The death has been announced of a Church of Ireland Minister who among a delegation of clerics who looked to broker peace with the IRA during the early years of the Troubles.
In 1974, Reverend Ralph Baxter was part of a group of Church figures who travelled to Smyth’s Hotel in Feakle to speak with members of the IRA Army Council.
The talks, which had been approached by the British government, were followed by a series of short-lived ceasefires, but peace efforts were hampered by a Special Branch raid on the hotel.
Reverend Baxter, who was the last surviving member of the group, died in Canada this weekend.
He had told a BBC documentary last year that he had been forced to leave Northern Ireland after receiving death threats against him and his family by the UDA.
