Sadly there are many angles to this one --yes, Hanes, the British army did shoot civilians, 14 in one incident ent Known as Bloody Sunday and some other killings took place in which the then police, the RUC were involved in cahoots with the unionist thugs, the UDA, opposite to the IRA thugs. Does that justify IRA killings - definitely not, but don't think for one moment that it was all one-sided.
As a matter of fact, a senior officer of the police in NI who is a friend of mine has told me that if a building site was situated in an area which wasn't definitively unionist or nationalist, then the UDA and IRA had a meeting to decide who should collect the protection money!! Most of the conflict descended into racketeering and at that stage some of the leaders on both sides decided to quit the extreme violence and the "peace process" began. While the is now a fragile peace, the two communities are still pretty divided in working class areas.
I have very mixed views on McGuinness but at least he was prepared to admit his involvement in the IRA unlike the other real leader of that set of thugs, Gerry Adams!
Rant over!
