Martin McGuinness: why I like the Queen so much

Former IRA commander Martin McGuinness has admitted that he likes the Queen.

Sinn Fein's deputy first minister paid tribute to her courage in agreeing to meet him despite his paramilitary past.

The veteran republican first met the Queen when they shook hands at a charity event in Belfast in 2012 in a symbolic gesture of reconciliation.

Last June, he guided her around Belfast's former Crumlin Road prison, where he and his power-sharing partner at the devolved administration at Stormont, first minister Peter Robinson, were incarcerated during the Troubles.

Mr McGuinness said: "I liked her courage in agreeing to meet with me, I liked the engagements that I've had with her.

"There's nothing I have seen in my engagements with her that this is someone I should dislike, I like her."

He said the Queen understood the significance of the peace process.

The Sinn Fein veteran told the BBC: "I know who Queen Elizabeth represents. I know she's the head of the British state. I know she has all sorts of titles in relation to the British army.

"She knows my history. She knows I was a member of the IRA. She knows I was in conflict with her soldiers, yet both of us were prepared to rise above all of that."

Earlier this year Mr McGuinness attended a Windsor Castle banquet given by the Queen in honour of the state visit to Britain by Irish president Michael D Higgins. He joined in a toast to the monarch as an orchestra played 'God Save The Queen'.

The politician last met the Queen in June at Crumlin Road Gaol. Once a forbidding institution synonymous with the grim years of conflict, the transformation of the notorious prison into a popular visitor attraction is symbolic of Northern Ireland's journey towards peace.

Mr McGuinness was held in the prison for more than a month in 1976 on a charge of IRA membership - a count that was later dropped in court.

Democratic Unionist leader Mr Robinson was detained there during the 1980s for his involvement in protests against the controversial Anglo Irish Agreement. When he was a Sinn Fein MP Mr McGuinness refused to sit in the House of Commons because he would have had to swear an oath of allegiance to the monarch.

Disagreement

The republican party still does not take up its seats at Westminster but is the largest in nationalism and forms a decisive part of the mandatory coalition at Stormont with the Democratic Unionists and smaller parties.

The administration is fragile following disagreements between unionists and nationalists over parades, flags and dealing with the legacy of a 30-year conflict which left thousands dead or injured.

Mr McGuinness made his latest comments in a BBC documentary, History in their Hands, on Radio Ulster.

Irish Independent