Friends applaud as flag-draped coffin of Martin McGuinness is taken home

By Michael McHugh

Hundreds of people have accompanied Martin McGuinness's body home.

His coffin was draped in an Irish tricolour and friends applauded as he was borne through the streets of his native Derry.

Mr McGuinness told residents his heart was in the Bogside just a few weeks ago as he announced he would not be seeking re-election to the Northern Ireland Assembly.

On Tuesday people turned out en masse to see him home. One well-wisher said: "He was a hero."

Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams and the party's leader at Stormont, Michelle O'Neill, draped the flag over his coffin in Derry's William Street and he was carried through the streets where the Northern Ireland conflict began in 1969 and where he helped bring about its end 30 years later.

Mr Adams and Mrs O'Neill carried the coffin.

The former deputy first minister's wife Bernie bore him past the Free Derry Corner.

His two sons, Fiachra and Emmett, shouldered his remains into his house.

Mr McGuinness lived three streets from where he was born.

He travelled the world, to Washington DC and Rio, the White House and Downing Street.

He stood in Derry on Bloody Sunday in January 1972 when soldiers shot dead 13 people.

He met the Queen at Windsor Castle and bowed his head at the Somme war graves.

But the IRA commander turned peacemaker - a teetotaller who only drank apple juice during negotiations - always sought refuge at home in the Bogside with his wife Bernie, family and faithful white poodle Buttons.

Mourner Carmel McConlogue said: "I came to pay my respects to a gentleman of our town and our city - he was a legend.

"He really helped everyone in his community, a very humble, passionate man."

The Irish tricolour flew at half mast on Tuesday as the Bogside mourned one of its own.

Its close-knit residential streets were once a no-go zone for British army personnel.

Later troop carriers rumbled through its streets amid the petrol bombs and plastic bullets of riots.

Mr McGuinness defended violence as a means to a united Ireland.

Still the murals on the walls of the Bogside commemorate the IRA and what its proponents called the armed struggle and opponents called terror.

Ms McConlogue added; "He lived through The Troubles and we have peace today thanks to Martin."