Martin McGuinness: From Guns To Government

by Liam Clarke and Kathryn Johnston
2001

Reviewed by Gary Kent

When Martin McGuinness became Education Secretary in Ulster, a unionist in the public gallery at Stormont was physically sick. Don't send this fascinating biography of "Britain's Public Enemy Number One" to that visceral critic.

And I wouldn't raise it with McGuinness, who was thuggish in a televised discussion of the book, describing it as complete rubbish, although he had not actually read it. He certainly didn't co-operate with this book, although much of the information comes from an interview with one of the authors in 1992.

It's no great secret that McGuinness has spent most of his adult life in the republican movement. He told one Dublin court that he was a "very, very proud" IRA member. As a 22 year-old, he was plucked from the front line to attend secret talks with the British Government in the early 70s and was described by a British soldier as "excellent officer material."

But this book, co-authored by one of Northern Ireland's best political writers, the Sunday Times Ireland correspondent Liam Clarke, details his military and political life with the help of what seems to be a wide range of republican and other sources.

The book paints a rounded picture of McGuinness, from a "happy and uneventful childhood," when he was "extremely polite to the nuns" although there was something of the playground bully about him, through to his job as a butcher's apprentice and how discrimination radicalised him.

The book provides a litany of McGuinness' "full role" in organising "resistance" to sicken the "British forces of occupation." As a "Fagin-type" character teaching the tricks of the trade to young militants, ordering executions and approving key IRA attacks including the attempt on the British Cabinet at the Grand Hotel in Brighton and on Downing Street. He's also in the frame when informers were interrogated, sweet-talking a victim's mother that the Provos were not as bad as the British, although her son, Frank Heggarty had been enticed to a grisly end. The book portrays his quality control role, as he watched murders and bombs in order to improve future techniques and how he helped organise the IRA's "gunboat diplomacy" during the peace process. Two kids, for example, died at Warrington so that the British Government would take the IRA seriously.

McGuinness was very careful, verging on cowardice, in avoiding trouble although it also quotes him as saying that he was "as blind as a bat." It also suggests that the British had selected him, without his knowledge, as a leader to do business with. It seems as if the security forces had amassed a substantial case against him - in Operation Taurus - but his involvement in the then secret peace process gave him a "get out of jail free" card.

The core controversy of the biography, however, concerns McGuinness's role in Bloody Sunday in Derry in 1972, when British paratroopers shot dead unarmed civil rights demonstrators. The outcry led to a massive revival of the IRA and Tony Blair later set up an inquiry into it. McGuinness has so far been less than forthcoming with the inquiry. He might have problems, for the book reveals that he defied the IRA policy of keeping guns away from the demonstration and says that McGuinness ordered the use of nail bombs. Although the order was rescinded, one nail bomber may have been on the scene. It also suggests that McGuinness himself fired a shot at soldiers. This version of events rides a coach and horses through the republican account of events. The authors expose the key Provo hypocrisy - their enemies' mistakes must be eternally dissected whereas theirs should be forgotten. The Bloody Sunday inquiry must avoid this trap.

There are other new revelations. A former IRA arms supplier says that the IRA grassed up erstwhile supporters in the USA, who backed dissident republicans, in return for permission to open an office and raise funds in America. McGuinness himself made secret trips to America to secure arms supplies. The authors also allege that the IRA Chief of Staff was present with the narco-terrorist FARC group in Colombia, which puts the IRA centre-stage in this most embarrassing affair.

The book describes the political context incisively. For example, how Tony Benn gave McGuinness and Adams tactical advice on how to speak in the Commons without taking the oath. The authors comment that "Benn had missed the point" since Sinn Fein objected to British jurisdiction rather than the Queen as such. Unfortunately, the book is sometimes marred by poor editing and elementary factual blunders.

McGuinness is surprisingly popular, even amongst his enemies, who prefer his "earthy and direct" manner to the "pompous" Gerry Adams. For a man with so much blood on his hand, McGuinness is a strangely inspiring man. The authors say that the IRA campaign was a waste of time and life but concede that McGuinness secured the best possible terms to end it and that the movement is now "one of the most powerful forces in Irish politics." Now that should sicken everyone.

This article first appeared at SourceUK.net in November 2001.


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