McGuinness pays tribute to Stormont's former IRA prisoners

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Ronski
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McGuinness pays tribute to Stormont's former IRA prisoners

Post by Ronski » Mon May 25, 2009 4:03 pm

McGuinness pays tribute to Stormont's former IRA prisoners
Belfast Telegraph
Monday, 25 May 2009

Northern Ireland's deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness listed the names of former IRA prisoners now working for his party at Stormont in a speech to supporters.

The Sinn Fein politician addressed an event in Park, Co Londonderry, commemorating the 1981 republican hunger strike in the Maze prison where 10 men starved themselves to death in a controversial protest for political status.

He told the supporters who were marking the anniversary of the death of hunger striker Kevin Lynch, that the prison protest had fuelled republican growth and changed the political landscape.

But he told his audience that the political institutions now in place at the Assembly should not feel remote from the lives of grassroots republicans and recounted his party's weekly team meetings at Stormont.

He listed senior republicans who form part of the Sinn Fein team of elected representatives and political staffers, including former hunger strikers, former IRA prisoners and senior figures who survived being shot by security forces or loyalists, which included party president Gerry Adams.

"Every Monday morning, without fail, I look around that room and I see former hunger-strikers and freedom fighters staring back at me," he said.

"People like Leo Green or Raymond McCartney or Jackie McMullan who were - like Kevin Lynch - literally prepared to give up their lives on hunger strike for justice in the jails.

"People like Sean Lynch or Alex Maskey or Gerry Adams who carried the burden of the freedom struggle and who still bear the scars of the battle.

"People like Martina Anderson or Sinead Walsh, people like Caral Ni Chuilin or Jennifer McCann or Mary McArdle, all of whom endured the brutality of state-approved strip-searching in prison and yet who maintained their republican dignity - and their good humour.

"People like Gerry Kelly or Bobby Storey, people like Conor Murphy or Padraic Wilson or Sean Murray, who helped lead the Long Kesh prisoners and who took the entire System apart - block by block - from the inside out.

"People like Francie Brolly, a civil rights veteran and former internee, or Francie Molloy, a veteran of Caledon and the civil rights struggle."

Mr McGuinness added: "So when you see the Assembly on TV, or look at Gerry Adams or Bairbre de Brun or myself in the media, always remember this: standing at our shoulders are the women and the men who stood at the front of the struggle when there was no alternative option but war, and who - when the time was right - had the courage and commitment and skills to create the new phase of peaceful and democratic change into which we have successfully led this society."

The comments come against the backdrop of the June 4 European election where rival unionists have clashed over the role of republicans in the powersharing government.

The Democratic Unionist Party has said it is frustrating Sinn Fein policies through the work of DUP ministers on the Assembly Executive.

But the hardline Traditional Unionist Voice has hit out at the IRA background of some senior Sinn Fein figures and called for the party to be removed from government.


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