In Ireland, as you know, he is remembered as being a sectarian genocidal maniac on a rampage. Unfortunately we had no CNN those days to broadcast our plight around the world and put a stop to him in his tracks. When I was young, old people might talk of where he had hanged so-and-so, as if it had happened yesterday. I was watching a documentary on him on BBc ages back, and saw how he might be perceived as a hero among his own people, liberating them from the yoke of corrupt monarchy and establishing England's first republic of sorts (making him an odd icon for Northern loyalists, when you think about it). Then of course he began to cut down the maypoles, ban laughing and insist everyone dress in black.... pretty soon the English got tired of him as well. It struck me that he was a man who genuinely seemed to believe he had a mission. He seemed to have no doubt that what he was doing was absolutely the right thing.