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Alexander Reid (5 August 1931 – 22 November 2013) was an Irish Catholic Church 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.
In August 1949, shortly after his 18th birthday, Reid joined the Redemptorist order. He was professed on 8 September 1950, and ordained a priest in Galway on 22 September 1957. For the next four years, he gave Parish Missions in Limerick, Dundalk and Galway (Esker Friary), 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 Catholic Church nationalist Falls Road and the Protestantism Ulster loyalism Shankill Road areas of Belfast.Brother Brendan Mulhall. Father Alec Reid C.Ss.R. . Redemptorists Denver, 17 May 2006
In 2005, Reid retired to the Redemptorist community in Rathgar, Dublin. On his eightieth birthday in 2011, he fell critically ill, suffering from kidney failure, and thereafter spent long periods in hospital. Reid died of pancreatic cancer in a Rathgar nursing home on 22 November 2013. He was survived by his sisters and an aunt, and was buried in the Redemptorist plot in Milltown Cemetery, Belfast.
In the late 1980s, Reid facilitated a series of meetings between Gerry Adams and John Hume, in an effort to establish a 'Pan-Nationalist front' to enable a move toward renouncing violence in favour of negotiation. Reid, himself a staunch nationalist who favoured a united Ireland and the withdrawal of British forces from Northern Ireland, then acted as their contact person with the Irish Government in Dublin from a 1987 meeting with Charles Haughey up to the signing of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998. In this role, which was not public knowledge at the time, he held meetings with various Taoiseach, and particularly with Martin Mansergh, advisor to various Fianna Fáil leaders. After the eventual success of the peace negotiations, Gerry Adams said “there would not be a peace process at this time without Father diligent doggedness and his refusal to give up.”
In 1988 in Belfast, Reid delivered the last rites to two British Army , David Howes and Derek Wood of the Royal Corps of Signals, who were lynched by catholic civilians and shot dead by PIRA– an event known as the corporals killings – after they drove into the funeral cortège of IRA member Kevin Brady, who had been killed by a loyalist gunman during the Milltown Cemetery attack. 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 Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams to Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) leader John Hume outlining Adams' suggestions for a political solution to the Troubles. Adams later told the BBC in 2019 that Reid also advised U.S Ambassador to Ireland Jean Kennedy Smith during the peace process, stating: "He was talking to her on the side and she was talking to her brother Ted Kennedy."
After he moved to Dublin, Reid was involved in peace efforts in the Basque Country. In January 2003, he was awarded the Sabino Arana 2002 "World Mirror" prize, by the Sabino Arana Foundation in Bilbao, in recognition of his efforts at promoting peace and reconciliation. Reid and a Methodism minister, the Rev. Harold Good, announced that the IRA had decommissioned their arms at a news conference in September 2005.Cullen, Kevin Maintaining belief in peace aided N. Ireland transformation . The Boston Globe, 27 September 2005.
Reid was involved in controversy in November 2005 when he made comments during a meeting in Fitzroy Presbyterianism Church concerning the Unionist community in Northern Ireland."Unionists 'like Nazis', says priest." David Sharrock. The Times (London, England), Thursday, 13 October 2005; pg. 17; Issue 68517 When the loyalist activist Willie Frazer made remarks that Catholics had butchered Protestants during the Troubles, Reid angrily responded: "You don't want to hear the truth. The reality is that the nationalist community in Northern Ireland were treated almost like animals by the unionist community. They were not treated like human beings. They were treated like the Nazi Party treated the Jews". Irish priest provokes fury with unionist 'Nazi' jibe Breaking News.ie, 13 October 2005. Unionist anger over Nazi remarks . BBC News, 13 October 2005. Retrieved on 9 August 2008. Reid later apologised, saying his remarks had been made in the heat of the moment. In an interview with CNN, he said that "The IRA were, if you like, a violent response to the suppression of human rights". ETA Announces Ceasefire . CNN Transcript, 22 March 2006.
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Categories: 1931 Births, 2013 Deaths, 20th-century Irish Roman Catholic Priests, Alumni Of The University Of Galway, Christian Clergy From Dublin, Deaths From Pancreatic Cancer, Disease-related Deaths In The Republic Of Ireland, Nenagh Éire Óg Hurlers, People From Nenagh, People Of The Troubles, Redemptorists, Tipperary Inter-county Hurlers, Gandhi International Peace Award Recipients, 21st-century Irish Roman Catholic Priests, Christian Clergy From County Tipperary, 20th-century Irish Sportsmen
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