Martin Mcguinness RIP - Village Magazine

April 2017 9

HE UNEXPECTED death of Martin

McGuinness in March generated con-

ﬂicting commentary.

Tens of thousands of people turned

out for his wake and funeral in Derry,

while the requiem mass in the packed St Colom

ba’s church looking over his native Bogside was

attended by President Michael D Higgins, (in

whose 2011 election, Mc Guinness played a

major part), the current and former Taoisigh,

Nobel-Prize winners, politicians of every persua-

sion. As well as civil society and ordinary

supporters and friends. The O’Riada family from

Coolea in west Cork sang a traditional Latin mass

and catholic and protestant clergymen delivered

eulogies.

Former US president, Bill Clinton, delivered a

typically carefully calibrated and concise mes-

sage to a global audience - appealing to

politicians in the North to get back into talks in

order to rebuild the political institutions, sus-

pended by McGuinness himself, over the

cash-for-ash scandal and political snubs he

blamed on the DUP.

Clinton also extolled what he described as the

legitimate and genuine ambition of people for “a

self governing” Ireland, careful to remain con-

sistent with the lifelong struggle of the former

IRA and Sinn Féin leader for national unity, while

sensitive to those in the congregation reluctant

to embrace the end of partition and the union

with Britain.

For those who refused to accept the narrative

of a man who sacriﬁced his life to build the peace

after decades of prosecuting and defending the

war against occupation, discrimination and

repression, the Queen of England sent her pri-

vate note of sympathy to his wife, Bernie, and

their children Emmet, Fiachra, Gráinne and Fion-

nuala, a family clearly bereft in the loss of a

loving husband and father.

The extraordinary scene of tens of thousands

walking to and from the church to the graveyard

looking over the city from the Donegal side, with

family, friends and comrades bearing the cofﬁn

by turn culminated in a moving and simple ora

tion by his long-time friend and political

soulmate, Gerry Adams. The Sinn Féin president

mixed humour and pathos in his personal tribute

and recollections of a man whom he ﬁrst met

when they were both in their early twenties

behind the barricades of Free Derry. He disputed

the attempt by some to explain that the outbreak

of affection for McGuinness was due to some

Pauline conversion.

“Reading and watching some of the media

reports of his life and death in recent days one

could be forgiven for believing that Martin, at

some undeﬁned point in his life, had a road to

Damascus conversion: abandoned his republi-

can principles, his former comrades in the IRA,

and joined the political establishment. To sug-

gest this is to miss the truth of his leadership and

the essence of his humanity. There was not a bad

Martin McGuinness or a good Martin McGuin-

ness. There was simply a man, like every other

decent man or woman, doing his best. Martin

believed in freedom and equality”.

The public day of mourning opened with

Frances Black singing ‘Raglan Road’ outside his

family home on Westland Street and ended some

six hours later with Christy Moore giving a heart

felt rendition of the ‘Time has Come’ a moving

lament for another Derry boy, Patsy O’Hara, who

died during the republican hunger strike in 1981.

On the day of the funeral the mainstream

media across Ireland and Britain assessed the

public mood which was acknowledging a peace-

maker whose departure represented a serious

loss to the efforts to complete the objectives of

the Good Friday Agreement and a peace process

in which he played a central role.

Even his often hysterical critics in the Inde-

pendent newspaper group devoted reams of

newsprint to his death - with an array of com-

mentators providing mixed opinions of the

contribution made by McGuinness during times

of war and peace. The Irish Independent opened

with a sympathetic and fair piece by Martina

Devlin in its early pages before giving way to

some outrageous and absurd commentary in an

eight-page pull-out. Serial republican critics

including Jim Cusack, Suzanne Breen and

Eoghan Harris echoed the line peddled by

Sunday Times columnist, Tony Harnden, who

suggested that McGuinness had been working

for British intelligence services for decades, as

far back as 1972 and Bloody Sunday.

Much of his thinking was based on a dream,

said Harnden, in which he opened an envelope

containing the names of all the Irish republican

and loyalist secret agents who worked for the

British intelligence services. This came from a

journalist much of whose work for many years

for the Telegraph and other British organs relied

on and clearly emanated from security sources.

What he could not reconcile, however, is the

apparent contradiction between his assertion

that McGuinness was a British spy while also

being “part of an IRA army council that ordered

the 1996 South Quay bombing in London’s Dock-

lands”. Does that mean that the spooks allowed

the destruction of the centre of the city’s busi

ness district, costing hundreds of millions of

pounds in damage, not once, but on several

occasions from the late 1980s? If so, perhaps

MI5 and the like were inﬁltrated by the IRA.

Perish the thought.

Massive crowds,

presidents, politicians

pay tribute

by Frank Connolly

Martin

Mcguinness

RIP

The mainstream media

across Ireland and Britain

assessed the public

mood acknowledging a

peacemaker whose departure

represented a serious loss to

the peace process