Peacemaking IRA leader McGuinness dead at 66
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MARTIN McGuinness, the Irish Republican Army commander who laid down his arms to become a key architect of Northern Ireland’s peace, died yesterday aged 66, prompting tributes from allies and former enemies alike.
The face of Irish Republicanism for many during some of the worst moments of three decades of sectarian bloodshed that killed more than 3,600 people, McGuinness remained a figure of hate for many pro-British Protestants until his death.
But he earned widespread respect across Britain and Ireland by embracing his bitterest rivals to cement the 1998 peace deal and allow Northern Ireland to slowly return to normality.
“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,” British Prime Minister Theresa May said.
“In doing so, he made an essential and historic contribution to the extraordinary journey of Northern Ireland from conflict to peace.”
Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny said McGuinness strove to make Northern Ireland a better place for everyone, regardless of background or tradition.
McGuinness was present during the opening salvoes of the conflict as a 20-year-old IRA commander fighting the British army on the streets of his native Londonderry.
He swiftly rose to become a senior IRA commander and was convicted in 1973 of being a member of the group after being stopped in a car packed with explosives and bullets.
“Martin McGuinness never went to war, it came to his streets, it came to his city, it came to his community,” fellow Republican leader Gerry Adams said. “Martin led the IRA when there was a war but he led the IRA into peace. He was a great man in my opinion and he will be missed.”
By the 1980s McGuinness emerged alongside Adams in the electoral rise of Sinn Fein, the IRA’s political wing, advocating the ballot box alongside the Armalite rifle.
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