‘We have lost someone we all owe a debt of gratitude’

A priest who helped broker the IRA’s ceasefire in 1994 has died at the age of 82 in hospital in Dublin.

Fr Alec Reid set up talks between Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams and then nationalist SDLP leader John Hume and acted as a conduit between the republican movement and the British government.

The Tipperary native tried to save two British soldiers who were brutally beaten and shot dead by republicans in west Belfast during one of the nadirs of the 30-year conflict.