McGuinness: ‘Cherish Unionists’

MARTIN McGuinness, the former IRA commander who is now Northern Ireland’s deputy first minister, yesterday told his Sinn Fein colleagues that Unionists “need to be loved and cherished”.

Speaking at Sinn Fein’s annual conference, McGuinness urged his Republican supporters to embrace their political rivals that for three and a half decades the IRA fought against during the Troubles.

“I see Unionists as brothers and sisters to be loved and cherished as we continue to develop a genuine process of reconciliation on our journey to the new republic,” McGuinness said.

His language was in stark contrast to the violent rhetoric used in the past by leaders of Sinn Fein, the party once regarded as the political wing of the Provisional IRA.

In another sign of the times, the deputy first minister was addressing the first Sinn Fein party conference to be held in Northern Ireland.

In more troubled times when Northern Ireland was engulfed in conflict, the conference was always held south of the border in the Republic of Ireland.

Although holding his hand out to Unionists with whom Sinn Fein now shares power at the Stormont Assembly, McGuinness was reassuring his followers that Sinn Fein remained committed to its historic goal: a united Ireland or “the new republic”.

McGuinness said Ireland was a proud country and he was proud to serve it.

But his words will be seen as yet more evidence that Republicans are prepared to put aside their differences with the Protestant community and work to achieve their aims through democratic means without resorting to violence.

The political settlement that sees McGuinness serve in a power-sharing administration with his historic enemies, the Democratic Unionist Party, has ensured that Northern Ireland will remain part of the United Kingdom unless the people of the province decide otherwise in a democratic vote.