By Peter McCarthy May 8, 2007, 18:11 GMT
Belfast - Martin McGuinness, who was on Tuesday officially installed as Northern Ireland's deputy first minister in a power- sharing executive between rival Protestants and Catholics, has been a pivotal and controversial figure in the British-administered province for three-and-a-half decades.
First Minister Ian Paisley (L) and Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness are all smiles after being sworn in as ministers of the Northern Ireland Assembley, Stormont, 08 May 2007. The Rev. Ian Paisley and Martin McGuinness were sworn in today as First and Deputy First Ministers following a deal struck between the Democratic Unionists and Sinn Fein in March. EPA/PAUL FAITH / POOL
Widely regarded being as a central figure on the Army Council of the Irish Republican Army (IRA), McGuinness has admitted to being a member of the terrorist organization during the 1970s as violence broke out following the failure of the Irish nationalist-led civil- rights movement.
Born in the predominantly Catholic city of Derry in 1950, in 2003 McGuinness told an investigation into the shooting dead of 14 people by the British Army in 1972 on what has become known as Bloody Sunday that he was IRA second-in-command in the city at the time. However, over the years he has repeatedly denied that he is still an IRA member.
In 1973, he was convicted of terrorism offences in the Republic of Ireland and served time in prison there.
In 1972, McGuinness was one of the Republican - a more extreme form of Irish nationalism that advocated violence to achieve a united Ireland - leaders flown to London for talks with the British government. Those talks failed.
Over two decades later he was Sinn Fein's chief negotiator in the talks that led to the 1998 Good Friday Agreement on power-sharing between Unionists who want to maintain Northern Ireland's links with Britain and Nationalists.
Together with Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams, McGuinness has led the Republican movement from violence and into politics over the past two decades. He is regarded as having played a pivotal role in persuading the IRA to call a ceasefire in 1994.
Elected to the British parliament in 1997 as Sinn Fein member of parliament for Mid-Ulster, he is also a member of the Northern Ireland Assembly.
McGuinness was appointed education minister in the power-sharing executive formed as a result of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement but the arrangement collapsed in October 2002 following allegations of IRA spying.
On Tuesday when the executive was restored the man once dubbed 'the godfather of godfathers' by a Unionist MP took the number two job, thanks to his party's emergence as the biggest nationalist party in Northern Ireland in assembly elections.
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