THE remains of the late Martin McGuinness were released from hospital this afternoon and carried to home to his family followed by a crowd of 2,000 people
His tricolour draped coffin was carried by family and friends as mourners walked to behind the cortege passing Free Derry Corner en route to his at Westland Avenue home in the Bogside.
Among those who shouldered his coffin as it left Bradley/McLaughlin Funeral Home on William Street were Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams, the party’s Northern leader Michelle O’Neill, new Foyle MLA Elisha McCallion and Raymond McCartney MLA.
His remains were released as the funeral details for Martin McGuinness have been announced.
Requiem Mass will be held at St Columba’s Long Tower Chapel in Derry at 2pm on Thursday, March 23.
He will make the final journey from his home to the church at 1.20pm.
Hours earlier, Requiem Mass will be held at the same chapel for Derry City’s ‘Captain Courageous’ Ryan McBride who passed away at home on Sunday night.
Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams announced Mr McGuinness’s the death early on Tuesday morning.
Mr McGuinness, 66, died during the night at Derry’s Altnagelvin Hospital with his family by his bedside.
Britain’s Monarch, Queen Elizabeth II, is to write to the wife of Martin McGuinness to express her condolences following his death.
Mr McGuinness met and shook hands with the Queen during a charity event in Belfast in June 2012.
The day after, Mr McGuinness spoke about its “momentous and historical” significance.
He said that the meeting had the potential to define “a new relationship between Britain and Ireland and between the Irish people themselves”.
A few years later Mr McGuinness paid tribute to the Queen for meeting him.
“I liked her courage in agreeing to meet with me, I liked the engagements that I’ve had with her. There’s nothing I have seen in my engagements with her that this is someone I should dislike – I like her,” he told a BBC documentary.
Buckingham Palace today indicated that the Queen would be contacting his wife Bernie, without giving further details.
However, it is expected she will send a personal letter to Mrs McGuinness on losing her husband.
Political leaders of all persuasions and from both sides of the border have paid tribute to Mr McGuinness in his road to Damascus conversion from IRA leader to an international peacemaker.
They all praised him for his work in bringing about the IRA ceasefires and helping to negotiate the 1998 Good Friday Agreement.
For the last ten years he was the North’s Deputy First Minister, sharing power with his arch enemies in the DUP.
A book of condolence was opened today at Derry’s Guildhall by Mayor of Derry and Strabane Alderman Hilary McClintock.
