It was getting close to lunch time and Martin McGuinness told me he that as he was heading straight for Belfast, he was going to get a quick bite in the pub next door and did I fancy joining him? So off we trotted to the Delacroix and we didn’t half get some funny looks, the editor of the local paper having fish and chips with the IRA terror chief.

I remember that day really well for two reasons.

For starters, Martin rarely asked you to socialise with him and secondly, he said something during our lunch that I had reason to remember… big time.

Just for the record, I am pretty certain the date was Wednesday February 7 1996. Here’s the background to our talk that day, and why the date is significant.

Was Martin McGuinness compromised by British intelligence? – Pat McArt

The DUP is a party badly in need of changing the subject – Newton Emerson

The IRA had announced a ceasefire a couple of years earlier amidst all sorts of promises by the British government, but now the Brits were playing silly buggers by excluding Sinn Féin from peace talks.

There was real anger within the republican movement about what they regarded as another example of ‘perfidious Albion’. Indeed, many of the hardliners thought their leaders were naive and had been conned by London into........

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