Northern Ireland’s outgoing deputy first minister who once headed the Provisional IRA was vital to success of peace process

When Martin McGuinness first sat down at a cabinet table in the summer of 1998, facing his former unionist foes, one of the Derry republican’s comrades had words of advice for David Trimble, then first minister.

Gerry Kelly, the Old Bailey bomber who escaped from the Maze prison in County Antrim, whispered to the future Nobel peace prize winner: “Whatever you do, David, don’t let Martin get talking about fishing. If you get into small chat about fishing he will go on all day about it. No business will get done here.”

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Trimble later recalled Kelly’s words about McGuinness’s passion for fly-fishing, an appropriate hobby for Sinn Féin’s chief negotiator during the peace process for being sport that requires caution and infinite patience.

The same qualities were probably needed when McGuinness, former head of the Provisional IRA, and his close friend Gerry Adams sought to steer the most ruthless and well-organised terror group in the western world out of the cul-de-sac of “armed struggle” towards democratic politics.

Adams has often been cited as the pivotal figure in turning the Provisionals away from their “united Ireland or nothing” politics towards a historic compromise with unionism. However, some of those who held central roles within the Provisional IRA during the Troubles emphasise that Adams could never have shifted republican strategy away from violence to constitutional politics without McGuinness’s full support.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Gerry Adams (right) and Martin McGuinness outside Downing Street during peace talks. Photograph: Toby Melville/PA Archive/PA Images

Unlike Adams, McGuinness did admit he was once in the IRA, telling the Bloody Sunday inquiry he was the Provisionals’ deputy commander in Derry in 1972. McGuinness later claimed he left the IRA in 1974, although dozens of former Provisionals dispute that.

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Sean O’Callaghan rose through the ranks of the Provisionals from the early 70s onwards to become the IRA’s southern commander in the early 80s. He sat on Provisional army council meetings with McGuinness. All the time O’Callaghan was working as an informer for the Irish government and his intelligence reports were vital in helping thwart large-scale terror attacks according to the late taoiseach Garret FitzGerald.

O’Callaghan said McGuinness would have had firsthand knowledge of big IRA operations including the bombs in the City of London in the 90s. Yet despite this, O’Callaghan said McGuinness was critical to the peace process: “In my opinion Adams wouldn’t have had a farting chance without him.”

McGuinness is also described by O’Callaghan as a man whose ear was “always finely attuned to any dissenting noises inside the organisation” and “a fierce disciplinarian especially in younger days regarding alcohol, and volunteers having extra affairs, stuff like that”.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Martin McGuinness (left) warns mourners to take cover as gunshots ring out over Milltown cemetery during the funerals of three IRA terrorists in 1988. Photograph: PA Archive/PA Images

Ed Moloney, the leading expert on PIRA and author of A Secret History of the IRA, the book regarded as the seminal account of the Provisionals’ evolution, said McGuinness was in charge of the organisation when it murdered Lord Mountbatten in 1979. Less than three decades later, McGuinness was shaking hands with the Queen on a visit to Belfast.

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Sinn Féin’s peace strategy not only included shaking hands with British royalty whom republicans had once regarded as “legitimate targets”, but also striking up once unthinkable friendships with former enemies in unionism.

One of the most astonishing scenarios throughout the peace process has been McGuinness’s warm relationship with the man seen as one its originators – the unionist Rev Ian Paisley.

Following the signing of the 2006 St Andrews agreement, which led to the first Sinn Féin-DUP-led coalition in Belfast, McGuinness became close to Paisley, the firebrand cleric and unionist rabble rouser, who was a hate figure for decades among Irish nationalists.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Ian Paisley and Martin McGuinness after being sworn in as ministers of the Northern Ireland assembly. Photograph: Paul Faith/PA

The pair were photographed so many times together laughing and smiling that they were nicknamed The Chuckle Brothers after the hapless comedy duo on Children’s BBC television.

Both O’Callaghan and Moloney agree that this most unlikely of friendships was born out of McGuinness’s long-term political gameplay. If it suited the movement to switch tack and suddenly embrace Paisley, then so be it. Moloney said the Chuckle Brothers phenomenon showed what a “loyal soldier” McGuinness was for the movement’s long-term interests.

O’Callaghan added: “Maybe him and Ian did have some kind of chemistry, a religious or spiritual aspect. But I think most importantly, the leadership knew that being seen to work the institutions in Northern Ireland, even to take some shit from the DUP was the best option looking south and portray yourself in the Republic as fit for government in Dublin. McGuinness had the discipline and the authority to hold the line on that.”