Former political adviser to the Irish taoiseach who was at the heart of negotiations for the Good Friday agreement in 1998
As one of the most influential architects of the Northern Ireland peace process, Martin Mansergh was an unexpected figure. Resembling a rumpled academic and speaking with an English accent, he coordinated the Irish government’s engagement with the IRA for several decades.
Mansergh, who has died aged 78 of a heart attack during a trip to Western Sahara with other retired Irish parliamentarians, was educated at a British boarding school and Oxford University yet helped shape the Irish republican dimensions of the agreement.
In 1988, he was political adviser to the then taoiseach, Charles Haughey, who tasked him with opening up a secret channel of communication. The Irish government needed to talk to Sinn Féin, the political wing of the IRA, via the Belfast priest Father Alec Reid, who passed on messages from Gerry Adams.
Known to his clandestine republican contacts simply as “the Man”, Mansergh later admitted he exceeded his narrow brief to help develop a roadmap to peace. “I was given the instruction just to listen, but I’m afraid I did a great deal more than that,” he recalled 20 years later.
