Historic handshake: Queen meets ex-IRA chief

Martin McGuinness, a former commander of the Irish Republican Army met with Queen Elizabeth in Northern Ireland. It was a historic moment decades after the IRA led a bloody fight against British rule. NBC's Michelle Kosinski reports.

By Sohel Uddin, NBC News

Thirty-five years ago, Queen Elizabeth's silver jubilee was greeted with graffiti declaring "Victory to the IRA, stuff the jubilee."

Wednesday marked a highly significant turnaround as the queen, in her diamond jubilee year, met and shook hands with a?onetime senior Irish Republican Army commander who once stood against everything she represented and even considered her a legitimate target.

As a British person and a journalist, I never thought I'd see this day.

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This is because I grew up with Northern Ireland. What does this mean? It means watching with incredulity as the IRA targeted the British establishment, including a sitting prime minister -- almost succeeding in assassinating her.

Coverage of event by NBC News' U.K. partner ITN News

The "troubles," as they were diplomatically called, became part of everyday life. We watched clashes with soldiers on television. News of bombings was a constant drip-drip in the news. It was one of those things that as a boy and a young man, I thought would never end.?

So the meeting with Martin McGuinness, the first between the queen and a senior member of the IRA or its political wing Sinn Fein, is a landmark in the peace process 14 years after the militant group ended its 30-year campaign against British rule.

PhotoBlog: A historic handshake, a historic image in Northern Ireland's peace process

On Tuesday, she held a private meeting with relatives of the 11 people killed in a 1987 bombing in Enniskillen, an?attack that sparked a wave of revulsion against the IRA and helped convince its leadership to engage in the peace process.

3,500 killed
Belfast's Lyric theater, the venue of the historic handshake, has probably never felt so much attention during a performance as it did during the get-together between the British monarchy and Sinn Fein.?

Photos: Queen Elizabeth II begins her 20th trip to Northern Ireland

Few will know what the queen was thinking. But surely it was a difficult event for her, and not just because of the more than 3,500 killed in the conflict, 1,800 of whom were innocent civilians, according to The Guardian.

Paul Faith / Pool via AFP - Getty Images

Britain's Queen Elizabeth II shakes hands with Northern Ireland Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness in Belfast on Wednesday.

It is doubtless especially poignant for her because her cousin, Lord Mountbatten, was killed in 1979 when the IRA?blew up his boat in Southern Ireland.?He was the man who many believe was responsible for the queen's marriage to Prince Philip, and was a guiding influence to the heir-to-the-throne Prince Charles.

The countless threats her family has lived with must have contributed to a feeling of unease ahead of the meeting. But the queen's real thoughts will probably never be known, nor will her reaction when she was advised to perform this duty.

'It will be difficult': Queen meets IRA victims before landmark handshake

And it wasn't only the queen who was taking a chance -- it came at a cost for McGuinness too. He was being branded a traitor, with a lot of republicans saying that he has sold out and betrayed the principles they stand for.

Republicans protested against Wednesday's meeting, and McGuinness' decision could hurt his political ambitions.

British reaction on a political level has by and large been supportive, despite the bitterness and painful memories of the past.

Norman Tebbit, a former Conservative Party Chairman and a survivor of a deadly bombing in the seaside city of Brighton that targeted Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, saw it as a victory over the IRA.

Before Wednesday's event, Tebbit wrote in?The Telegraph?that the meeting would be a victory for the queen, the monarchy and Great Britain:?

"I am glad that Mr McGuinness appears to have now accepted on behalf of IRA/Sinn Fein the sovereignty of Her Majesty over Northern Ireland, and I hope that this is a step towards a public recompense and confession of his regret for the violence unleashed by them in his name."

While the meeting does not mark the end of tensions in Northern Ireland, it draws a line under a conflict that cost the lives of thousands and beset the queen for half of her reign.

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'Ted' Stars Explain: How Do Teddy Bears Have Sex?

'He's a wild one, that boy,' Mark Wahlberg tells MTV News.
By Kara Warner

Ted as voiced by Seth McFarlane and Mark Wahlberg in "Ted"
Photo: Universal Pictures

Give "Family Guy" mastermind Seth MacFarlane his first R-rated, live-action feature film about a "living" foul-mouthed teddy bear co-starring Mark Wahlberg and Mila Kunis and things are going to get rather inappropriate rather quickly. Like teddy bears doing sexual things with vegetables, for example.

When MTV News sat down with the cast of "Ted" recently, we asked them to provide detailed explanations for how warm, fuzzy and filthy-minded Ted manages to have sex without the aid of any of the familiar tools, as it were.

"Well, he does a lot with the lips and tongue. A lot. Almost to the point that he's definitely going to get tongue cancer," Wahlberg deadpanned. "Yeah, he's a freak. He does freaky things with vegetables. ... He's a wild one, that boy."

Kunis started her explanation off with a more audience-friendly description.

"Kids these days like to do what I think is called 'dry hump,' so maybe the bear does that. He uses tools," she offered innocently.

As it turned out, MacFarlane provided the most straightforward-yet-slightly censored answer, possibly because he has to take all "Ted"-related subjects more seriously as the writer/director/voice of "Ted."

"We haven't ever really explained that. There's a scene where you see him having sex with [girlfriend] Tammy-Lyn in the back of the grocery store. We don't explain what's going on in there," MacFarlane said. "They are in a grocery store, there is a lot of produce and vegetables available, which, depending on what kind of imagination you have, could be a part of the process. I like to keep it sort of vague."

Check out everything we've got on "Ted."

For breaking news, celebrity columns, humor and more — updated around the clock — visit MTVMoviesBlog.com.

Related Videos

• MTV Rough Cut: 'Ted'

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Finally, SMEs should look at green solutions for the longer term, such as installing solar panels or other sources of renewable energy, like wind turbines, to generate their own power. This can even make money, as any excess electricity generated can be sold to the National Grid. Energy obtained from green sources, such as marine current power, is often cheaper than less environmentally-friendly sources, since renewable power is subsidised by the UK government.

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Real estate sales strong in Erie | GoErie.com/Erie Times-News

Howard W. "Hoddy" Hanna III wears a shiny green button on his suit coat that makes a simple promise: "If you list it, we will sell it."

Hanna and a number of other area real estate agents are feeling pretty confident in that message these days.

Through June 12, the number of homes sold by the Greater Erie Board of Realtors was up more than 4 percent from the previous year, while the average price of those homes was up nearly 8 percent.

Numbers for the first three months of the year were even more dramatic.

Through the end of March, home prices in Erie County were up 16.6 percent, the third largest jump of any major market in the United States, according to a report in Real Estate Broker's Insider.

To a lesser degree, there's mounting evidence that the U.S. real estate market as a whole is improving.

A report Tuesday from the Standard & Poor's Case-Shiller home price index shows that housing prices improved during April in 19 of our 20 largest cities.

And a measure of national prices rose 1.3 percent in April from March, the first increase in seven months.

Hanna can easily explain the improvements in Cape Coral, Fla., and Grand Rapids, Mich., the two markets that top the list of most improved. Both, he said, were hit hard during the recession and are showing signs of bouncing back.

Erie was different. The area's steady-as-she-goes real estate market saw only modest declines, during even the darkest days of the most recent recession.

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"What is going on is supply and demand," he said. "We are in a rising market. There is pent-up demand."

Toby Froehlich, owner of Coldwell Banker Select Realtors in Erie, said the numbers don't entirely surprise him.

"We didn't get hit as hard with the foreclosure issues," he said. "Two, the local economy is stronger than anyone wants to admit. You have jobs, you have record-low interest rates. It was a lot of things going on for us."

A growing number of competitive bidding situations is more evidence of a stronger real estate market.

Hanna said his agents are making frequent use of a new program that allows prospective buyers to automatically submit a second bid if their first offer is met or surpassed.

Strong sales figures could be substantially better if it were not for one shortcoming, said John Peluso, senior vice president and regional market manager for Howard Hanna.

There aren't enough houses to sell, particularly in the middle price range of $125,000 to $250,000, he said.

"We could probably be doing twice as much business if we had the houses," he said.

Hanna said the inventory of houses for sale is at its lowest point since 2004.

Froehlich said local Realtors have about 1,350 single-family homes listed at the moment, about 150 fewer than he considers ideal.

Froehlich and Hanna see another soft spot in the local real estate market. Fans of new construction don't have many options, they said.

"Construction is very weak," Froehlich said. "There are very few builders who can get financing and very few developers who can get financing."

Mortgage financing is available at historically low interest rates, Hanna said. But securing a loan can take time.

"There are a lot of hoops we have to jump through," he said.

Hanna said evidence suggests that more people are deciding homeownership is worth jumping through those hoops.

After falling into the low 60 percent range during the recession, those numbers and interest in buying a home are bouncing back, he said.

JIM MARTIN can be reached at 870-1668 or by e-mail.

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