Martin McGuinness Quotes

Armed struggle is a necessary and morally correct form of resistance in the Six Counties against a government whose presence is rejected by the vast majority of the Irish people There are those who tell us that the British government will not be moved by armed struggle. As has been said before, the history of Ireland and of British colonial involvement throughout the world tells us that they will not be moved by anything else.

I believe in the armed struggle as the only solution for those people who fight to free themselves.

They believed that Britain was in Ireland defending their own interests, therefore the Irish had the right to use violence to put them out. My argument was that that type of thinking was out of date.

I have drawn inspiration from the Marine Corps, the Jewish struggle in Palestine and Israel, and the Irish.

I never talk about shooting anybody, but I do acknowledge I was a member of the IRA, and as a member of the IRA, I obviously engaged in fighting back against the British army.

It is important to emphasize that guerrilla warfare is a war of the masses, a war of the people. The guerrilla band is an armed nucleus, the fighting vanguard of the people. It draws its great force from the mass of the people themselves.

If Abu Nidal is a terrorist, then so is George Washington.

...no movement for social change has ever succeeded without 'the militarism component'....Thinkers may prepare revolutions, but bandits must carry them out

History teaches us that nobody can prevent a resistance group from arming when it has the support of the people.

Guerrilla warfare is used by the side which is supported by a majority but which possesses a much smaller number of arms for use in defense against oppression.

We must raise and train an army of fighters for freedom.

When things did go wrong for the IRA, when civilians were killed, I tried to put it in context, not defend it.

The Irish Republican Army has kept every commitment made by its leadership.

September 11 was terrible but, if one goes back over the history of the IRA, what happened to the Americans wasn't that terrible.

I felt that the IRA, in the context of Irish history, and Sinn Fein were a legitimate force that had to be recognized, and you wouldn't have peace without them.

They call them terrorists, I call them freedom fighters.

Partisans fight on familiar territory with professed political objectives to conquer power. This is what distinguishes them from terrorists.

In the past I have defended the right of the IRA to engage in armed struggle. I did so because there was no alternative for those who would not bend the knee, or turn a blind eye to oppression, or for those who wanted a national republic.

For over 30 years, the IRA showed that the British government could not rule Ireland on its own terms.

A mujahid is someone defending his cause and land, and a terrorist is someone who kills civilians in a place that has nothing to do with...

Spies and informers, beware. Tried, convicted and executed by the Irish Republican Army

…for the liberation of Ireland by force of arms

I was proud to be a member of the IRA. I am still 40 years on proud that I was a member of the IRA. I am not going to be a hypocrite and sit here and say something different.

We don't believe that winning elections and winning any amount of votes will win freedom in Ireland. At the end of the day, it will be the cutting edge of the IRA which will bring freedom.

We have absolute support from all our masses inside our occupied territories and even outside our occupied territories. The "War of the Camps" [in Lebanon] is another picture of this strong support of our masses.