BRENDAN Duddy, the Derry businessman turned secret peacemaker, has died aged 82.
For more than 20 years, he acted as secret back-channel between the British government and the IRA leadership.
He was at the centre of a chain of events that ultimately led to the historic IRA ceasefire of 1994 and the Good Friday peace agreement.
Codenamed “Soon”, he was the key link between Margaret Thatcher and the IRA during the 1981 hunger strikes.
During the civil rights demonstrations of the late 1960s, Mr Duddy ran a fish and chip shop whose beef burgers were delivered by young van driver called Martin McGuinness, the future IRA leader and deputy first minister, who died in March this year.
While Mr Duddy’s public face was the family business, he got a taste of the role as go-between just before Bloody Sunday in 1972, when he was asked by the police to persuade IRA members to remove their weapons from the Bogside.
After Bloody Sunday, Mr Duddy met an MI6 officer called Michael Oatley and became the secret channel between the British government and the IRA, that would last until the 1990s.
In the early 1990s, he hosted talks at his own home in Derry between Mr Oatley and the intelligence services, and Mr McGuinness and the republican leadership.
Paying tribute, Sinn Fein MEP Martina Anderson said Mr Duddy “played his part and will be fondly remembered”.
