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

Your determination, selflessness and courage have brought the freedom struggle towards its fulfillment.

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.

If you militarise a situation, you beg for an armed response.

Sinn Fein has demonstrated the ability to play a leadership role as part of a popular movement towards peace, equality and justice.

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.

Making peace, I have found, is much harder than making war.