Martin McGuiness - did he save more than he killed?

100% , who would want to return to terrible past

Guardian July 2000

The Maze prison was almost empty tonight - just 15 inmates were left inside the 800 cells. By the end of the year most will have been released or transferred elsewhere and the top security prison finally shut down.

The H Blocks emptied in just three hours today as the government freed the last big batch of 78 prisoners under the early release terms of the Good Friday Agreement. A further seven were let out of Maghaberry Prison a few miles away across County Antrim and one from Magilligan Jail in County Londonderry.

In all, 428 terrorists, including 143 serving life sentences, had been released since the scheme began 22 months ago. Mass killers and bombers, many responsible for the worst atrocities during 30 years of violence in the province, walked free today to be welcomed by cheering supporters.

IRA men, UDA and UFF men, men from the UVF, LVF and INLA, they all walked. The prison service made sure the releases were phased and that republicans and loyalists did not bump into each other in the car parks of the high security prison. Indeed, they ensured rival loyalists were kept well apart from each other.

Some awful things where committed by all sides during those times

Can't have the argument that sin fein only stared peace talks to escape prosecution ,think the conflict had reached a stalemate people wanted peace and what they had always wanted which was power sharing and equality not to be second class citizens

Your question is answered here by someone qualified to comment on the subject.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/844214975094652928

This is what Baron Tebbit said in yesterday's Mail:

''He was not only a multi-murderer, he was a coward. He knew that the IRA were defeated because British intelligence had penetrated right the way up to the Army Council and that the end was coming.

'He then sought to save his own skin and he knew that it was likely he would be charged before long with several murders which he had personally committed and he decided that the only thing to do was to opt for peace.''


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4334268/Norman-Tebbit-leads-condemna...

I thought the IRA had one purpose and that was to bring about a united Ireland by means of murder, intimidation, bombs, and torture.

No the IRA where protecting the community from loyalist trying to burn them out of their homes

perhaps the loyalists were protecting their community from being murdered and maimed by the IRA?

No you are wrong the first person killed in the troubles was a catholic barman murderd by gusty spence uvf

I do laugh at Tebbit claiming that McGuinness only turned to politics to avoid going to jail and that the IRA were defeated.  Yeah right because going to jail was a major concern for a guy supposedly running the IRA for over a decade !

that was one murder yes.

now as far as I know Gusty Spence was not voted into government

protecting the community

The ira murdered 1700 innocent irish citizens yet you call that protection.

No there had been multiple attempts to kill and maim Catholics one was when loyalist tried to burn down st Mathews chapel in the short stand
The locals managed to defend it

Blairs government killed thousands in Iraq "protecting" us from weapons of mass destruction

yes, its a bit much to condemn protestants when republicans are bombing and murdering and then voting into government the very same bombers and murderers

I think you will find it is Iraqis who are murdering thousands of Iriqis

No there had been multiple attempts to kill and maim Catholics

The ira murdered about 700 Catholics. Protection?

Don't think I'm trying to justify people dying I'm not terrible atrocities committed by all ,but don't believe everything from the bbc

wel done, that`s progress I suppose

How many people did the uvf Uda kill ?

yes there were all kinds of rogues and bad people on both sides, quite enough to last a lifetime

David Erving was a loyalist bomber who was sentenced to life in the maze was released and became instrumental in the peace process
I think he died around 2007 and I can't remember being described a a murderer in the media and by others when he died

now if you want to follow the logic that says the IRA were a reaction against loyalist intimidation, perhaps that could be followed to say the loyalist UDA etc were a reaction to IRA atrocities...that's the result of your `logic`

The man embraced the peace process

I am not impressed

Two wrongs don't make a right

Impressed by what?

very good, more progress so you can refer back to the `first` murder that you seemed to have keep in your head from somewhere

It's called an education have a good day

He's off , its surprising what education can do in certain countries throughout the world, and who is doing the teaching and what is being taught.

do you know 100 years ago hardly anyone was educated, the surprising thing about the happiness and welfare and even prosperity of a country has very little to do with education .

Martin McGuiness RIP - an Irish hero

Tebbit's opinion of him will do for me.

Norman Tebbit in an interview for The Guardian:


https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/jun/15/norman-tebbit-interview


Oddly enough, almost the only person to get a good word from Tebbit (apart from Boris Johnson, who he loves, but doesn't see as PM material) is Jimmy Savile, with whom the couple became friends through charitable work at Stoke Mandeville hospital.

"I've got no doubt Jimmy Savile was a very odd fellow, and I'm pretty sure he was in breach of the law on a number of matters. But I do not know that it's possible, 40 years on, to do justice in the sense of knowing just how many of those allegations are complete and true."

His wife is nodding as he goes on: "Jimmy did a great deal of good, as well as wrong. And in anybody's life, you have to look at both sides of the ledger."

I ask if the revelations have changed his feelings towards Savile. "Well, I always had my worries about Jimmy, because he was a very odd fellow." What did he fear he might be up to? "I would not have been surprised to find he was having homosexual relationships with young people." But he wasn't homosexual, was he? "Not in general, no, as I understand it."

"But he had," offers Lady Tebbit, "a homosexual air about him."

Oddly enough, almost the only person to get a good word from Tebbit (apart from Boris Johnson, who he loves, but doesn't see as PM material) is Jimmy Savile,

Could you point to the good word that Tebbit has to say about Savile please?
His wife said he did some good, but N Tebbit didn't praise him at all.

I can't find that good word in the above or in the article from the Guardian.

Has there ever been an article published in the Guardian that has a good word to say for any Tory?

They're further to the left than Corbyn.

Not a person to be messed with. He was a stout fellow.

Yes Crisp77 but he was a tad bitter.

he never bit my tad

Dr Crippen perhaps you misread the post?


His wife is nodding as he goes on: "Jimmy did a great deal of good, as well as wrong. And in anybody's life, you have to look at both sides of the ledger."

Yes you are correct Starshipenterprise.

Not going to bother debating who started it (answer = the other lot) but will question akabula's numbers. He says the IRA were responsible for the deaths of 1700 innocent Irish citizens. I readily acknowledge the difficulty in putting exact numbers to these things but the impartial source I'm using 'credits' the IRA with 1771 kills from the onset of the Troubles until July 1999. Of that number, 916 were members of the British security forces. So we've already halved akabula's 1700, to 855. The IRA is also credited with killing 149 of its own members, as well as 12 members of other Republican paramilitaries. That leaves 694 non-'innocents' which includes members of loyalist paramilitaries and/or the prison service, whose innocence/complicity might be a grey area.

So, the IRA killed 694 innocent Irish citizens (though some of that number may not have welcomed the 'Irish' tag) during the Troubles. Is that number not horrifying enough, aka? Why the need to exaggerate?

BTW, and just for the record of course, the total number of civilians killed by ALL republican paramilitaries was 723. Total civilians killed by loyalist paramilitaries? 878.

I think it was the loyalist paramilitaries who decommissioned when the IRA was no longer considered to be a threat.

what was happening around the time that the IRA called a ceasefire?
well by the start of the 1990s the UVF was focusing on targeting known republicans
members of the IRA political wing ,sinn fein or members of the IRA itself.
and around the same time there were signs that some loyalist paramilitaries were in danger of going rogue mad, and becoming as ruthless and fanatical and dangerous as any, things were close to slipping into chaos because the scum in many of these organisations
can come to power
as with the US mafia which was destroyed from within because the most fanatical and ruthless become the norm

this was a very dangerous time, not as it had been for decades for the innocent public, but the members of these organisations themselves.

I've forgotten to take into account those killed in England, and a few more in Europe, which totals 143, though not all are IRA victims. Probably lowers aka's 1700 to around the 600 mark.

running on the spot
How many people did the uvf Uda kill ?