Reid's energy and humanity drove the early peace process

With the death of Father Alec Reid, Ireland has lost someone who was an initiator of the peace process and its principal enabler in its early years, until a complete IRA ceasefire was achieved on August 31, 1994.

Father Alec Reid pictured the day after he gave the last rights to corporals David Howes and Derek Wood after they had been killed after straying into an IRA funeral. Picture: Pacemaker

With the death of Father Alec Reid, Ireland has lost someone who was an initiator of the peace process and its principal enabler in its early years, until a complete IRA ceasefire was achieved on August 31, 1994.

Without the ceasefire in place, even though it broke down temporarily, there would have been no Good Friday Agreement negotiated, still less implemented. He was an example of Christian witness and engagement at its best, ...