunger strike in HM Prison Maze, near Lisburn. Nine other hunger strikers die after him.

October 20, 1982

Sinn Fein wins five seats in the Stormont Assembly election. Mr McGuinness is elected to represent Londonderry, but in common with the other party members, does not take up his seat.

August 31, 1994

The Provisional IRA announces a “complete cessation of violence”. This commitment is renewed in 1997.

April 10, 1998

The Good Friday agreement is signed, the culmination of secret talks with the British government and Tony Blair that had been taking place since 1990 in which Mr McGuinness was a key figure.

December 2, 1999

As MP for mid-Ulster, he becomes education minister and scraps the 11-plus exam, which he had failed as a child. He is re-elected to Westminster in 2001, 2005 and 2010.

May 8, 2007

He becomes Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland. Loyalist politician Ian Paisley is First Minister. Later that year, Mr McGuinness says they are set for a “new course” after working successfully together.

June 27, 2012

Mr McGuinness shakes hands with the Queen in a moment of historic significance. An avowed republican, he said that nevertheless he “valued very much” her contribution to the peace process.

January 9, 2017

He resigns as Deputy First Minister over First Minister Arlene Foster’s refusal to resign over the Renewable Heat Incentive scandal. He later announces that he will not stand for re-election.