As an example of leopards changing spots or terrorists turning into statesmen, Irish Sinn Féin politician Martin McGuinnes is up there with Kenyatta, Mandela and the young Mugabe.
He was once chief-of-staff of the IRA; in that role he was known as a faithful churchgoer with little tolerance for drinking or womanising but with a coldness that was not for turning when discussions involving death or mayhem were decided.
Almost 40 years ago, at the age of 22, he was in direct but deniable peace talks with the British government. A generation and too many deaths later, he was still talking behind closed doors, with Trimble and Paisley, Ahern and Blair, leading to the world's best example of a situation where former mortal enemies can work together, support each other, and even be at ease with each other.
That latter situation led to the nickname The Chuckle Brothers for the double act of Paisley-McGuinness, and is part of the reason why he is now on a hit list by dissident members of an organisation he once commanded.
At the weekend, McGuinness entered the race for the Irish presidency. It is a ceremonial role, quite similar to the Governor-General in Australia, currently filled with exemplary distinction by a woman from Belfast. That she comes from what purists might argue is a different jurisdiction means that no one will object to a candidate born in Derry, Northern Ireland's second city.
Sinn Féin is not popular in Ireland, partly due to their long association, common cause and in many cases common membership with the IRA. More significant however is the fact that their policies are left wing and ultra nationalist — the best comparison in this country would be to imagine some combination of the Greens and Australia First. Sinn Féin, after all, translates as We Ourselves.
One of the reasons why the entry of McGuinness into the presidential race is so significant is that the field is desolately dull. Fianna Fail, the former government, has decided not to enter a candidate, in the well justified belief that the electorate would take their anger out on them in a humiliating way.
In desperation they tried to induce Gay Byrne, a popular radio and television personality, to run, but changed their minds when the media pointed to some of his views that might go well on morning radio but would not bear up to the pressures of countrywide canvassing.
The nominee of Fine Gael, the government party, is from Dublin and carries the suspicion of ordinary people, well justified by recent experience, that a politician from the capital is some kind of pinstripe crook. The Labour Party has an attractive candidate in Michael D. Higgins, a former left wing politician, an academic and a poet who unfortunately tends to talk in the language of modern poetry.
There are other candidates who do not carry either the burden or the imprimatur of a political party. The early favourite was David Norris, an independent senator who represented Trinity College. A world authority on James Joyce and a well known gay activist, he once took the Irish government to the European court — and won — for their treatment of homosexuals.
He withdrew from the race in July when it was revealed that he had made representations to the President of Israel on behalf of a former lover who was to be sentenced for statutory rape. Word is that he is now is seeking to re-enter the race.
Which brings us to McGuinness. His role in the peace process and as Deputy First Minister in the current prosperity of Northern Ireland ought to be sufficiently powerful to counteract youthful actions that even some in the South regarded as justified in the circumstances of the time.
As in France, the Irish president is elected for a seven-year term. This is significant because the next incumbent will officiate at the centenary celebrations of the 1916 rising; that this person would be a member of Sinn Féin, as the early presidents were, would be highly symbolic.
So much so that people in the Republic might think twice about electing as commander-in-chief of the Irish army a man who was once in a similar position in the Provisional IRA.
Frank O'Shea is a Canberra writer.