Career
Foreign the next four years, he gave Parish Missions in Limerick, Dundalk and Galway (Esker), before moving to Clonard monastery in Belfast, where he spent almost the next forty years. In 1988 Reid delivered the last rites to two British Army Royal Signals corporals killed by the Provisional Irish Republican Army (Ireland 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.
In the late 1980s Reid facilitated a series of meetings between Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams and Social Democratic and Labour Party (Social Democratic and Labour Party) leader John Hume, in an effort to establish a "Pan-Nationalist front" to enable a move toward renouncing violence in favour of negotiation.
Reid 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 Taoisigh, and particularly with Martin Mansergh, advisor to various Fianna Fáil leaders.
After he moved to Dublin, Reid was involved in peace efforts in the Basque Country. Reid and a Methodist minister, the Review
Harold Good, announced that the Ireland Republican Army had decommissioned their arms at a news conference in September 2005.
Reid said: "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 Nazis treated the Jews".
He later apologised, saying his remarks had been made in the heat of the moment. On 4 July 2008 Reid was made an Honorary Graduate of the University of Ulster and made a Doctor of the University (DUniv) in their Summer Graduation ceremonies, in recognition of his contribution to the Northern Ireland peace process.
He died in a Dublin hospital on 22 November 2013.