Alec Reid

Who was Alec Reid?

Father Alec Reid, C.Ss.R. was an Irish Catholic priest noted for his facilitator role in the Northern Ireland peace process, a role BBC journalist Peter Taylor subsequently described as "absolutely critical" to its success. Born and raised in Nenagh, County Tipperary, Reid was professed as a Redemptorist in 1950, and ordained a priest seven years later. For the next four years, he gave Parish Missions in Limerick, Dundalk and Galway, before moving to Clonard monastery in Belfast, where he spent almost the next forty years. The Redemptorist Monastery at Clonard stands on the interface between the Nationalist Catholic Community and the Protestant Shankill Road.

In 1988 Reid delivered the last rites to two British Army Royal Signals corporals killed by the Provisional Irish Republican Army – an event known as the "corporals killings" – after they drove into a Republican funeral cortège in Belfast, Northern Ireland. A photograph of his involvement in that incident became one of the starkest and most enduring images of the Troubles. Unknown until years later, Reid was carrying a letter from Gerry Adams to John Hume outlining Adam's suggestions for a political solution to the troubles.