DEPUTY First Minister in Northern Ireland Martin McGuinness will be speaking at the Peace Centre’s annual peace lecture today, Wednesday.

The evening will also include speeches from former BBC Northern Ireland political correspondent Denis Murray and Tim Parry Johnathan Ball Foundation chairman Colin Parry.

Colin said:  “It is because Martin McGuinness has embraced mainstream, constitutional politics in order to pursue his goal of a united Ireland, that I invited him to deliver the lecture.

“I am fully aware of his past life as an active member and leader of the IRA, but he has, since the negotiations leading to the Good Friday Peace Agreement, fully committed himself to peaceful and constitutional methods of building the Northern Ireland peace process.

“Such activities are entirely consistent with the founding principles of the Foundation and with the ethos at the heart of the work we do in memory of my son and Johnathan Ball, because by doing so, we are doing something positive in their names in order to address the personal and community impact of extremism and terrorism.”

The event has sold out.