A real possibility now exists for a Government that is not led by either Fine Gael or Fianna Fáil

Peace cannot be built on exclusion. That has been the price of the past 30 years.

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.

When others stood idly by, you and your families gave your all, in defence of a risen people and in pursuit of Irish freedom and unity.

I stopped buying Sunday papers about 15 years ago, because you'd buy handfuls of them, and what you got, because the hard news comes from so many other channels, was opinion pieces. You're better off spending the money on a good novel.

We can be revisionist, and that's a good thing to be at times, but we shouldn't airbrush our history, so we can only make judgments in the objective conditions of that time.

Hugging trees has a calming effect on me. I'm talking about enormous trees that will be there when we are all dead and gone. I've hugged trees in every part of this little island.