McGuffin was born in 1942 into a middle-class
Presbyterian family. His uncle
Samuel McGuffin was a
Labour Unionist member of parliament for
Belfast Shankill from 1917 to 1921 and then for
Belfast North between 1921 and 1925. As a young man, John McGuffin attended
Campbell College in Belfast and then
Queen's University Belfast, where he earned a degree in history and psychology. McGuffin subsequently took up a lecturer's post at
Belfast Technical College. While still attending Queen's University, McGuffin became a prominent figure in People's Democracy, one of the main organisations involved in the
Northern Ireland civil rights movement. As part of People's Democracy, he was involved in a march from Belfast to Derry that was halted by the
Burntollet Bridge incident, in which 300 counter-protesters (100 of whom were off-duty members of the
Ulster Special Constabulary) attacked the marchers, an event which led to immediate riots in Derry and was a precursor to the
Battle of the Bogside. Nonetheless, McGuffin denounced the
Provisional IRA for
Bloody Friday (1972) in which nine people were killed and 130 injured in a series of city centre bombings, writing "Twenty-two bombs in the heart of a crowded city in broad daylight are bound to kill people no matter what warnings are given, and the Provisional IRA must bear the full responsibilities for these murders." In the mid-1970s, McGuffin served as a part of an international committee which investigated the deaths in custody of members of the
Red Army Faction in
West Germany. In 1978, he wrote another book,
In Praise of Poteen, in which he lauded the "talent and anti-authoritarian spirit" of makers of
poteen. In 2012,
Free Derry Corner was painted in an anarchist motif to commemorate the 10th anniversary of his death. ==Bibliography==