Untouchable!

There's been talk over the years as to why $inn £ein's Martin McGuinness has led such a charmed life despite hundreds or indeed thousands of his comrades ending up in prison. 

For such a high profile leading member of the provos to have spent so little time either behind bars or being questioned and his easy acceptance of everything he once was supposed to stand against people have begun to look closer at 'Wee Marty'.

In the early 1990's there was talk of operation 'Taurus' when the RUC were poised and ready to arrest him, and had people lined up to testify against him that they were told not to touch him.

Now it would seem that 30 years ago the Free State Government were asking the same thing. McGuinness has claimed he left the provies in 1974, but you couldn't believe his oath considering how many lies he has been caught out on before, a trait shared with party colleague Gerry Adams.

Oddly McGuinness was never question by the RUC about the killing of Derry Provie informer Frank Hegarty, despite Hegarty's mother stating McGuinness had given assurances her son would be returned to her safely and it has been alleged McGuinness  was one of the last known people to speak to Frank Hegarty before his body was found. Nor has McGuinness ever been questioned by the HET despite publicly stating he was an IRA leader up to and after the bloodiest year of the troubles. A Charmed life indeed.

From the Newsletter:

Papers released at the Public Record Office in Belfast today under the 30-year-rule show that both the then Taoiseach, Garret FitzGerald, and senior Dublin civil servants raised the issue with the then Secretary of State, Jim Prior, and his team of NIO officials.

A confidential note of a May 1983 Dublin meeting between Mr Prior and Dr FitzGerald records that the Taoiseach had made “strong representations” about several issues, including Mr McGuinness, though his name is repeatedly misspelt throughout the documents by officials. The first was a belief that there had been “an instruction from a Northern Ireland Minister that their decisions should seek to favour Sinn Fein”, something Mr Prior denied but said he would investigate.

The second point is headlined ‘Reluctance to arrest Mr Maginnis [sic]’.

“Dr FitzGerald said that the evidence from the convicted terrorist Mr Gilmore had succeeded in putting the IRA in Derry in disarray. It was inconceivable, however, that nothing in his evidence had failed to implicate Maginnis [sic]. It seemed, therefore, that it was a policy decision that he should not be arrested.