Ex-IRA boss, 66 is dead
EX-IRA chief-turned-politician Martin McGuinness has died aged 66 of a rare heart condition.
Hours after his death, mourners lined the streets as his coffin was carried through his home town.
HUNDREDS of mourners lined the streets yesterday on Martin McGuinness’s final march through his home town.
Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams helped carry his coffin in Londonderry.
People stood in sleet and snow as the coffin, draped in the Irish tricolour, was carried to his home.
Mr Adams said: “We are very, very sad that we lost him overnight.” Prime Minister Theresa May said he “played a defining role in leading the Republican movement away from violence”, while former PM Tony Blair said peace in Northern Ireland would “never have been achieved without him”. The 66-year-old stepped down from being leader of Sinn Fein and deputy first minister of Northern Ireland this year, shortly after his diagnosis with a rare genetic condition. Although never charged with terror offences in the UK, many believed his hand was behind some of the worst atrocities of the IRA’s reign of terror.
His funeral will be in Londonderry tomorrow.
Lord Norman Tebbit, whose wife Margaret was paralysed by the Brighton bomb attack, said the world was a “sweeter and cleaner” place now he was dead.
Colin Parry, whose son Tim, 12, was killed in 1993’s Warrington bombing, said: “Setting aside forgiveness, I found Martin McGuinness an easy and pleasant man to talk to.”