McGuinness biography 'a load of rubbish'
Sinn Fein’s Martin McGuinness today dismissed as ‘‘a load of rubbish’’ a new biography of him which claims he distributed blast bombs to young IRA members ahead of the Bloody Sunday march in Derry where 14 civil rights activists were shot dead by paratroopers.
The book, Martin McGuinness: From Guns to Government, charts his rise from Bogside butcher’s boy, through the ranks of the IRA to his present position of Education Minister in the power-sharing government in Northern Ireland.
Written by Sunday Times Northern Ireland Editor Liam Clarke and his wife Kathryn Johnston, the book claims McGuinness defied IRA orders on the night before Bloody Sunday that there should be no trouble at the march, by handing out blast bombs to eight teenagers in the IRA’s youth wing Fianna.
Mr McGuinness, who has admitted being the IRA’s number two in Derry on Bloody Sunday in 1972, hurriedly ordered the retrieval of the bombs and their return to a lock-up garage where he had distributed them when he saw the size of the massive army build up ahead of the march, said they book.
It claimed that one youth, Gerald Donaghy, 17, could not be contacted to return his two bombs and that he was later shot dead by soldiers.
The IRA has always claimed none of its members were killed on Bloody Sunday.
The Education Minister is due to be called as a witness at the Bloody Sunday Inquiry in Derry’s Guildhall and has already made an official statement.
However there have been claims that he has been delaying and suggestions he wanted to see what was in the book before taking the witness stand.
Mr McGuinness was Sinn Fein’s chief negotiator throughout the peace process. But the book - being serialised in the Sunday Times - reveals his earlier life as an alleged arms buyer who travelled to the US, Italy and Libya, and links him to key IRA operations against the security forces through much of the last 30 years.
However Mr McGuinness branded the book as ‘‘a load of rubbish’’ and dismissed it as an attempt to return to the ‘‘failed policy of demonising the Sinn Fein leadership’’.
Mr McGuinness added: ‘‘My focus and the focus of the Sinn Fein leadership is on building peace in Ireland, not responding to this nonsense.’’
Sinn Fein chairman Mitchel McLaughlin Laughlin, also a member of the Stormont Assembly, claimed: ‘‘Liam Clarke has no credibility among the republican and nationalist community. He has built his career not on investigative journalism but by quoting anonymous British military sources.’’
He said the book was an attempt to ‘‘undermine and undervalue the crucial role Martin McGuinness has played in building the Irish peace process’’.
It was also, said Mr McLaughlin, ‘‘a blatant attempt to defend and justify the actions of the British army on Bloody Sunday.
‘‘It comes as no surprise however, given the background of the authors and will be dismissed by most people for the cynical exercise that it is.’’
:: Martin McGuinness: From Guns to Government, is published tomorrow.
