Born and raised in Nenagh , County Tipperary , Reid was professed as a Redemptorist in 1950 , and ordained a priest seven years later . For 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 . The Redemptorist Monastery at Clonard stands on the interface between the Catholic nationalist Falls Road and the Protestant loyalist Shankill Road areas of west Belfast . In 1988 in Belfast , Reid delivered the last rites to two British Army Royal Signals corporals killed by the Provisional Irish Republican Army ( IRA ) – an event known as the corporals killings – after they drove into the funeral cortège of IRA member Kevin Brady , who had been killed in the Milltown Cemetery attack . A photograph of his involvement in that incident became one of the starkest and most enduring images of the Troubles . Unknown until years later , Reid was carrying a letter from Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams to Social Democratic and Labour Party ( SDLP ) leader John Hume outlining Adams ' suggestions for a political solution to the Troubles . In the late 1980s , Reid facilitated a series of meetings between Adams and 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
Milltown Cemetery attack
Milltown Cemetery attack
Alec Reid