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James Martin Pacelli McGuinness (born 23 May 1950 ) is an Irish republican politician and Member Of Parliament . He is the Sinn Féin MP for Mid Ulster , the seat once held by Bernadette Devlin McAliskey , but like his party colleagues, he has refused to take his seat in Westminster. He is also a member of the currently-suspended (due to alleged IRA espionage activities) Northern Ireland Assembly , and served as Minister for Education in the Northern Ireland Executive between 1999 and 2002 . He joined the Provisional IRA around 1970 at the age of 20, after the Troubles broke out. McGuinness negotiated alongside Gerry Adams with the Secretary Of State For Northern Ireland , Willie Whitelaw , in 1972 . He was convicted by the Republic Of Ireland 's Special Criminal Court in 1973 , after being caught with a car with 250 lb (113 kg) of explosives and nearly 5000 rounds of ammunition. He refused to recognize the court, and was sentenced to six months. In the same court in the same year he declared his membership of the Irish Republican Army without equivocation: 'We have fought against the killing of our people. I am a member of Oglaigh na hÉireann and very, very proud of it.' After his release, and another conviction in the Republic (for IRA membership), he became increasingly prominent in Sinn Féin, the political wing of the IRA. He was elected to a short-lived assembly at Stormont in 1982 , and was then banned from entering Great Britain under the Prevention Of Terrorism Act . He had become Sinn Féin's chief negotiator in the time leading to the Belfast Agreement . He became MP for Mid Ulster in 1997 , and after the Agreement was concluded, was returned as a member of the Assembly, and nominated by his party for a ministerial position in the power-sharing Executive , where he became Minister for Education. He was re-elected to the Westminster Parliament in 2001 , but along with the rest of his party has refused to take his seat there (see Abstentionism ). In November 2003 he confirmed to the Bloody Sunday Inquiry that he had been second-in-command of the Provisional IRA in Derry in 1972 , at the time of Bloody Sunday at the age of 21, but he refused to divulge any information about other Provisional IRA members. In 2005, the Irish government claimed McGuinness, along with Gerry Adams and Martin Ferris, were members of the seven-man IRA Army Council (see {Link without Title} ). McGuinness denied the claims, saying he was no longer an IRA member. He is married to the former Bernadette Canning, and is the father of four. He took the name Pacelli at Confirmation and is viewed by some as devout Catholic who carries a Scapular given to him by his father. REFERENCES | |||||||||
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