McGuinness: republican with dark past

dublin - Martin McGuinness, a former IRA commander, since the beginning of the 70s one of the most influential figures in the republican movement in Northern Ireland. He later played a key role in the peace process.

At the height of the armed conflict, he insisted with Gerry Adams to a political strategy. Which led to the founding of Sinn Fein, the political wing of the Irish Republican Army (IRA), negotiations, agreements and eventually the collaboration of Catholic republicans and Protestant loyalists in one government.

McGuinness was one of the few IRA leaders who recognized that he had been working for the armed republicans. He joined in 1970 with the Provisional IRA and was the commander of the Free Derby 'as 21-year-old. McGuinness was in 1972 an interlocutor for the British government, which invited the leadership of the Provisional IRA for secret talks in London. That failed.

When McGuinness was caught a year later in a car full of explosives and ammunition, he was sentenced to six years in prison.

From 1982, McGuinness was in the Northern Ireland Assembly. Over the years he became known as a balanced strategist. Therefore he became the chief negotiator for Sinn Fein during talks that led to the Good Friday Agreement in 1998. He was elected in the same year in the House of Commons.

McGuinness was following the agreement Minister of Education, much to the annoyance of many unionists. In 2007, something happened that seemed unthinkable until then: McGuinness became Deputy Prime Minister of Northern Ireland among his former nemesis, the Protestant preacher Ian Paisley.

In 2011, McGuinness took part in the presidential elections in Ireland, but without success. A year later he made his resignation as Member of Parliament known. In January 2017 he resigned as deputy prime minister after a row with Prime Minister Arlene Foster. That was not the only reason for his resignation: even his ill health played tricks on him.

As leader of the IRA McGuinness was hated and feared, but as a peacemaker he possessed the charisma needed to dispel those fears. His reputation as a tough guy, moreover, gave him the authority under Irish republicans to compromise, such as the IRA disarmament. McGuinness has been 66 years.