To feel sorry for the Queen having to shake hands with that utter toerag Mcguinness?

[Callisto]

Former terrorist, responsible for killing goodness knows how many innocents, not to mention British troops and Lord Mountbatten (who the Queen was alledgedly very close to). McGuinness is a really nasty piece of work (who should be left to rot in prison for the rest of his days) and while I can see that we need to forgive and forget, it seems to go far above and beyond what we should expect the Queen to do.

YADNBU

I agree there is no justification for terrorism.....but Martin McGuinness and many others came to the IRA on the back of the ''failure''of the peaceful Civil Rights movement. One that was emulating the Civil Rights campaign that coloured Americans were using.
At a point where the CR people were becoming very vocal and seemed to be on the cusp of gaining fundamental rights for Catholic Northern Irish people (a house? a job? the right to register your child's name as you wanted it to be) what happened? The Civil rights people were shot at by the Army which had been sent to N.I to protect Catholics.

This lead to a feeling that Catholics in Northern Ireland had no options left- that the majority in their country wanted them exterminated.

I cannot condone any time that people are murdered and it serves to further no-one's cause. But to get past the bitterness gestures need to be made. The Queen probably understands this better than most.

If Gordon Wilson can shake a hand so can she. Or anyone.

Did people know how kids in the republic of Ireland as it is now know, got schooling 100 years ago?

In secret, behind hedges, in ditches, or that the black and Tans, sent from England, would bust into random family homes and stick guns in the faces of innocent families?

Yes, Goosey, and the Queen made an important step towards that last year.

ASilly, unfortunately not everyone has the same views as you re. Sinn Fein/BNP. Sinn Fein are at their core a socialist political party. They have done very well out of the economic crisis, the more traditional parties in the south are feeling the pressure. Here are the results of the Irish election for the Dail last year. They're still a comparatively small party but are (and always have, obviously) striving for expansion on a national rather than local scale, ie. just NI.

Surely (don't call me Shirley!) there is a public and a private issue. Publicly, she is the Queen, representative of Britain and responsible for Britain's actions, at least in name. She's clearly not directing action!

Privately, she is a woman who lost a member of her family, a man who her husband (and she I believe) were very close to. Therefore, while I understand why she had to shake her hand, I can entirely understand why she would rather spit on him. Not a nice position to be in.

It's a long time since I lived there, in the 80's, and it was so significant that there was an IRA man locally, that my parents pointed him and his house out to me, he was the only one and he was someone to fear and avoid was the message.

The queen visited Mount Bartender in Sligo, from Brittania years back. He was warned not to go, Sligo is geographically in NW Ireland, not far from the border of Northern Ireland.

Untidy : "While the IRA have behaved terribly, so too have the Brittish Army in NI, which she should be responsible for too."

Yes, this ^, a thousand times over.

An important step for everyone. One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter, one people's beloved queen is another people's symbol of generations of oppression.

I think it was necessary because these were two people who very strongly symbolise both sides of the divide in Northern Ireland. The very fact that Martin McGuinness is ex IRA reinforces the symbolism - I'm not sure that anyone else would.

As others have said for the peace process to work everyone has to look to the future.

My family is another of those Irish families that crosses the divide in that I have an uncle who was killed in the Easter Rising, my grandparents used to be raided by the Black & Tans and yet my Dad moved to Britain and joined the RAF.

A terrorist now posing as a genuine politian makes me

A terrorist is always a politician.

We can argue about the rights and wrongs of the IRA and the British Army's actions all day but you can't change the past.

I live in Northern Ireland and I want my son's to grow up in a country that cares more about where it is going than where it has been and that is populated with communities who spend more time thinking about what they have in common than what makes them different.

Unfortunately, politicians on both sides are often too caught up in the notion of sides and it's generally in their interests to keep the divide strong. So despite an annoyance at SF handling of the situation (if nothing else they really do have a good head for PR), thinking about it rationally I have to say it's a good when things like this happen it moves things forward.

Hear, hear twofurry!

Black and Tans, the famine, hedge schools, the Easter Rising, the history is long and ugly re: English terrorism toward the Irish.

But re: this meeting, GooseyLoosey's post is more to the point. We're talking about recent, personal, living memory here when we talk about what the Irish have to forgive and move past - Bloody Sunday, internment without trial, lack of access to housing and jobs, and the countless daily indignities, humiliations and intimidations that occur when you have tanks and soldiers on the streets every day.

The Lord Mountbatten connection surely makes this gesture personally painful for the Queen. But do you really think that McGuinness lived his life in Derry without being close to anyone who was personally affected by the atrocities carried out by the British army?

I hate violence, and I don't think that murder is a legitimate way to make a political point. I also don't think it's a legitimate way to keep people suppressed and too afraid to come out and demand their civil rights peacefully (see Derry on 30 January, 1972. and while you're at it, see the more than three decades of lies and cover ups and justifications of that terrorist act, most of which hinged on slandering the innocent victims).

They are both guilty of the terrorism that they sanctioned by ordering it, or by remaining silent on it when it happened in their name. But the handshake is a good thing. I'm all for moving on, but the notion that it's the English that have more to forgive is just plain galling.

Whatever your opinions on this, it is progress. It's a world apart from what it used to be. And I was raised in South Armagh, one of the worst places for violence.

It's only a good thing imo.

The Unionists are no better. They hide behind the church and made not have been an active terrorist like Maguinness but they supported UDA/UVF, maybe just bit more underhand.

When MMG was ed.minister over here he was instrumental in the special school I work in getting a new school built. He came around one day and there were a lot of people sticking their hands in their pockets, but he only shook hands with anyone who offered theirs first.

For the sake of my children and all the others that didnt live through the troubles, we have to let go of the hatred and move forward.

I don't think its progress MMcG knows exactly what he is doing trying to make himself look legitimate in order to get where he wants

He's not bombing people, it's progress.

I hope it is progress I was brought up in NI and it was a nightmare. My brother still lives there and says little has changed and many attempt to keep the whole thing going. It is a beautiful country and its a shame about all the hatred.

It was a war.

Not "troubles"

A war.

People on both sides acted with full conviction of their righteousness.

Innocents/civilians on both sides got killed.

Well, to misquote Hannah Ardent - Forgiveness is the key to action.

The Queen is doing this because, like her previous visit to Ireland, it creates harmony and healing. I don't feel sorry for her, I am full of admiration for her.

Mc Guinness, on the other hand, looks like a petulant schoolboy who is pleased as punch with himself.

I would have loved to see how this was organised, the inner workings of it all.

I agree hully the 'troubles' has always troubled me it sounds like something that accidentally occurred and was kept going by one set of aggressors

I've called it the troubles all my life, I'm not about to stop now. DD learnt about it in school, again it is referred to the troubles.

Funnily enough I'm fully aware that it was a civil war.

Don't suppose it was very comfortable for either of them tbh.

I heard he was a British Agent.

I don't think the Irish like to call a spade a spade. We called WW2 'the emergency', for instance.