Do you think the Pope will make him a saint?

More like Hess or Speer I'd have said, than Himmler. Adams has always been of the view that the 'armed struggle alone' would not be enough. They were certainly progressives, in so much as they realised early on, that a military victory wasn't achievable.

No one who kills people is a hero. They might be a necessary evil, an required means of keeping the peace, or even those who liberate a nation from brutal oppression.

But they aren't heroes. These are actions that at best should be considered regrettable necessity. There is no glory in killing, no matter what the outcome.

The violence of NI should be something we look back on as a lesson in how to avoid creating the kind of environment that turns people to violence, not that violence makes men great heroes.

They're not heroes, they're men, pushed into a difficult situation, in terrible times and asked to do something none of us would want to do. I think some of them are probably heroes, but not because they killed people, but for the people they protected and saved in those situations.

The killing, is regrettable. It concerns me more that we as a nation are willing to send our children to fight and die, over issues that aren't really 'necessary' (ala Iraq), and we justify this by calling them heroes, losing sight of the fact its the bloke next doors son, my cousins daughter.

Growing up, my next door neighbour was an ex-Commando from WWII, as hard as nails and soft as s**te. A brave, gentle and generous man, despite the fact he'd killed people. I'd say, that's what made him a hero, the fact that he'd done terrible, necessary things and remained a good, gentle kind man, who quietly raised his family, and played with the grandchildren and looked after the kids next door.

The rest of the world would disagree, so who would you consider a hero ?

Does that apply to the people they were fighting? We're the Luftwaffe pilots flying the bombers heroes, the Zulu's at Rouke's Drift, the young Argentine recruits fighting at Goose Green. Its the actions in which you transcend the situation around you.

My hero is Lisa Potts, the young woman who protected small children in her care, from a lunatic with a machete, despite having no skills to speak of, or weapon of her own.

We don't regard them as heroes, because they fought on the other side. Some people regard the IRA as heroes, they aren't, but you could make an argument that they were. After all they were fighting against a far superior foe, with better training, equipment and numbers and many died for that 'cause'.