Derry mourns McGuinness as remains carried home

Two months ago, after announcing that he was quitting frontline politics, a frail and emotional Martin McGuinness said his “heart lies in the Bogside and with the people of Derry”.

As snow began to fall in his native city on Tuesday evening, his Tricolour-draped coffin was carried back through the streets where he grew up in preparation for his funeral on Thursday.

Tributes from across the island of Ireland and overseas were paid to the former IRA leader and subsequent peacemaker who died from a rare heart illness early on Tuesday morning.

Amid the accolades for helping to move Northern Ireland from violence to peace, there were also critical and unforgiving words about his leadership of the IRA, which during the Troubles killed almost 1,800 people.

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In Derry, people remembered a local man who was a senior IRA figure almost from the start of the Troubles in 1969 and an influential Sinn Féin politician from the early stages of the peace process in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Hundreds of people applauded as the coffin was borne by family members and by senior Sinn Féin figures such as his close friend Gerry Adams and his successor Michelle O'Neill from the funeral home on William Street to his home in the Bogside.

Mr McGuinness, who was 66, became seriously ill at a time when the political process was thrown into crisis over the “cash for ash” scandal.

Refusal

DUP leader Arlene Foster’s refusal to temporarily stand down as First Minister pending an investigation of the scheme prompted Mr McGuinness to resign as Deputy First Minister, thus precipitating Assembly elections in which Sinn Féin came within one seat of the DUP.

But rather than politics, the focus on Tuesday was on sympathy for Mr McGuinness’s widow Bernie and their four children.

“Martin faced his illness with courage and after stepping away from the glare of the public spotlight, I sincerely hope he got the chance to enjoy the things he loved,” said Ms Foster.

Senior DUP sources said on Tuesday night that Ms Foster was anxious to attend Mr McGuinness’s funeral. The party has some concern, however, over whether it would feature significant IRA paramilitary trappings.

A senior Sinn Féin source said the arrangements for the 2pm funeral Mass at St Columba’s Church, Long Tower in Derry had not yet been completed and that it would be a matter for the McGuinness family to determine the nature and style of the funeral.

The Sinn Féin president Mr Adams said Mr McGuinness would be sorely missed by all who knew him.

Taoiseach Enda Kenny said the death was a “significant loss, not only to politics in Northern Ireland, but to the wider political landscape on this island and beyond”.

Historic contribution

The British prime minister Theresa May said although she could never "condone the path he took in the earlier part of his life", he made "an essential and historic contribution" to the peace process.

But a number of victims were critical of Mr McGuinness and his role as an IRA leader. Norman Tebbit, who narrowly survived the 1984 IRA Brighton bombing in which his wife, Margaret was paralysed, described Mr McGuinness as a “multi-murderer” and a “coward”.

Austin Stack, son of Irish prison officer Brian Stack who was murdered by the IRA in 1983, said Mr McGuinness “never reconciled with victims” of the IRA. “There are people who never got their answers,” he said.

Relatives of victims of the 1987 Remembrance Day Enniskillen bombing in which 12 people ultimately died and more than 60 were injured said Mr McGuinness had taken his “secrets to the grave”.

Margaret Veitch, whose parents William and Agnes Mullan were murdered in the bombing, said “I am so sorry for all the innocent victims of Northern Ireland because we will never, never get the true story.”