Eamonn McCann: The Point the Media Missed About Martin McGuinness

Much has been made of the applause which greeted Arlene Foster as she took her place at Martin McGuinness’s funeral in the Long Tower Church in Derry last Thursday. The ovation was widely taken as a harbinger of hope that the Stormont talks set to resume the following day would be conducted in a more consensual and conducive atmosphere, that agreement on the most difficult issues, including the long-elusive deal on “legacy” – getting to the truth of Troubles atrocities – might now be on the cards.

This was wishful thinking. The likelihood of agreement depended, as ever, on who was willing to give way on what. The atmosphere at the Long Tower may have been hugely heartening in general terms but won’t have been a material consideration in the minds of the negotiation teams. Less attention has been paid to a more significant departure from normal practice – the fact that the coffin was draped in a Tricolour as it lay before the altar. This was a break from strict protocol which had originated at the same Long Tower church 30 years ago.

In March 1987, two masked IRA gunmen fired a volley of shots within the Church grounds at a requiem mass for IRA volunteer Gerard Logue was under way inside. Then Bishop of Derry Eddie Daly reacted with fury. Flags and paramilitary trappings have effectively been banned from Church funerals in the North ever since.

Explaining the change, Bishop Donal McKeown listed the relevant factors: “Mr. McGuinness was former deputy first minister; President Michael D. Higgins and Taoiseach Enda Kenny were attending; British government representatives were attending; leaders of the main Stormont parties were in attendance; and the tricolour was flown at half mast over the Houses of the Oireachtas in Dublin, even though Mr. McGuinness had not been a member of the Oireachtas.”

The attendance was remarkable, right enough. Others present included Bill Clinton, Mary McAleese, PSNI chief constable George Hamilton, NI Minister James Brokenshire and a selection of senior British and Irish officials. Barack Obama sent a letter of condolence. Queen Elizabeth sent a private message to Martin’s widow, Bernie. Singers and musicians including Christy Moore and Frances Black sang ‘Raglan Road’, ‘The Time Has Come’ and Gaelic laments. The like of it has never been seen – certainly not in Derry.

Against that background, Bishop McKeown’s summation may not have seemed extravagant. But in terms of precedent and established practice it was startling: “It was decided that the deceased should be given a comparable honour to that which would have been accorded to a former or serving head of state or government of Ireland (Uachtaran or Taoiseach).”

In other words, it was decided that, for all intents and purposes, Martin was to be given a State funeral. The question of whether the Sinn Fein leader “deserved” this recognition is beside the point. As well him as any other. The point is that this could be taken by those so inclined as acknowledgement if not acceptance of the status which Republicans have traditionally ascribed to the IRA, as a legitimate force representing the people of Ireland. The sense of satisfaction among Republicans on the ground has been immense.

It is this which might potentially facilitate Sinn Fein endorsement of a deal.

The IRA hadn’t fought for equality for Northern Catholics. Any suggestion during the “armed struggle” that military action might be abandoned for a settlement leaving the Six Counties within the UK was regarded as anathema. Martin can be remembered at a gathering in a community centre in the Creggan in the mid-1970s quoting Patrick Pearse: “The man who, in the matter of Ireland, accepts as a final settlement anything less by one fraction of an iota than separation from England is guilty of so immense an infidelity, so immense a crime, that it were better for that man – as it certainly were for his country – that he had not been born.”

Not much room for compromise there, it might seem. But Martin will not have seen the turn towards constitutional politics as contradicting or compromising the IRA campaign. The new strategy had been sold to the Republican rank-and-file not as abandonment of the use of legitimate force, but the tactical adoption of a different path towards the same objective.

Contrary to the virtually unanimous view of mainstream commentators, there have not been two Martin McGuinnesses, the man of war and then the man of peace. Gerry Adams was right when, in his graveside oration, he ridiculed any such notion in forceful terms. From first to last, Martin had been a “freedom fighter”.

There had been none of that sort of talk at the church an hour earlier. None of the dignitaries had followed the cortege to the cemetary. Adams’ address was intended as reassurance to the rank-and-file that, despite appearances and the assumptions of both establishment spokespersons and “dissidents”, the struggle for a united Ireland was being and would be pursued with all the vigour and fervour that had been brought to bear in the armed struggle.

To most of us in the Westland area of the Bogside, the funeral had first and foremost been of a neighbour. To the mainstream media, it had been a morality tale and a plot-point in the narrative of Northern history. It was all these things and more.

But the most important aspect of the event, its ideological significance, has mostly been missed.