It takes people to stop to bring peace about. McGuinness and Adams were the ones who brought that about, or at least few did as much as they did. He then shared power with the man most responsible for the troubles beginning in order to further that peace. And to give the evil old b@stard his due, from Paisley's own perspective he did the same thing too.

Indeed!



Who would ever have thought they would become such good buddies! Fair play to the pair of them for having a go. I hated Paisley with a vengeance at one time but was saddened to hear of his death when he passed. Strange! Time to move on and leave the hatred in the past.


PS The thread title should read "too" not "to".

Didn't a bunch of squaddies testify that he was shooting at them on 30/01/72? You wouldn't be accusing them of telling porkies would you?

I've often wondered how genuine it was. My sense is that from Paisley it actually was and he really did have the Damascene moment he described. With McGuinness? I don't know. I tend to believe so. He strikes me as someone with the discipline to fake it for the sake of the peace and expediency though. More specifically, a demonstration of fitness to govern for the Republic. Still no small thing. Perhaps even a greater thing.

Disengenuous uniform. The British Army were hardly likely to open fire on a team of contract cleaners. Misleading haircuts too.

NORAID drying up led to Martin's false epiphany. Long may he rot.

No outpouring of grief, applogies for the millions we killed over the years, remember the crusades, amassing a crowd in India and slaughtering them all, indifferent shooting at cars at checkpoints and squaddies still, to this day, celebrating a kill,mistreating prisoners, urinating on the dead... the list goes on. He is an evil , no doubt, but many have done worse.

Sound like a lot of " military" personnel globally to me. The British armed forces don't have clean hands.

Indeed, but that is, unfortunately, what the military are there to do. But it doesnt make any side right or wrong, most are following orders and, often, against better judgement. I couldn't be in the military, so I respect anyone who is. McG isnt well, but he has worked to change the relationship between the UK and Northern Ireland.. why is it Wales got a better deal...because they had coal and slate?

For McGuiness read Mandella, read Castro all the same - armed struggle to get a seat at the table and then change things their way

Its all over. Interesting that the press are focusing on his later life rather than the former.

Nice eulogy from Tebbit.

[iFormer Tory cabinet minister Norman Tebbit said he hopes Martin McGuinness is “parked in a particularly hot and unpleasant corner of hell for the rest of eternity”.
The peer, whose wife Margaret was paralysed when the IRA bombed a Brighton hotel during the Conservative Party conference, said the world is a “sweeter and cleaner” place now the former deputy first minister is dead.[/i


Wherever McGuinness is, I hope Tebbit joins him for eternity & soon.

Oh look here's the resident IRA apologist.

I acknowledge his work later in his life when he realised violence had failed and managed to convince the IRA likewise. But that can NEVER forgive or absolve him of the acts he committed and advocated.