Mick Clifford: Peacemakers Museum offers a distortion of history

Portraying Martin McGuinness primarily as a 'peacemaker' is to stretch credulity to breaking point

Sinn Féin's Martin McGuinness made serious efforts to advance politics and even reconciliation. However, there is now no dispute about his status during the conflict as one of the leading figures in the IRA.

This column has featured before the rewriting of the history of the Troubles in the North. As memory of the violence fades and the trauma of thousands continues to be internalised, there are efforts to shift blame, rewrite narratives, present the past in a manner that is at variance with known facts.

This week a row kicked up in Derry over a new museum. The ‘Peacemakers Museum’ opened on Monday. It exhibits a version of the past in the city from 1972 to 2007 and focuses on three men from The Bogside — John Hume, Martin McGuinness and Mitchel McLaughlin.