A Biography Of Martin McGuinness

To serve as both second-in-command of a notorious terrorist organisation and Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland is a truly unusual feat. Perhaps it is equally astonishing that a man who failed to complete secondary school was entrusted with Northern Ireland’s £1. 6 billion education budget. Such was the case with Martin McGuinness, whose entire life followed a rather unexpected course. Much of Northern Ireland regards him as a hero, but the methods with which he pursued his strong sense of justice were always considered questionable. His life, when examined in detail, facilitates an exploration of the ideas and philosophies underpinning such a controversial figure. McGuinness was born – as James Martin Pacelli McGuinness – on the 23rd of May, 1950, in Derry, Northern Ireland’s second-largest city. He was the son of William McGuinness, and his wife, Peggy, who lived in Bogside, a part of Derry where the father was employed as a foundry worker; Martin was the second of seven children.

Catholicism, the faith to which the McGuinness family were highly devoted, was also the dominant religion in Derry, though gerrymandering ensured that governance of the city was left in the hands of a Protestant minority, whose control of the city council resulted in substantial discrimination towards Derry’s large Catholic community. During his childhood, McGuinness grew up in a home with only two bedrooms and without a proper kitchen. McGuinness was educated at the Brow of the Hill Christian Brothers’ Technical School in Derry, starting there in 1957 at the tender age of seven-years-old. Four years later, he sat the infamous “Eleven Plus” exams in November of 1961. Those who passed these tests at age eleven would be able to progress into secondary education at a Grammar School. Being not so renowned for his academic prowess, McGuinness failed and remained with the Christian Brothers until he was fifteen, doing what would typically be regarded as very little. His childhood friend, Paul McGill, even noted that most of the boys in Northern Ireland who did not move onto a Grammar School spent much of their time counting down the days until they were finally old enough to relinquish the burden of compulsory education. That was precisely what McGuinness did, and as a consequence, he found himself on the search for work at fifteen-years-old. He first applied for a job as a car mechanic but was rejected due to his Catholic background.

At the time, McGuinness had not yet developed the beliefs that would define his life and accepted such discrimination as an unavoidable reality. Instead, he found his first job in 1965 – still aged fifteen – working as an assistant in a butcher’s shop, where he remained for the few years that proceeded. It was in 1968 when The Troubles in Ireland were truly underway, and Gerry Fitt, a Catholic politician, was savagely beaten by police officers in Belfast for his leadership of a civil rights march. McGuinness – who was eighteen at the time – claims he was spurred onto the path of activism after seeing pictures of a bloodied and beaten Gerry Fitt. Sometime in the late 1960s, McGuinness was caught with a stolen acid bomb that he intended to hurl at a group of police officers. McGuinness soon sought out the Irish Republican Army (IRA), joining the so-called Official IRA group in December of 1969.

Unfortunately, he was unaware of the IRA’s split into two factions earlier that month; the once united paramilitary force had dissolved into the Marxist Official IRA group and the Provisional IRA that opposed their counterpart’s political orientation. Learning of this news, McGuinness had made the move to the Provisional IRA by the beginning of 1970, in which he fought for Irish republicanism. The fledgling revolutionary had passion and quickly established himself as a capable operator, with the potential to be a leader in Derry inasmuch as the known disruptor, Gerry Adams, was in Belfast. By twenty-one, he had already become the Provisional IRA’s second-in-command and occupied this role on Bloody Sunday, January 30, 1972, when British forces gunned down thirteen unarmed Catholic protestors. McGuinness was so highly regarded within the IRA that he was sent alongside Gerry Adams to engage in negotiations with the British government about the attack. Interestingly, subsequent investigations have brought McGuinness’ actions on Bloody Sunday into question. A woman reported that he gave her bomb parts on the very morning of January 30 and further scrutiny came with allegations that McGuinness carried a submachine gun during the attack; he vehemently denied such claims, and it is likely the real circumstances of his activities on that day will never be known. McGuinness was eventually convicted in 1973 after he was found near a car containing 110kg of his explosives.

This, in conjunction with a desire to focus on politics, saw him (at least, officially) end his ‘active involvement’ with the IRA in early 1974, but it was known that he still retained a substantial organisational and logistical presence. To most, this signified the conclusion of his ‘terrorist’ phase. McGuinness then became one of the central members of the Sinn Fein, Northern Ireland’s left-wing political party which had ties to the IRA, and for the next twenty years, he served as both a leader and negotiator for the party. Throughout the 1980s, the now Sinn Fein Deputy’s ideals remained largely unchanged, as he continued to advocate an armed struggle for independence in Northern Ireland. He similarly assisted in securing the Downing Street Declaration of 1993, which essentially stated that the people of the “Island of Ireland” were granted self-determination and should be absolved of certain aspects of British intervention.

As the Lead Negotiator for Sinn Fien in 1988, McGuinness was heavily involved in the negotiations that led to the Good Friday Agreement, which is considered one his career’s greatest achievements, as it was an important driver for peace between Britain and Ireland, concerning sovereignty, civil rights and law. Moreover, throughout 1999, McGuinness personally oversaw removal of weaponry that occurred as a result of the agreement; this was specifically acknowledged by Bill Clinton, who believed McGuinness was essential in the efforts to secure peace in Ireland.

Also in the late 90s, McGuinness found his way into Parliament and became the Minister for Education in 1999. One of his first (and rather controversial) moves in that position was to abolish the “Eleven Plus” exams that he failed in the 1960s. The public did not hold that against him, and McGuinness achieved re-election, in 2001, 2005 and 2010. The St Andrew’s Agreement in 2007 restored the Northern Ireland Assembly, and there was a vote for First and Deputy First Minister, with McGuinness emerging as the latter. It was interesting that McGuinness became the Deputy to Ian Paisley’s First Ministership, as Paisley had once been a Protestant Minister who vehemently protested against Catholicism. Nevertheless, the two had developed a functioning collegial relationship, and were even labelled the “Chuckle Brothers” by the nation’s press. He went on to run for Irish president in 2011, and placed third in the election.

After that, he returned to his original role as Deputy First Minister in Northern Ireland. The year 2013 saw McGuinness meet with the Colin and Wendy Parry, whose 12-year-old son was killed in an IRA bombing in 1993. The couple invited him to speak at a function in their hometown, where he acknowledged the pain and sadness associated with the fight for Irish republicanism. The ever-principled McGuinness resigned from Parliament not long before his death, at the start of 2017, after a scandal involving a scheme that sought to incentivise the use of renewable energy in households. The scheme was inefficiently managed by the government under the guidance of Arlene Foster who later became First Minister.

Foster refused to accept any responsibility for the scandal and would not cooperate with subsequent investigations into the program. In protest, McGuinness resigned, signifying the end of his political career. Though British paramilitary forces never quite managed to get McGuinness back in the 1970s, it became clear in 2017 that ill-health would. On March 21, 2017, Martin McGuinness – aged 66 years – died from amylolysis, a rare disease to which doctors are yet to find a working cure. The essence of his legacy is hard to define, and one’s opinion on McGuinness depends very much upon their background and experiences. Only time will tell if he is remembered – by the majority, at least – as a hero, a terrorist, or otherwise. Nevertheless, there are aspects of his character that can be considered nothing short of admirable: his principles were enduring, and he stood by them regardless of the circumstances in which he found himself. The man who defended his beliefs in the IRA in the 70s was also the man who relinquished a significant leadership role in the name of his values forty years later.