MARTIN McGUINNESS
1950- 2017
VICTIMS of terror atrocities last night accused politicians of ignoring the ‘vile’ past of Martin McGuinness.
The death of the former IRA commander yesterday at the age of 66 sparked a wave of eulogies. Tony Blair and Alastair Campbell led the praise for his part in the Northern Ireland peace process.
Theresa May said Mr McGuinness had a played a defining role in leading the Republican movement away from violence.
The Queen sent her personal condolences to his family – a gesture which would have been unthinkable during the Troubles.
But families of IRA victims said the ‘Butcher of Bogside’ had died without showing repentance for his role in the violence or giving up secrets that could help bring his former comrades to justice.
Lord Tebbit, whose wife Margaret was paralysed in the 1984 Brighton bombing, said Mr McGuinness was a multi-murderer and a coward. The Tory former minister said he had turned to peace in a cynical attempt to save his own skin and avoid prosecution. He added: ‘He claimed to be a Roman Catholic. I hope that his beliefs turn out to be true and he’ll be parked in a particularly hot and unpleasant corner of hell for the rest of eternity.’
Mr McGuinness died just two months after he announced his resignation as deputy first minister of the power- sharing assembly at Stormont. He is understood to have suffered from a rare condition that attacks the heart and other vital organs. His death proved as divisive as his life, prompting both glowing tributes to his courage and commitment to peace and condemnation of his known role as a senior commander within the Provisional IRA at the height of the Troubles.
He was second in command in Londonderry in 1972 when soldiers from the Parachute Regiment shot dead 14 civilians on Bloody Sunday. He was alleged to have been a member of the seven-man ‘army council’, which approved the paramilitary group’s strategy and tactics.
He had also been accused of having advance knowledge of the 1987 Remembrance Day bombing in Enniskillen, which killed 11. He said this allegation was ‘fantasy’.
Relatives of the 21 vicitms of the 1974 Birmingham pub bombings had called for him to face questions about who was responsible.
Mr McGuinness’s coffin was carried through Londonderry by mourners including Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams, draped in an Irish tricolour and accompanied by thousands of republican supporters. His funeral is tomorrow.
While many of the political tributes yesterday did acknowledge his paramilitary past, they focused on his later involvement in the IRA ceasefire, the Good Friday Agreement and the decommissioning of weapons and the power- sharing assembly.
Mrs 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.
‘In doing so, he made an essential and historic contribution to the extraordinary journey of Northern Ireland from conflict to peace.’
Listeners called BBC Radio 5Live after Mr Campbell, once Tony Blair’s communicatons chief, praised the Sinn Fein politician’s warmth and empathy, with one listener saying: ‘I’m sick of these apologists for murder.’
Julie Hambleton, whose 18-yearold sister Maxine was killed in one of the Birmingham pub blasts, said: ‘ He has blood on his hands and he allegedly has killed people. How is it possible to forget that?’ She harangued Mr Campbell, who had tweeted Mr McGuinness was a ‘great guy’, in an angry confrontation on Channel 4 News.
Miss Hambleton said: ‘It’s unbelievable that he is being lauded and applauded as a statesman.
‘Alastair Campbell, you have not lost a loved one where you as a father has had to go and identify your son or daughter when – as the sheet is pulled back – you can barely recognise what’s left of them. Please do not patronise us.’
Her brother Brian said: ‘His death won’t alter anything, it just cleans the earth of another vile terrorist. Once a terrorist, always a terrorist. He bombed his way to the table.’
Good Morning Britain host Piers Morgan also faced criticism after he said comparisons between Mr McGuinness and Nelson Mandela were valid, adding: ‘Both men renounced violence to forge peace.’ BBC veteran John Simpson said: ‘I don’t want to put him in the same category as Nelson Mandela. But there were many people in South Africa, perhaps even one or two still today, who thought that Mandela was responsible for violence and couldn’t forgive him. We have to see Martin McGuinness on that kind of side of the ledger.’
Actor Nigel Havers, whose Tory MP father’s home was targeted in an IRA bombing, said: ‘We must remember that he [McGuinness] was a murderer. I do not want him to be held in the same context as Nelson Mandela.
‘Let us not forget that he killed and tortured. I just wanted to make sure that people did not forget that he was capable of the most appalling crimes.’
Colin Parry, whose son Tim, 13, was killed in the IRA’s bomb in Warrington in 1993, said he had met Mr McGuinness two decades later and believed him to be ‘sincere in his desire for peace and maintaining the peace process at all costs’.
But he added: ‘Forgiveness never comes into it. I don’t forgive Martin. I don’t forgive the IRA – nor does my wife, nor do my children. That said, he was still a brave man who put himself in some risk in some elements of his own community in Northern Ireland.’
Stephen Gault, whose father Samuel was killed in the Enniskillen Remembrance Day bomb, said: ‘My fear is Martin McGuinness is going to be remembered as this great peacemaker similar to the way Nelson Mandela was remembered after his death. My fear is that his horrific past will not be mentioned.’
Margaret Veitch, whose parents William and Agnes Mullan also died at Enniskillen, said: ‘I certainly won’t be sending any sympathy card because I got no sympathy card from them [the IRA].
‘I am so sorry for all the innocent victims of Northern Ireland because we will never, never get the true story.
‘Martin McGuinness chose to be a terrorist, he chose to go into government, he chose to take the bomb and bullet.’
John Eaglesham, whose father was shot dead by the IRA in 1978, said: ‘People say about what he has done for the peace process – they seem to forget that for a very, very long time he wasn’t part of the solution he was part of the problem.’
Mr McGuinness was convicted of possession of weapons and explosives in the Republic of Ireland’s special criminal court in 1973, his only conviction for terrorism.
The Bloody Sunday Inquiry concluded he was ‘engaged in paramilitary activity’ at the time of the shootings and was probably armed on the day. But it said he did not engage in any activity which justified the soldiers opening fire.
‘I am sick of these apologists for murder’ ‘He bombed his way to the table’