Reverend Robert James Magee OBE (3 January 1930 – 1 February 2009) was a Northern Irish Presbyterian minister who is credited with playing a leading role in delivering the Combined Loyalist Military Command (CLMC) ceasefire of 1994. Earlier Rev Magee had been a leading figure in Unionism. Early life Magee was born in Belfast's Ballysillan district into a working-class family, with his father working as a fitter in a factory on the Falls Road. He attended Sunday school, although his family was not overtly religious, and it was not until Magee was a teenager that he became consumed by Christianity. Having worked in a number of roles for Mackie's industrial machinery manufacturers, Magee left work to attend first Magee College and then Trinity College, Dublin. He graduated and became a minister in the Presbyterian Church in 1958. As a minister Magee garnered a reputation for "fire and brimstone" preaching. Unionist activism Magee was a member of the hard-line Ulster Vanguard during the early 1970s. Magee claimed that he joined the group after seeing "awful atrocities being perpetrated by the IRA" and felt that the Vanguard could be a rallying point to unite Unionism. He even served as chairman of this organisation. However Magee left the Vanguard after its leader Bill Craig decided to reconstitute it as a political party separate from the Ulster Unionist Party, thus killing Magee's hopes of it being a unifying force. Following the signing of the Anglo-Irish Agreement Magee returned to political activism, becoming an outspoken critic of the deal. At the Ulster Says No rally against the Agreement at Belfast City Hall Magee was one of the figures to join Jim Molyneaux and Ian Paisley on the platform. Towards ceasefire Magee had come into contact with the Ulster Defence Association (UDA) through a number of avenues, notably during the early 1970s when the nascent vigilante groups that made up the UDA worked alongside the Vanguard and later when UDA leader Andy Tyrie began to attend Magee's church. Magee ministered to a church in Dundonald whilst also working with the Farset Youth and Community Development group in the Greater Shankill area of west Belfast. Both roles brought Magee further into contact with loyalist paramilitaries in what are for the most part working-class Ulster loyalist area. He condemned the loyalist violence but also befriended a number of loyalists and sought to work alongside them to achieve peace,