Martin McGuinness: From Guns to Government [Hardcover]

Liam Clarke (Author), Kathryn Johnston (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 16, 2005

Martin McGuinness, former Chief of Staff of the IRA and current Northern Ireland Education Minister, is the lynch pin in the current cease-fire agreement. McGuinness has been described as "excellent officer material"; "the second most powerful man in Britain after Rupert Murdoch"; "the personification of the armed struggle"; and, "IRA godfather of godfathers". Yet he is also a devout Catholic, a husband, a father to four grown up children and a keen poet and fisherman. In his native Derry, he is equally revered and reviled. Liam Clarke and Kathryn Johnston uncover the truth behind this enigmatic and intensely private individual who holds the peace process in the palm of his hand. Following interviews with friends and family, IRA volunteers, police officers, IRA victims, civil servants and politicians, the book tells the remarkable story of how McGuinness steered the IRA through war to peace.

Editorial Reviews

Review

'Fascinating...the McGuinness story is truly amazing: read this biography and blanch' Sunday Independent 'A useful new insight into the man' Irish News 'An impressive study of the most controversial republican member of Northern Ireland's current power-sharing government' Daily Telegraph --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

From the Publisher

Martin McGuinness has variously been described as “the second most powerful man in Britain after Rupert Murdoch,” “the personification of the armed struggle,” and “IRA Godfather of Godfathers.” Yet McGuinness, now the first Minister for Education in the Northern Ireland Assembly, is also a devout Catholic and the father of four. In his native Derry, he is equally revered and reviled. In this new biography, Liam Clarke and Kathryn Johnston uncover the truth behind the enigmatic, intensely private individual who holds the peace process in the palm of his hand. Drawing on interviews with friends and family, IRA volunteers, police officers, IRA victims, civil servants, and politicians, they tell the story of how McGuinness steered the IRA through war to peace. Liam Clarke is Northern Ireland Editor of THE SUNDAY TIMES and author of Broadening the Battlefield; Kathryn Johnston is a journalist and filmmaker.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: Mainstream Publishing (August 16, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1840184736
• ISBN-13: 978-1840184730
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.5 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 1.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,129,394 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Full of Misinformation and Unauthorised Testimony, May 6, 2004

By 

A. lynn "Niamh" (Dublin) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Martin McGuinness: From Guns to Government (Hardcover)

Be aware that this book is entirely compiled of statements and claims that are highly disapproved of by the man himself Martin McGuinness whom highly disapproved of the book's release.

I was misled by a review I'd read of the book and mistook it for a fair coverage of the man McGuinness.

I found this book to be tongue in cheek bias against it's claimed topic and not at all worthy of any attention whatsoever.
Too many references not based in truths to mention.

It is obviously a book to put McGuinness in a certain light and not at all to provide unbiased or balanced info.

More a work of dogma about the figure of the man than anything of historically accurate value.

A huge disappointment.

5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars A bad-tempered, bleak biography showing the futility of viol, January 3, 2005

By 

Hugh Claffey (Co. Kildare Ireland) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Martin McGuinness: From Guns to Government (Paperback)

Liam Clarke and Kathryn Johnston are journalists who have covered the political conflict in Northern Ireland for many years. This is a biography of one of the central characters in the IRA. The authors give some description of the times - poverty, commercial discrimination, political gerrymandering - which convinced a significant minority of the nationalist population that Northern Ireland had to change radically. They give some coverage to the reasons given by various militant Republicans - McGuinness among them - for taking up arms, mainly that the reaction of the British (and Unionist) state to the struggle for Civil Rights was violent and had to be met with violence.
However it is plain that Clarke and Johnston see the thirty years of IRA violence and the thousands of lives which were lost as purely futile and corrupting. They have no basic tolerance for the reasons given for the continuation of armed struggle and, as such, their opinions become front and centre of this biography. Their basic argument is that the deal which brought about the Good Friday Agreement was little different from the deal on offer twenty five years previously at Sunningdale and that the intervening years had seen thousands of people killed, maimed and jailed. They further point out that the only difference between the two agreements was the participation of Sinn Fein and infer, therefore that the violence was really a struggle for power within the nationist community; which Sinn Fein won, at the price of given up their revolutionary aspirations.

While most or all of this may be true, this belief sets the tone for the book itself, and paints McGuinness as cynical, ruthless, effective mainly in self-preservation. The interviews serve mainly to emphasise these traits, and I think ultimately turns the reader away from the views espoused. I was also not convinced that McGuinness provided the key thinking on the various changes in strategy that the movement took over years, though the authors seem to think McGuinness greatly influenced these moves. I did not find the evidence convincing - indeed it seemed to me that McGuinness is more an executor (pun intended) than a strategist.

The book is extremely effective in highlighting the callous, ruthlessness of most of the IRA operations, the ineffectual nature of the campaign led to more and more civilian deaths, the effectiveness of the British authorities led to a widening of the catagories of IRA `legitimate targets' to encompass anyone who dealt with the authorities, and yet more and more innocents were being killed.
There is a book to be written on whether the Sinn Fein leadership are the ultimate cynical politicians, using violence for publicity for over thirty years , and ultimately using the promise of peace to extort votes and a measure of political power. There is also a view that a movement which started in rage and wanted revolution, moved slowly and painfully towards politics having exhausted every other possibility (and at a fearful price in innocent blood). It also needs to be recognized that that IRA did not possess the only (or even an effective ) veto on political progress in Northern Ireland, however their actions justified a Unionist veto for longer than it might otherwise have lasted.
This book is written from too convinced a political viewpoint to be an effective biography, and as such I am sorry I read it. A much more effective and convincing book on the evolution of Sinn Fein is `The Secret History of the IRA' by Ed Moloney, Read that instead.