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Irish Republic needs Martin McGuinness says Guardian writer

British columnist sides with former IRA leader in presidential bid

JAMES O'SHEA,

IrishCentral.com Staff Writer

Published Monday, October 10, 2011, 8:18 AM

Updated Monday, October 10, 2011, 3:12 PM

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Martin McGuinness

Northern Ireland is better off because of Martin McGuinness as Deputy First Minister and the Irish Republic would be better off with him as president says influential Gurdian columnist Ronan Bennett.

The columnist stated that McGuinness “put the gun down and he persuaded the British government to address the issues that sparked the conflict. The North is a better place because of him. The republic can be too.”

The Guardian columnist’s take is remarkably different to many in the Irish media who have attacked McGuinness because of his IRA past.

Bennett however, takes a different approach.

“What galls McGuinness's detractors is that Sinn Féin has been so staggeringly successful. Forty years ago it barely existed in anything other than name. Thirty years ago, it was confined to republican heartlands in Belfast and Derry. Twenty years ago its leaders were still subject to censorship in Ireland and Britain, and its members and elected councillors were ostracised and – with suspected state collusion – on occasion assassinated. Now its candidate for president has a real chance of winning.”

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Bennett stated that McGuinness would be known as a conciliator if elected.

“As president, McGuinness knows he would be the representative of all the republic's interests, even those to which he may be adverse. But he long ago absorbed the need for political inclusiveness. Even at the height of the Troubles he said he would talk to anyone at any time without preconditions in order to find a way to bring the conflict to a close. When negotiators eventually agreed to meet, they found him affable, straight-talking and easy to get along with. They were impressed. Against all expectation, they even liked him.”

Bennet says that “ His appeal is to those who never experienced the economic benefits of the Celtic Tiger but who are now paying for its collapse: the people, as he puts it, who were not invited to the party. Traditionally ignored by the main parties, they now look to one of their own.”

Bennett notes that the call to arms in Derry in 1969 was like the Arab spring just passed.
“What happened in McGuinness's home town of Derry in the summer of 1969 was an Irish spring, a spontaneous rebellion against a regime that discriminated and excluded from power a majority of its own citizens. Many reached for the gun in those strange, paranoid, idealistic and angry days. Martin McGuinness was one of them.”

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Johnnyclash | Oct 21, 2011, 07:12 PM EDT

Wonderful story about a Lovely wee man.

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seanomelbourne | Oct 16, 2011, 07:39 AM EDT

So there really is a doG.

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Fergananim | Oct 14, 2011, 08:30 PM EDT

Its comforting that my dyslexia is the only point you can find in error.

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seanomelbourne | Oct 14, 2011, 07:30 PM EDT

Fergananim I've posted my answer to you on an other article.Your ignorance of the conlict is amusing if not to be pitied.By the way get your name right it's AINM not ANIM, It only adds to your stupidity.I suggest you take your anti Irish postings to the Belfast Newsletter or any other unionist publication,they will wallow in your ignorant comments.

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Fergananim | Oct 14, 2011, 09:06 AM EDT

The reason Sinn Fein were ostracised for so long was because they fully supported all the actions of the Al Q'uaida of Ireland, the IRA. Only when the IRA put its arms beyond use did its vote begin to rise in Northern Ireland. Prior to that the Catholics of Northern Ireland voted for the SDLP, who's leader, John Hume, is the single person most responsible for bringing an end to the conflict. Both John Hume and the SDLP, despite all that was thrown at them by the loyalist gangs, the British state forces, and yes the IRA, utterly conndemmed murder as a way of achieving peace in the north. It took Sinn Fein and the IRA thirty eight years to do the same, during which time the IRA murdered over 1700 people, many of whom were Irish. This is why McGuinness is so repellent to so many voters in Ireland.

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seanomelbourne | Oct 12, 2011, 07:43 PM EDT

McGuinness is an honest candidate who will put Ireland first.

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petedev | Oct 12, 2011, 10:50 AM EDT

unsurprising support for the commander in chief from a former provo. no great surprise there. Mc Guinness being confronted by the relatives of gardai and irish army victims on the campaign trail is the real truth at last. The people will not be fooled by the spin, the "celebrity" supporters nor the blatant lies.

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seanomelbourne | Oct 11, 2011, 07:55 PM EDT

Dr Trelawney dicipline must be gutter politics maybe he should honour gobda with a Phd. Ater all they both kick the same cowpad(a soft one I hope).

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jacersagain | Oct 11, 2011, 03:46 PM EDT

Mind ya now... ‘twud be gas if, on official State occasions, Mr. McGuinness were to wear the uniform of Commander-in-Chief of the Irish Army ... now that might be something of a spectacular change for the better! If elected, he certainly he should wear it outside Dublin’s GPO on the day in 2016 that Ireland celebrates the centenary of the 1916 Easter Rising – and that’s certainly much better than having a “President” Norris wearing a pink Fedora on the day.

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jacersagain | Oct 11, 2011, 03:42 PM EDT

(...more) MMG’s poster slogan “a People’s President...” sounds more like a Hollywood MGM poster slogan. It is a fictitious aspiration and a daft (or deft?) borrowing from the late Princess Diana’s expressed desire to be “the People’s Princess”. How Northern republicans and Sinn Féin members will view him “presiding over a partitioned country” (ok, I sheepishly admit I got that from today’s Guardian newspaper online) is a cause for wonder. “President” McGuinness, imho, would have no influence on achieving or even furthering efforts for a United Ireland through official speeches because such topic speeches would be vetted and probably vetoed by the Government of Ireland. Whatever Mr. McGuinness thinks he can publicly achieve under his private SF agenda as President will be voided by the Government (certainly the present Fine Gael-led one).

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jacersagain | Oct 11, 2011, 03:34 PM EDT

In all this debating on who would make a good President, people tend to forget that the Irish President is pretty limited in what s/he can do. The office is mostly ceremonial, virtually non-political and almost all official functions are carried out “on the advice of” and “approval of” the Government of the day, which holds the true executive power in Ireland. Almost all official speeches by the President are vetted by the Government before delivery, though public expressions of informal opinions are allowed to the President. So why Sinn Féin thinks Mr. McGuinness will be a President who would be a change for the better is beyond me. (More...)

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jacersagain | Oct 11, 2011, 01:53 PM EDT

*BMHATW* - Dr Trelawney is right to correct me re the Guardian – I got mixed up (not stupid) - it is the Telegraph which is so anti-Irish. Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea culpa. However, I have known the Guardian to hold anti-Irish views in the past and remember cringing when reading them. But the Telegraph was much worse... gobdawpaddy is right. We need McGuinness as President like a (bullet) hole in the head. I will place him second last on my voting sheet, just ahead of that fraud Norris. (Excuse me while I go take an aspirin for me headache... *bloody wall*).

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gobdawpaddy | Oct 11, 2011, 12:35 PM EDT

Yeah the Irish Republic needs Martin McGuinness as president like a bullet in the head.

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sirpeter | Oct 11, 2011, 08:09 AM EDT

@DrTrelawney.According to Wikipedia the Guardian Media Group are Centre-left.The Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom.You make them all sound like they are a bunch of Commies.

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sirpeter | Oct 11, 2011, 07:48 AM EDT

@DrTrelawney.Is this the same“The Guardian” paper who said this?"When 14 civil rights demonstrators were killed on 30 January 1972, known as Bloody Sunday, by British soldiers in Northern Ireland, The Guardian blamed the protesters: "The organisers of the demonstration, Miss Bernadette Devlin among them, deliberately challenged the ban on marches. They knew that stone throwing and sniping could not be prevented,and that the IRA [Provisional Irish Republican Army] might use the crowd as a shield." (Guardian, 1 February 1972. Some Irish Nationalists believed that Lord Widgery's enquiry into the killings was a whitewash,but The Guardian declared that "Lord Widgery's report is not one-sided"(20 April 1972).The paper also supported internment without trial in Northern Ireland: "Internment without trial is hateful,repressive and undemocratic.In the existing Irish situation, most regrettably, it is also inevitable. ... To remove the ringleaders, in the hope that the atmosphere might calm down, is a step to which there is no obvious alternative." (Guardian leader, 10 August 1971) And before then, The Guardian had called for British troops to be sent to the region: British soldiers could "present a more disinterested face of law and order" (leader,15 August 1969), but only on condition that "Britain takes charge" (leader, 4 August 1969).

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