Martin McGuinness, IRA leader turned peacemaker, dies at 66

DUBLIN » Martin McGuinness took up arms to fight British soldiers in the streets but ended up shaking hands with Queen Elizabeth II. A militant who long sought to unify Ireland through violence, he became a peacemaking politician who earned the respect, and even the friendship, of his former enemies.

McGuinness, who died Tuesday at 66, was an Irish Republican Army commander who led the paramilitary movement toward reconciliation with Britain and went on to serve as Northern Ireland’s deputy first minister for a decade in a Catholic-Protestant power-sharing unity government.

Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who worked with McGuinness to forge Northern Ireland’s 1998 peace accord, said “there will be some who cannot forget the bitter legacy of the war. And for those who lost loved ones in it, that is completely understandable.”

“But for those of us able finally to bring about the Northern Ireland peace agreement, we know we could never have done it without Martin’s leadership, courage and quiet insistence that the past should not define the future,” Blair said.

McGuinness’ Sinn Fein party said he died in a hospital in his hometown of Londonderry following a short illness.

McGuinness suffered from amyloidosis, a rare disease with a strain specific to Ireland’s northwest. The chemotherapy required to combat the formation of organ-choking protein deposits sapped him of his strength and forced the once-indefatigable politician to start missing government appointments. He stepped down from frontline politics in January.

Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams said McGuinness was “a passionate republican who worked tirelessly for peace and reconciliation and for the re-unification of his country.”

Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny said McGuinness “will always be remembered for the remarkable political journey that he undertook in his lifetime. Not only did Martin come to believe that peace must prevail, he committed himself to working tirelessly to that end.”

But some who suffered at the hands of the IRA could not forgive.

Former British government minister Norman Tebbit, whose wife was paralyzed by an IRA bombing of a Brighton hotel in 1984, said he hoped that McGuinness was “parked in a particularly hot and unpleasant corner of hell for the rest of eternity.”

Martin McGuinness