IRA terrorists met the Queen. Now?

All I would say to that is I'm an Irish Catholic and we had the Troubles in Northern Ireland. Different circumstances, I'm not going to try and equate the two. But there you had people on both sides trying to kill each other. You had the IRA trying to kill civilians indiscriminately to make their political points. And in the end, a peace deal was achieved, but it was achieved by people sitting down opposite people they knew had been killing civilians and killing people on their side. You even had the Queen meeting Martin McGuinness and Gerry Adams who were the, you know, in McGuinness's case, the former Chief of Staff of the IRA. He ordered some of the most appalling atrocities. The Queen, one of her own relatives was blown to pieces, Lord Mountbatten, by the IRA, but she still met with them. I was actually at Number 10 Downing Street when Tony Blair met McGuinness and Adams on the steps for the first time in 70 years as the members of Sinn Féin and shook their hands. I was next in to see him in his office and it was an extraordinary moment to watch and it was a moment many people thought would never happen.