Packed UCG for McGuinness
In an event which created such a huge demand for seats that
the organisers were forced to issue tickets and to restrict
access to students only, more than 500 people packed
University College Galway's Rory O'Flaherty Theatre on
Monday night to hear Martin McGuinness. He was delivering
Sinn Féin's contribution to an ongoing series of debates in
the University.
The series is organised by the College's Political
Discussion Society and other speakers in the series have
included the British Ambassador, Veronica Sutherland and
within the next few weeks, the Rev Martin Smyth.
No debate in recent history in the college has attracted
quite so much interest, however, as the visit of Sinn Féin's
leading negotiator. McGuinness outlined his introduction to
republicanism, the trauma of seeing neighbours cut down, of
Bloody Sunday, and of the effects such a public mass murder
had on the Derry and northern nationalist community.
He described the serious efforts of Sinn Féin to find an
alternative way forward, attempts which culminated in the
cessation of 1994, and how in the months after that the
British government, and the Unionists, delayed, protracted
and blocked any movements towards a solution.