Lord Merlyn-Rees, who died yesterday aged 85, was Northern secretary in 1974 when the then Harold Wilson Labour government capitulated to the unionist-loyalist paramilitary-led Ulster Workers' Council strike, bringing down the Sunningdale power-sharing executive.
More than 30 years on and over 2,000 deaths later, the political response to his passing was predictable, with unionists paying warm tribute to the Welsh politician and nationalists acknowledging his genial nature but decrying his refusal to stand up to the strike.
As Merlyn Rees, he was Northern secretary from March 1974 until September 1976, taking in one of the most difficult periods of the Troubles: widespread killings, the ending of internment, Sunningdale, the constitutional convention, and the dubious IRA ceasefire of 1975.
The Sunningdale power-sharing executive was just a few months in office when Rees took over at Stormont.
The February British general election of 1974, which brought Labour to power, also saw anti-power-sharing unionists win 11 of the North's then 12 Westminster seats. Three months later in May, that developing opposition to Sunningdale culminated in the unionist-loyalist strike that brought down the executive.
The executive, the Irish government and nationalists in general urged Rees and Wilson's Labour government to stand up to the UWC strike. They wanted the British army to ensure that vital services such as electricity and sewerage were maintained but Rees and the army resisted these demands.
Fifteen days into the strike, unionists pulled out of Sunningdale and Rees ended the executive, bringing back direct rule.
This decision outraged the government and nationalism in general and led some years later to an Irish Times editorial summing up Rees as one "in a weary line of British incompetents in Ireland".
Former SDLP minister in the executive, the late Paddy Devlin, also memorably said of Rees that "he was always wrestling with his conscience but unfortunately it always ended up in a draw".
His was the toughest of the British cabinet's assignments at the time. He later spoke of "whiffs of insurrection" by the RUC and the difficulty of facing down the strike with its powerful combination and loyalist paramilitarism and middle-class unionism.
He attempted to follow up Sunningdale with a constitutional convention but the convention elections of 1975 were also doomed to failure.
That same year, following on from secret December 1974 talks involving the Provisional IRA and Sinn Féin and churchmen in Feakle, Co Clare, the IRA declared a ceasefire.
Rees said he would not comply with the IRA's demand for a British "declaration of intent" to withdraw from Northern Ireland but nonetheless provided some official co-operation with the Provisionals.
The violence continued, however, and by the summer of 1975 the IRA ceasefire was seen as no more than notional.
In September 1976, he was appointed British home secretary, succeeded as Northern secretary by Roy Mason. He maintained an interest in Irish affairs, however, and in 1989 was one of the first members of the British-Irish parliamentary body.
He stood down as an MP in 1992 and was appointed a life peer that year, taking the title Lord Merlyn-Rees.
DUP deputy leader Peter Robinson, in paying generous tribute to Lord Merlyn-Rees, noted how, even after he "left his post in Northern Ireland, he continued to keep an interest in the affairs of the province and would frequently, while in the Lords, come to the gallery to listen to Northern Ireland debates".
The former Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble said Lord Merlyn-Rees was "open, ready, engaged and eager to enter into political discussion".
He said he handled the IRA ceasefire of 1975 skilfully, bringing the "IRA close to defeat" and, while he had not moved quickly enough "to make radical changes to Sunningdale", he "recognised the opportunities that arose from the constitutional convention in 1975".
SDLP minister in the Sunningdale power-sharing government Ivan Cooper said while Rees was a "nice man", he was ineffective. Had he had the courage and political ability, he could have defeated the strikers and saved Sunningdale, he asserted.
Sinn Féin MP Pat Doherty said Rees "had little understanding of the conflict or the negative effects resulting from continued British interference in Irish affairs".
The current Northern Secretary Peter Hain said Rees "worked tirelessly to try to take Northern Ireland forward at a particularly difficult time in its history".
The comments of SDLP leader Mark Durkan probably summed up the nationalist view of Lord Merlyn-Rees.
"While all who dealt with Merlyn Rees record him as being genial and nice, he is not generally remembered as a strong secretary of state.
"His lack of purpose let the Sunningdale agreement go. He subsequently failed to assert the basic principles of power-sharing and North-South co-operation. His decisions in the security field sowed the seeds of later problems."
