DUBLIN, (Reuters) – Former Irish Republican Army (IRA) commander and current deputy first minister of Northern Ireland Martin McGuinness will meet Britain’s Queen Elizabeth for the first time next week, marking a milestone in the province’s peace process.
The queen has never met a senior figure in the now-defunct IRA, which killed her relative Lord Mountbatten in 1979, or its political wing Sinn Fein. The party decided yesterday to sanction the meeting that would have seemed inconceivable a generation ago.
McGuinness, a hero among Irish nationalists who fought a bitter three-decade war against British rule, will meet the 86-year-old monarch on Wednesday during a two-day visit to Northern Ireland as part of her Diamond Jubilee celebrations.
