Martin McGuinness

Politician

1950-05-23

Quotes by Martin McGuinness

• There are no military solutions - dialogue and diplomacy are the only guarantee of lasting peace.

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• Along with that ongoing process Sinn Fein took a decision to establish a peace commission which had the responsibility to travel around the country to receive submissions from the general public, also our opponents.

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• Tony Blair has made a good contribution to the cause of peace in Ireland. He has made a great effort to understand it. He has great empathy with the need to resolve the conflict.

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• The sheer scale of what the Tories are attempting to do is staggering. But Sinn Fein will not agree to this ideologically driven austerity agenda.

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• I'm not going to be reduced to the position of being the implementer of Tory cuts in the North.

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• I lost a lot of friends at the hands of the British Army. The person who actually introduced me to my wife, Colm Keenan, was murdered by the British Army. He was a member of the IRA, but he was unarmed.

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• I think that what is happening now in terms of the Brexit vote does represent a serious undermining of the Good Friday Agreement.

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• The engagements I had with Queen Elizabeth and Prince Charles were about reaching out and showing respect to the unionist people. I also recognised that when someone like her makes acts of reconciliation as she did do at the Garden of Remembrance in Dublin, she is 100% behind the peace process.

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• But the fact is that the vast majority of Republicans support the Sinn Fein leadership.

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• If the British government is prepared to say that the Unionists will not have a veto over British government policy and that guns, vetoes and injustices will all be left outside the door, then there is no good reason why talks cannot take place in an appropriate atmosphere.

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• In my view, a united Ireland is inevitable, and it is certainly more likely than a voluntary coalition which doesn't include Sinn Fein.

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• We don't believe that winning elections and winning any amount of votes will win freedom in Ireland. At the end of the day, it will be the cutting edge of the IRA which will bring freedom.

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• I never panic when I get a wasp at my ear. As soon as you strike out, they'll sting you. So just stay cool.

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• I'm not going to be known as the Sinn Fein Minister who did the bidding of a Tory administration which is focused on decimating the welfare state.

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• I remember vividly as a 15-year-old, in 1964, seeing Derry play Glentoran in the Irish Cup Final at Windsor Park in Belfast. Glentoran were one of the two big Belfast teams, along with Linfield. Any rural team playing them was up against the odds.

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