‘A leader takes people where they want to go. A great leader takes people where they don’t necessarily want to go, but ought to be.’ This comment on leadership comes from the former United States First Lady, Rosalynn Carter, and could certainly be applied to the second half of Martin McGuiness’s career, if not the first.

The former deputy First Minister and former IRA leader, died in hospital on 21 March and his biography is as remarkable as it is divisive. For some, he was the Godfather of Terrorism, the public face of the Provisional IRA (PIRA) and a callous supporter of its campaign of violence against the British presence in Northern Ireland. For others, he was a charismatic and intelligent defender of the nationalist community against the domination of the unionist majority and the benign neglect and malign intent of British politicians at Westminster.

The response of two victims of the PIRA campaign to his death on the day he died, illustrated these conflicting positions. Former UK Conservative Party Chairman and cabinet Minister Norman Tebbit, was uncompromising in his epitaph, ‘the world is now a cleaner and sweeter place’. Tebbit who was badly injured and whose wife was permanently disabled in the Brighton Bomb in 1984, could see no merit in the fact that McGuinness had played a major role in the Northern Ireland peace process since the late 1980s. Colin Parry, on the other hand, whose son Tim was killed in the PIRA’s Warrington bombing in 1993, did recognize the importance of McGuinness’s contribution to political progress in the years since: ‘We can never forgive him but we can respect the man he became’.

Given the rollercoaster ride of his paramilitary and political career, it is unsurprising that reactions to his death have been so wide-ranging. He was clearly a leader, and a man who could inspire tremendous loyalty in his supporters –and fear among his opponents. But while much of the tabloid media reaction has focused –as usual- on the personalities and relatively simplistic binary, of whether McGuinness should primarily be seen as saint or sinner, this largely misses the point.

The key questions to ask are, what did he achieve? And what is his legacy likely to be for Northern Ireland and the rest of the Island? The answer to the first shows a lot of entries in the credit column. While these were not all of his doing –he was instrumental in all of the following: The split from the Sinn Fein (SF) old guard in the 1980s over the party’s abstention policy. This wrestled control away from Dublin and placed the axis of the party firmly in Belfast under the Adams/McGuinness leadership. This led to the growth of the SF electoral machine that slowly ended its abstention from legislative assemblies in Ireland (though not Westminster) He subsequently spearheaded the secret back channel contacts between the IRA and British Government in the early 1990s. He became SF’s leading political strategist alongside Adams and a key confident of the SF President crucial to SF dialogue with British, Irish and US governments in the early-mid 1990s up to the PIRA’s ceasefire in 1994. He was appointed SF’s Chief Negotiator in the multi-party negotiations from 1996-1998 and gradually led SF to see their cup as being half full rather than half empty over the contents of the Good Friday Agreement. He managed to avoid a significant split in the PIRA and managed to stay alive too –which was not a small accomplishment. He stood up to the plate whenever the institutions finally got up and running in 1999 –becoming Education Minister in the new devolved government, to the chagrin of many middle class unionists. He was committed to abolishing the 11+ selection test, which he had failed –another example of its pedagogical bankruptcy in education policy given that he was arguably (along with the DUP’s Peter Robinson), the most capable political talent of his generation. Then there was the small matter of the full decommissioning of IRA weapons achieved by 2006 and the devolution of policing and the criminal justice system shortly thereafter. His biggest achievement was in establishing a stable partnership with the DUP for 10 years, first with Paisley in 2007 then with Peter Robinson and Arlene Foster after that, until his resignation that triggered the 2nd March Assembly Election –the result of that was a thumping success for SF, coming within a cat’s whisker of a dead heat with the DUP in terms of first preference vote share and Assembly seats.

The answer to the second question, on his political legacy is necessarily more speculative. If there ever is a United Ireland, then McGuinness will be in the top tier of politicians to have delivered it. Beyond that, his legacy will be a demonstration to those who come after him (across both political traditions) that compromise is possible without capitulation. He has also demonstrated that if people as far apart as himself and Ian Paisley could work together then there are no insurmountable hurdles for other politicians in Northern Ireland.

In April 2012, Martin McGuinness was the Keynote speaker at the PSA Annual Conference Dinner in Belfast.  As I sat listening to him speak in Belfast City Hall that night, I reflected on how deftly he moved between stating his credentials as an Irish republican, and his wider remit as Deputy First Minister in acting as a political, economic and cultural ambassador for Northern Ireland PLC. He referred several times to the Titanic Centre and recommended it as a top tourist destination to PSA delegates, tempted to slope off from early morning sessions the next morning. I don’t think his address was quite so fulsome about visiting the Crumlin Road Gaol, now also a premier attraction in the new Belfast, perhaps because he had once been detained there at Her Majesty’s Pleasure. Ironically he had the pleasure of meeting Her Majesty, when she visited the Crum in 2014 –this time as Deputy First Minister.

He would have been a very long-odds guest as keynote speaker back when Rosalynn Carter was serving in the White House as First Lady between 1977-1981. Yet there we all were at Belfast City Hall in 2012 –what Louis MacNeice referred to as a ‘jumble of opposites’ in his epic Autumn Journal poem. The former IRA commander lecturing a room full of political scientists on the practice of politics and requirements of a conflict transformation process. This was done with some aplomb and gravitas, as the following excerpt from his speech may illustrate:

In the end –while people may disagree on the positive contribution of his past –Martin McGuinness certainly made a constructive difference to present and future prospects for peace and stability in Northern Ireland. He had the strategic vision to see what others could not and the credibility to deliver on that vision –not completely, but to a point where we have moved into a new era of relative peace and relative stability. While he remained a republican at heart until his death, and spent the first part of his career denying Northern Ireland’s right to exist, he became arguably the North’s most significant political asset and advocate by the end of his career, winning respect –if not forgiveness, from right across the political spectrum. I think that would fall under former First Lady Rosalynn Carter’s definition of leadership –and that of many other people too.

Feargal Cochrane is Professor of International Conflict Analysis at the University of Kent and Vice Chair (Elect) of the Political Studies Association.  

Image: Sinn Fein CC BY-NC-ND