James Martin Pacelli McGuinness (born May 23, 1950) is an Irish nationalist politician. He is the Sinn Féin MP for Mid Ulster, but has refused to take his seat. He is also a member of the currently-suspended Northern Ireland Assembly, and served as Education Minister in the Northern Ireland Executive.

He joined the Provisional IRA in the 1970s, and negotiated along with Gerry Adams with the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Willie Whitelaw, in 1972. He was convicted by a Republic of Ireland court in 1973, after being caught with a car with 2500lb of explosives and 50000 rounds of ammunition. He was sentenced to 6 months, and refused to acknowledge the court. Throughout the 1970s he was convicted of multiple murders and bombings throughout Northern Ireland.

After his release, and another conviction in Ireland - this time for being a member of the PIRA, he became increasingly prominent in Sinn Féin, the political wing of the IRA. Following a series of intimidation shootings and attacks on polling stations throughout Northern Ireland, he was elected to a short-lived assembly at Stormont in 1982, and was later banned from entering Great Britain under the Prevention of Terrorism Act.

He had become Sinn Féin's chief negotiator in the time leading to the Belfast Agreement. He became MP for Mid Ulster in 1997, and after the Agreement was concluded, was returned as a member of the Assembly, and nominated by his party for a ministerial position in the power-sharing executive. He was re-elected to the Westminster Parliament in 2001, but along with the rest of his party has refused to take his seat, because it would mean swearing an oath of alliegance to the Queen.

In November 2003 he confirmed to the Bloody Sunday Inquiry that he had been leader of the IRA in Londonderry in 1972, at the time of Bloody Sunday.

Related Topics

• IRA Army Council
• Irish Republican Army
• Gerry Adams
• Sinn Féin
• History of Northern Ireland
• Terrorism
• The Troubles
• Northern Ireland peace process

External links

• Guardian Politics Ask Aristotle - Martin McGuinness
• TheyWork ForYou.com - Martin McGuinness MP