Legacy - Martin McGuinness

[FairytalesAreBullshit]

I was listening to Tony Blair and his thoughts on Martin McGuinness, who died yesterday after suffering from cancer I believe. Tony Blair focussed on the triumphs of the peace process, the hard work he put in for over 20 years to achieve peace, plus bringing people together.

Sky chose an alternative way to report his death, with the daughter of her 72 year old mother caught up in the Warrington bombings. The presenter wanted it to be as emotive as possible, they were a few steps away from saying he should burn in hell.

Others chose to show a gathering in West Belfast and other places, including Scotland, where people came out to pay their respects.

It's had me thinking all day, if a person does bad, then dedicates their life to doing good. What should their legacy be?

He worked until a few months before his death, which shows that he wanted to fight on right to the end. I know his departure prompted another election, as there were things that he felt were being ignored like using the Irish language to name one. (Sorry I'm a politics and economics geek)

I grew up during the time prior to the peace process, so know what happened from what was reported on TV and in papers. My parents were strict about where we could go in fear of us getting caught up in something.

Mcguiness and his comrades were not terrorists, they were freedom fighters

Some of whom murdered innocent people.

There was wrong on both sides. To state that the British don't acknowledge what some soilders did and not acknowledge what the IRA also did is also incredible bias.

I've been very conflicted this week. Grew up in Ireland, hating the IRA. Have never and will never vote Sinn Fein.

But peace in NI is so important. I moved here about ten years ago. Woke up this morning, an Irish Catholic living happily in a Protestant area. I'll head out in a little bit and go to work where I'll teach students of many nationalities (never mind just NI protestants and Catholics, my class is international). At some point I'll probably exchange a some messages with one of my many friends who are in mixed marriages, something rarely even remarked upon, and when it is it's a joke rather than an Issue. My DH will go into town tonight and his biggest concern will be whether he can find me a birthday present.

This is peace. It is mundane and boring and wonderful. It took a lot of work and a lot of compromise from a lot of people to get us here.

I abhor the IRA and McGuiness's membership and leadership. I equally abhor the loyalist terrorists (there were many) and the many British soldiers who injured and killed innocent people.

A lot of people on here know very little about NI. I can't imagine commenting on a topic i knew so little about.

I don't know where I stand on McGuiness. But reading some of tributes, I've concluded that perhaps I have been understating his importance to the peace process. People like Blair, Ahern, Protestant ministers. Ian Paisley Jr. People who had no love for the IRA and have no need to do more than be polite have been effusive in their praise for his later work. These are people who know, they were in the room as peace was forged. Bill Clinton is coming for the funeral - he doesn't have to do that. It's telling, I think.

Teaching, good post, I have many of the same thoughts as you.

And I know events have overtaken in London - but it doesn't seem like May was ever planning on attending. Which isn't a great statement on the importance she places on the political process here. (I know that wouldn't be able to come now, obviously. But she should've been planning to!)

I can't eulogise him. I grew up in Coventry in the seventies. Coventry had an IRA cell and a bomb went off in our city centre. I had to make the decision at 17 to not let terrorism affect my life as I waited for a bus in a deserted town the day after. Six people died in the Birmingham bombings, just down the road from us. I was often sent out of school due to bomb scares. So no- I was too close to the violence to eulogise him.

I'm glad he made good through his work in the peace process, but it was male violence in the first place wasn't it? Dysfunctional male energy. If the IRA hadn't done what it did. If men didn't do what they do all the time.....

Teaching I agree.

There were awful atrocities on both sides. We should not forget the appalling behaviour of the British Govt and Armed Forces. But you cannot tarnish others with the same brush. My uncle was in the Army during the 70s & 80s. He went AWOL while on leave from NI. He couldn't go back, turned up at my aunts in tears, a broken person, there was no way he was going to do what he was being forced to do. So he left. He became a paramedic, saving people rather than killing them. Perhaps he was a product of the environment he was brought up in, from the NW, poor education, limited prospects as a young man, the Army was a way out. It still is for many people escaping poverty.

I'm British, not religious, middle class, grew up in a comfortable house without any threat from anyone (except the odd bomb warning on the tube which might not have been as awful as NI, but to us was still real enough), but my parents taught me to question what you are told by the authorities. I remember asking my Dad why Gerry Adams voice was dubbed on the BBC news c1988. He said "because he is a terrorist" He then paused and said "Because the government want us to think he is a terrorist".

but it doesn't seem like May was ever planning on attending

We don't know whether she would have or not though.

Not sure it would be 'announced' to far in advance if she was.

Whatever history decides his real legacy is (if all the 'hidden files and facts ' are ever released) it certainly proves terrorist violence and government suppression of people never wins..............people always end up round the table talking peace, it's such a tragedy so many lives get lost before that happens. Futile.

The tragedy of the IRA is that in the end their violence overshadowed legitimate problems - artificial separation of Ireland, discrimination and oppression of the NI Catholic population - and came to mean that in Britain saying that you were in favour or reunification made it seem that you condoned terrorism, which for me was definitely not the case.

I am humbled that Arlene Foster will attend the funeral. It will not be easy for her but it shows respect and is far more likely to preserve the Union than anything else she has ever done.

However, with Brexit, NI seems increasingly doomed. Last time I was home, I listened to southern business news - about Apple in Cork, Dell and Microsoft - and felt despondent about how left behind NI was and how Brexit and a hard border would leave it increasingly condemned to welfare dependency rather than moving forward.

Livelove, there have been court cases, official government inquiries and reports, news, documentaries, books and 1000s of column inches regarding atrocities carried out by the British army. If you have seen no evidence of British army wrongdoing, it's not because it doesn't exist.