Alexander (Alec) Reid was born in 1931 in Dublin and raised in Nenagh, Co Tipperary, from where his mother hailed. He was professed a Redemptorist in 1949 when he began his studies for the priesthood and was ordained in 1957.

He gave retreats all over Ireland before being sent to the Redemptorist community in west Belfast in 1961, where he was to minister for the next 44 years.

Fr Reid had close connections with republican organisations also through his ministry in the Maze prison. He celebrated Mass there for republican prisoners and got to know Gerry Adams, who was a prisoners’ spokesman. He also tried to convince Bobby Sands not to go through with his 1981 hunger strike.

He met then taoiseach Charles Haughey in 1987 and, most controversially, facilitated the first talks in 1988 between Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams and SDLP leader John Hume.

The secret meeting took place in Clonard Monastery in west Belfast, with Fr Reid acting as a conduit between republicans and the British government.

He left Clonard for Dublin, but continued his peace work in the Basque Country, working again alongside the Rev Good in trying to broker an Eta ceasefire. (ANF)

Deputy for Louth and Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams remembered Fr Alec with these words:

“I want to express my deep sadness and personal sense of loss at the news that my very good friend Fr Alec Reid died during the night. I visited him in hospital last Thursday evening and, as ever, despite his illness, he was in good form, asking after all of his friends.

“I have known Fr Alec for 40 years. He was a man of deep conviction and love of the gospel who believed in the good of everyone.

“Throughout his time in Clonard he worked tirelessly for all the people of Belfast. He was unstinting in his efforts for peace.

“In the 1970s, along with Fr Des Wilson, he acted as a facilitator to end inter-republican conflicts. They also started a dialogue with loyalist paramilitaries.

“Alec was a friend to the republican prisoners and especially those involved in the H-Block and Armagh prison protests and hunger strikes and their families.

“He and I had many discussions about the conflict, its causes and how it might be ended. Out of those conversations emerged a commitment to dialogue as the first necessary step along that process and a commencement of a process in the early 1980s to commence a process of dialogue with the Catholic Hierarchy, SDLP leader John Hume and the Irish and British governments.

“Fr Reid was tenacious in his pursuit of peace. He wrote copious letters to political leaders here and in Britain and engaged in countless meetings with politicians and governments seeking to persuade them to start the process of talking.

“He saw good in everyone and lived the gospel message. His was the gospel of the streets.

“He was there during the battle of the funerals including the funerals of the IRA Volunteers killed at Gibraltar. He was in Milltown Cemetery when the mourners were attacked. Three were killed and over 60 wounded and he administrated the last rites to the two British soldiers killed at that time.

“There would not be a peace process at this time without his diligent doggedness and his refusal to give up. Fr Alec also actively engaged and encouraged the peace process in the Basque Country.

“Fr Alec was the chaplain to the Peace Process. Go ndeanfaid Dia trocaire ar a n’anam dilse.”  

* Source: An Phoblacht/