Sir John Howard Peck ( 16 February 1913 – 13 January 1995 ) was a British diplomat who served as Permanent Representative of the United Kingdom to the Council of Europe from 1959 to 1962 , Ambassador to Senegal ( with cross-accreditation to Mauritania ) from 1962 to 1966 , and Ambassador to Ireland from 1970 to 1973 . He also served as a Private Secretary to Sir Winston Churchill , and was the only one to serve with him during his wartime term of office between May 1940 to July 1945 . Peck was the first British Ambassador to Ireland to have been recruited from the Foreign Office instead of the Commonwealth Relations Office or its successor , the Commonwealth Office , despite Ireland having left the Commonwealth in 1949 . During his tenure as Ambassador , the British Embassy in Dublin was burned down by a crowd of 20,000-30,000 people on 2 February 1972 , following the Bloody Sunday massacre in Derry on 30 January 1972 when the British Army 's Parachute Regiment shot dead 14 unarmed Catholic civilians during a civil rights demonstration
Bloody Sunday
Bloody Sunday (1972)
John Peck (diplomat)