Thousands attend McGuinness funeral in Northern Ireland

By Ahmet Gurhan Kartal

LONDON

Thousands of people have attended the funeral of Martin McGuinness, a former Irish Republican Army (IRA) commander turned senior politician and a key figure in Northern Ireland’s peace process.

Former U.S. President Bill Clinton, who acted as a broker in talks which lead to the 1998 Belfast Agreement between Irish nationalists and pro-British unionists, attended the Requiem Mass celebrated in St. Columba’s Church in Londonderry.

Ireland’s President Michael D. Higgins was also among those who attended the Derry native’s funeral.

A round of applause from mourners greeted the arrival of Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) leader Arlene Foster. McGuinness’s shock resignation as Northern Ireland’s Deputy First Minister in January had triggered the collapse of an administration run by his Sinn Fein party and Foster’s DUP.

Foster said: “Having worked with Martin McGuinness for almost a decade, I want to pay my respects to his family on the occasion of his death.”

McGuinness, 66, died from a rare heart condition early on Tuesday, just weeks after his resignation. A subsequent election in March saw Sinn Fein come within one seat of Foster’s Democratic Unionists.

Troubles legacy

McGuinness first came to prominence during serious unrest in Derry during the early years of the Troubles -- a sustained period of violence between 1969 and 1998.

He earned a reputation as a hardline leader of a resurgent IRA which fought a violent campaign to create a united Ireland, wholly independent from the U.K.

McGuinness’s reputation as a physical-force republican was thought to have helped secure IRA members’ backing for a switch to electoral politics and a cease-fire in 1994.

The Belfast Agreement of 1998 laid the foundation for a peace deal which fell short of the IRA’s goal of a united Ireland, but the movement largely remained united behind the leadership of McGuinness and his longtime colleague, Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams.

Adams is expected to deliver a graveside oration in Derry later Thursday.

McGuinness later become a lawmaker in the British parliament although, in line with Sinn Fein policy, he did not take his seat in Westminster.

In May 2007 he became Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland, working closely with First Minister Ian Paisley -- a former firebrand pro-British leader. An unlikely friendship between the two became the subject of a 2016 feature film.

In 2011 McGuinness ran in the Irish presidential election, coming third.

In June 2012 a photograph of the one-time IRA leader shaking hands with Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II during a visit to Belfast generated international coverage.

Northern Ireland’s parliament remains suspended following the election earlier this month.