Martin McGuinness was the same age as me and it wasn't easy growing up in Northern Ireland in the early sixties when, depending on your religious persuasion, you had plenty of opportunities or none!!! So many disillusioned youngsters became easy fodder for the paramilitaries, Martin McGuinness among them. That being said, I did not like the man for what he was, but I respected him for the man he became. In the years before the Good Friday Agreement, time and time again the paramilitaries were told that unless they disarmed no political dialogue would even be considered. Well, they did that and a lot of that was due to the effort of Martin McGuinness. Norman Tebbutt calls him cowardly, understandable considering he and his wife suffered greatly at the hands of the IRA nor do I forget the many other innocent people who lost their lives, but ultimately he tried to make a difference. Whether or not he took secrets to the grave is entirely speculation. My dad was born in a United Ireland, Martin McGuinness wanted a United Ireland and eventually learned that political means, not violence was the only way for it to come about. Whether it ever will is anyone's guess.