13 February 1997 Edition
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.
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.