A ‘remarkable journey’ to peace
I couldn’t believe that anybody could be shot dead on the streets
IN April 2014, Martin McGuinness was driven through the gates of Windsor Castle, the country residence of Queen Elizabeth II. He entered the magnificent St George’s Hall, with its almost 50metre-long banquet table set for 160 guests who were there to toast the queen and Michael D Higgins, the first Irish President to make a state visit to the UK.
Mr McGuinness found himself just 15 seats away from Prince Philip: his uncle, Earl Mountbatten of Burma was among those murdered by members of the IRA, the terrorist organisation which Mr McGuinness once led. Twelve seats away sat David Cameron, the then Tory prime minister; one of his predecessors, Margaret Thatcher, had herself been the target of an IRA bomb at the Grand Hotel in Brighton.
It was a scene that would have seemed utterly fantastical half a generation beforehand, but it was a powerful signal to the world that Mr McGuinness was now a man of peace and reconciliation. He was an architect of the Good Friday Agreement. And he was staunchly committed, with his unlikely friend Ian Paisley, to making a success of the still-young Stormont Assembly, the North’s devolved government.
Dapper as he looked, Martin McGuinness had not convinced everyone of his transformation. A small group of protesters stood at the castle gate, unfurling a banner that read: ‘A terrorist in a white tie and tails is still a terrorist.’
It was a stark reminder that he was still a divisive figure. However, by the time of his death aged 66 yesterday, after a short illness, it is fair to say that the balance had shifted to the more favourable side of the equation. Indeed, when he announcing his resignation from the Stormont administration – on the grounds of DUP leader and First Minister Arlene Foster’s handling of the so-called ‘cash for ash’ affair – one of the most effusive tributes came from the Rev Paisley’s son, Ian Jr, who said on a BBC talk show: ‘It is important that we, actually, do reflect on the fact that we would not be where we are in Northern Ireland, in terms of having stability, peace and the opportunity to rebuild our country, were it not for the work he did put in, especially with my father, at the beginning of this long journey.
‘I can say thank you, honestly and humbly, and recognise that the remarkable journey Martin McGuinness went on has not only saved lives, but has made the lives of countless people in Northern Ireland better because of the partnership government we worked on and put together. I wish him well in his retirement and hope he has time to get over his health issues and enjoy retirement time with his wife and family.’
There was a generosity of spirit in that tribute that left many outside Northern Ireland baffled, but Martin McGuinness had a weapon those who never met him might have missed – charm. Yes, when he was challenged on a TV debate during the presidential election in 2011, which he contested for Sinn Féin, he turned on Miriam O’Callaghan with a look that was cold, sinister and vaguely terrifying – but he could also be hugely charming in his personal dealings, and formed friendly relationships with ease. Indeed, in a series of leaked telephone calls, the late former Northern Secretary Mo Mowlam was even heard to address him as ‘Babe’.
So who was Martin McGuinness, and how did a boy from Derry rise through the paramilitary ranks, conduct a terror campaign and, ultimately, come to the conclusion that the only viable way forward was through politics, not violence?
He was born on May 23, 1950, into a family that would number six boys and one girl, and christened James Martin Pacelli McGuinness. The ‘Pacelli’ was a very obvious giveaway of his religion, as it was the surname of Pius XII before his ascension to the papacy. The writer and broadcaster Eamonn Mallie noted the McGuinnesses were not a known republican, or even political, family.
In the Northern Ireland of the era, Catholics enjoyed fewer rights than their Protestant neighbours, and often found themselves at the bottom of housing and employment lists. The McGuinnesses lived in the Bogside, in a two-bedroom house with no toilet and no kitchen – only a scullery. They prayed the Rosary together on a nightly basis. Martin’s mother, who hailed from the Inishowen peninsula in Co. Donegal, worked in a shirt factory, while his father was employed in an iron foundry.
Young Martin sat the 11-plus exam to gain entry to St Columb’s College but failed it (later, as Education Minister in the Northern Ireland Assembly, he controversially abolished it altogether, a move that no doubt gave him some personal pleasure).
Instead, after leaving St Eugene’s Primary School, he attended the tough Brow of the Hill CBS. For some observers, it was a defining moment in his life. A former classmate, Paul McGill, once noted: ‘When they weren’t beating you, they were glorifying the historic struggles of the Irish against the English oppressors. It is interesting to speculate how different life might have been if Martin had passed the 11-plus and gone to St Columb’s, where, by the way, he might have been taught history by the leader of the SDLP.’
At 15, he found a few unskilled jobs before becoming a butcher’s assistant. Like most Catholic teenagers, he was attracted to the civil rights movement, and in 1969 was fined £50 for abusing soldiers during a protest on Derry’s Strand
Road. The deaths of two civilians, Séamus Cusack and Desmond Beattie, at the hands of the British Army in July 1971, had a profound effect on him.
‘I was at my front door and I heard roaring and shouting at the bottom of the street,’ he recalled later. ‘It seemed that Dessie Beattie had been brought in a car from the Leckey Road area. And I remember walking down to the bottom of the street, seeing the body and the blood in the car and it scared the living daylights out of me. I was 19 years of age at the time and it had a powerful effect on me. I couldn’t believe that anybody could be shot dead on the streets. For what? For throwing stones? I don’t even know that Dessie Beattie was throwing stones.’
Unlike fellow Derryman John Hume, who led civil rights marches that were designed to be peaceful but often ended in violent crackdowns by the authorities, the young Martin decided direct paramilitary action was the only way forward. In an interview in 2015, again with Eamonn Mallie and broadcast on the satellite channel Irish TV, he explained why.
‘I believed that in a situation where the community that I came from were being treated like second- and third-class citizens, that I had a responsibility to fight back against it, and I don’t apologise to anybody for having done that,’ he said. ‘I think it was the right thing to do. My community was at war with the RUC and at war with those who were enforcing the inequalities and discrimination that people were being subjected to.
‘I think you have to consider the circumstances that existed in my city at the time. I would have felt ashamed if I had not been part of resistance and part of fighting back against the forces of the state,’ he said.
‘I’m very proud that I was a part of the IRA in Derry. I am still, 40 years on, proud that I was a member of the IRA. I’m not going to be a hypocrite and sit here and say something different.’
He joined the Official IRA, as it was known, but upon realising it was a more ideological, left-wing organisation, he soon switched to the Provisional IRA, where he rose quickly through the ranks.
He came to prominence at the time of the Bloody Sunday killings in 1972, a seismic moment in the history of the Troubles, which had turned increasingly violent three years before. During a peaceful march to protest against internment, the British Army opened fire and shot 26 unarmed protesters, of whom 14 died.
The initial report into the events of that day, the Widgery Tribunal, claimed some of those killed were armed, and was largely seen as a whitewash. The subsequent Saville Inquiry, which concluded in 2010, found the opposite, acknowledging that none of the dead or injured civilians was armed (though it suggested Mr McGuinness himself probably was carrying a sub-machine gun which he never used) and that British paratroopers had fired the first shot, and then continued to fire randomly on civilians.
IN a deposition to the inquiry before it officially opened, Mr McGuinness admitted for the first time that he was second-in-command of the IRA in Derry at the time. Later he gave evidence in person to insist he passed on orders to IRA volunteers not to attack British troops during the march.
‘I spoke with the command staff and all active service volunteers,’ he said. ‘I relayed the decision taken by the OC [officer commanding]. Without exception, everyone I spoke to accepted that our approach to the march was sensible.’
He also denied allegations by former IRA member Paddy Ward that he supplied detonators for 16 nail bombs for a planned attack on troops after the march.
By the time of Bloody Sunday, Mr McGuinness’s mother Peggy – who died in 2008 aged 84 – had learned of his involvement in the IRA. ‘My mother found, I think it was a black beret or something like that, in the house and it immediately traumatised her, I think,’ he later said. ‘She did not hit me with it or anything like that or, if there were gloves, there was no smack across the face with the gloves. I think that it was a moment in time and she was obviously annoyed at the prospect that all of our lives were changing and maybe mine more dramatically than anybody else’s.’
In 1973, he refused to recognise the Special Criminal Court in Dublin but nonetheless was convicted under the Offences Against the State Act after being arrested near a car containing 110kg of explosives and nearly 5,000 rounds of ammunition. He was sentenced to six months. In court, he admitted membership of the Provisional IRA, saying: ‘I am a member of Óglaigh na hÉireann and very, very proud of it.’
Mr McGuinness always claimed he left the IRA in 1974, but that has always been treated with scepticism. Indeed, when investigative reporter Roger Cook made a two-part documentary in 1993 alleging his ongoing involvement, Mr McGuinness denied he had ever been a member of the IRA, even though it was widely believed he still was a member of the so-called Army Council that sanctioned and directed operations.
In 1974, he married Bernie Canning, no doubt breaking a few hearts in the process. ‘A lot of young girls used to find him gorgeous,’ a friend remembered. ‘A lot of them became republicans just because of him; they were like a fan club.’
Bernie herself was in jail when they became engaged. Martin bought the ring in Buncrana and had a friend take it to her and place it on her finger. The couple
A lot of girls found him gorgeous... and became republicans because of him
I liked the Queen’s courage in agreeing to meet me... I like her
married in Co. Donegal and had four children between 1976 and 1986 – Gráinne, Fionnuala, Fiachra and Emmet.
A 1986 BBC documentary in the Real Lives series, At The Edge Of The Union, showed him spoonfeeding his youngest children, Emmet and baby Fiachra; it was banned by the British government, which feared the portrayal of him as a devoted husband and father would somehow normalise his other activities.
In a 2001 interview with BBC correspondent Anne Cadwallader, he spoke about raising his family. ‘My wife bore the greatest burden with great difficulty and deprivation, but I tried to do whatever I could,’ he said. ‘No matter where I was, I nearly always managed to get home late at night. My family has always been very important to me but so has the community.
‘Derry is a community that has been through some terrible events and there’s a closeness about it, and a great understanding there. When you go back to a community like that, it’s like a family with its arms wide open.
‘Children who are part of families who are part of a struggle, when they grow up, can rationalise and make judgments about whether it improved their community and, by extension, themselves. So my children understand the work I participate in and the huge importance of the peace process. They are not in Sinn Féin or in any way involved politically.
‘They are very normal children. My family has probably seen less of me now, because of the peace process, than they did at the height of the Troubles.’
In the Seventies, he began to play a prominent role in Sinn Féin and was involved, behind the scenes, during the 1981 hunger strikes, relaying messages from British intelligence to the IRA leadership.
In 1982 – the year he is widely believed to have ceded leadership of the IRA to Kevin McKenna – he was elected to the Northern Ireland Assembly at Stormont, representing Derry. However, like all Sinn Féin candidates, he did not take his seat.
In December of that year, he, Gerry Adams and Danny Morrison were banned from entering Britain under the Prevention of Terrorism Act by then Home Secretary Willie Whitelaw.
As his political career progressed, he failed three times to get elected to Westminster in the Foyle parliamentary constituency – in 1983, 1987 and 1992 – but was elected to the Northern Ireland Forum for the constituency in 1996, and finally to Westminster in 1997, from which he also abstained. He held that seat in 2001, 2005 and 2010, but resigned in 2012 when his party banned the dual mandate.
In 1998, Mr McGuinness was appointed Sinn Féin’s chief negotiator in the peace process that led to the Good Friday Agreement, and later attended the talks in Scotland that cemented the St Andrew’s Agreement, paving the way for power-sharing in the new Northern Assembly.
When it convened on May 8, 2007, Rev Ian Paisley was nominated First Minister and Martin McGuinness his deputy.
The two men were not friends at the time; indeed, in December of that year, Mr McGuinness confessed: ‘Up until March 26 this year, Ian Paisley and I never had a conversation about anything, not even about the weather, and now we have worked very closely together over the last seven months and there’s been no angry words between us. This shows we are set for a new course.’
Indeed, the two appeared so close in public, laughing and joking together, they became widely known as the Chuckle Brothers.
McGuinness had a cooler relationship with Rev Paisley’s successor Peter Robinson, and almost none at all with his successor as First Minister Arlene Foster.
In 2011, he was the Sinn Féin candidate in the Republic’s presidential election. Northern Ireland had long made its peace with Sinn Féin holding at least some of the reins of power, but that was not true of the whole island, and Mr McGuinness faced unprecedented scrutiny in the television debates, with questions largely relating to his past membership of the IRA and exactly where he ranked in its hierarchy.
Such questioning made him tetchy, at times defensive and at others aggressive, and he failed to poll beyond his party’s natural constituency. Nevertheless he still managed a respectable third of seven candidates with almost 250,000 votes.
When Queen Elizabeth paid a state visit to Ireland in 2011, Sinn Féin decided not to participate in official events, a move widely seen as a miscalculation.
The queen disarmed many with her simple bow in the Garden of Remembrance (Martin McGuinness declined an invitation to attend), her few words of Irish at the banquet in Dublin Castle, and her admission, delivered with a hint of emotion, that there were ‘many things that could have been done differently, or not at all’.
A year later, when the queen visited Belfast, the two shook hands at the Lyric Theatre, a moment captured by Press Association photographer Paul Faith.
‘The day after the handshake I was sitting in the press room at the Irish Open and Martin McGuinness came in with Peter Robinson,’ Mr Faith said yesterday. ‘He came over to me and shook my hand and said, “You’ve made me famous again.”’
Mr McGuinness spoke of the handshake and his relationship with Queen Elizabeth, describing it as ‘a very pointed, deliberate and symbolic way of offering the hand of friendship to unionists through the person of Queen Elizabeth, for which many unionists have a deep affinity’.
Later, he spoke of his admiration for the queen, saying: ‘I liked her courage in agreeing to meet with me; I liked the engagements that I’ve had with her. There’s nothing I have seen in my engagements
with her that this is someone I should dislike. I like her.’
IN later years, as well as continuing to shepherd the peace process as Deputy First Minister, he found more time for hobbies – following the Derry Gaelic football and hurling teams, Derry City FC and Manchester United, watching cricket, fly-fishing, and walking with his wife.
‘I fish in different places, in the Doochary River in Donegal and also in Mayo, Lough Mask, and in Lough Caragh in Kerry just outside Waterville,’ he said. ‘I sometimes feel guilty when I’m standing in a river fishing that I’m not with my family, but I know there are days when I need to do that. In fact, my wife says to me that I should, and she’ll be very forcible and tell me to go fishing!
‘We walk a lot together. Obviously, for security reasons, we pick different routes, although I’m not preoccupied by that. It’s the way the world has taken me. Mostly we take the car to Donegal and walk on different beaches. Recently, we left the house at ten in the morning to walk three miles, and we walked 12 miles to the Donegal border and back along the railway line by the Foyle. It’s brilliant – you can do it without seeing a single car.’
This contemplative Martin McGuinness might seem at odds with the hot-headed young republican who became head of the IRA, at a time when many of its most serious atrocities were committed (though a bombing campaign against commercial premises in Derry was designed specifically to avoid casualties), but it was a mark of the journey, personal and political, he completed.
His wish for a united Ireland remained undimmed, though, as he said in his retirement statement in January. ‘It remains my own personal and political ambition to break the link with Britain and to unite all who share this island under the common banner of Irish men and women,’ he proclaimed. ‘I have been privileged to be part of the generation that broke that apartheid state apart, and to have been part of a Sinn Féin leadership that delivered peace and radical change. There are more republicans today than at any time in my generation.’
As for his role in the events of the 48 years since his teenage self first became involved in civil disorder and progressed to become the reviled head of an illegal organisation, before the latter era of statesmanship and peace, he was reflective.
‘I am just an ordinary person in extraordinary circumstances,’ he told journalist Anne Cadwallader in 2001. ‘I was working in James Doherty’s shop in Derry when the RUC were battering people in the Bogside. Before the British army came to Derry, I would always have regarded myself as a very quiet, inoffensive person. It’s easy for me to say that, but anyone who knew me then will confirm it. I was the kind of person, if there was a fight, I would get in the middle and try to stop it.
‘If I could have written the script for the last 30 years, I wouldn’t have written down what we have all been through. I would much rather have lived an ordinary life.
‘I didn’t choose this life.’
I would much rather have lived an ordinary life. I didn’t choose this