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TWO entirely separate obituaries are to be written for former Northern Ireland Deputy First Minister/terrorist Martin McGuinness, who passed away early this morning at the age of 66.

McGuinness’ death, alleged by some hardline Unionists to have been ‘politically motivated’, has sparked fresh debate among sections of the North who still need clarification as to whether or not the Sinn Féin stalwart was in fact an architect of peace, or a cold-blooded member of a shameful paramilitary organisation.

With no possible way of writing an obituary that would be acceptable to both the victims of IRA attacks that McGuinness was allegedly involved in and also to those who have been spared a generation of violence thanks to McGuinness’ involvement in the peace process, the decision has been made to just write two separate pieces to keep everyone happy.

“You have to respect the fact that even after everything that McGuinness accomplished in his political career, there’s a lot of people in Northern Ireland who still see him as a murderer,” said the editor of one Belfast paper, preparing separate ‘remarkable political activist’ and ‘Fenian scum’ headlines.

“So regardless of what you think of McGuinness, we’ll have an article for you. If you think he helped broker a peace that had eluded Northern Ireland for decades, well, we’ve got you covered. Your cousin got shot dead in Derry in 1978, and you think McGuinness always withheld information that could have led to the arrest of the killer, so you’re on the ‘fuck Sinn Fein’ end of things? Well, we’ve something for you too”.

“Of course, it would be nice to be able to do one obituary that took into account both the early parts and the later achievements of Martin McGuinness’ life, but 20 years on from Good Friday, maybe some in Northern Ireland still aren’t quite ready for that yet”.

The death of McGuinness has also led to a huge outpouring of disrespect on social media, mostly coming from youths who weren’t alive during the Troubles but still possess a decent amount of sectarian hatred, following the example that has been set by their elders.