The Rev Dr Eric Gallagher, who died on December 30th, 1999, was best known for his role in the Feakle talks which helped prompt the 1974/75 IRA ceasefire. He will, however, be best remembered for his long years of ecumenical and cross-community bridge-building and peace-brokering in the violent, sectarian wilderness of Northern Ireland society even before the troubles erupted in 1968.
The violence and hopelessness reached a peak in 1974 and that December, only weeks after the Birmingham pub bombings which left 19 dead and 182 injured, it took a rare kind of vision and courage for a delegation of eight senior Protestant clergymen to travel to Feakle, Co Clare for three days to meet virtually the entire leadership of the Republican movement. Characteristically the Rev Gallagher was among them, yet again taking a then unthinkable step, flying in the face of comfortable convention to give a lead.
Although the Feakle talks triggered only a short-lived IRA ceasefire, they can be seen, in retrospect, to have been a crucial turning point in changing the Republican mind-set and, despite the futile bloodshed and unnecessary tragedy of the intervening years, to have inspired the peace process which ultimately resulted in comprehensive political agreement. For his role in Feakle and his sustained work to promote the concepts of reconciliation and tolerance, which fuelled it, the Rev Gallagher deserves a significant portion of credit.
Eric Gallagher was born in Ballybay, Co Monaghan in 1913, the son of a clergyman, and educated at Methodist College, Belfast and Trinity College, Dublin from where he graduated in arts and later, theology. He trained for the Methodist ministry at Edgehill College, Belfast before his appointment to Woodvale in 1938. War broke out the following year and on one night in the subsequent air raids, 14 members of his congregation were killed. The young minister comforted the bereaved, injured and homeless.
After four years in Woodvale, he planned to serve as an army chaplain, but he was instead appointed chaplain at the Methodist College, Belfast, beginning an association which extended for more than 50 years. This drew him into the world of education and over the next 34 years he also held a number of public appointments in the field, and served on the governing boards and committees of a large number of institutions and schools.
In 1957 he was appointed Superintendent of the Belfast Central Mission, a position which became the epicentre of his work for 22 years until his retirement in 1979. From this ministry in the heart of troubled Belfast he reached out across the sectarian divide to foster improved cross-community relations. He also helped create a new ecumenical rapport throughout Ireland as a member of the Irish Council of Churches, which he chaired between 1966 and 1968. He served as vice-president of the British Council of Churches and was an influential and active supporter of the Irish School of Ecumenics in Dublin.
He was a founder member of the Ballymascanlon inter-church discussions between the Roman Catholic hierarchy and the Irish Council of Churches, and co-chaired, with Cardinal Cahal Daly, a group which produced a report to the churches called Violence in Ireland.
He was awarded the OBE in 1972 for services to community relations, followed by the CBE. Queen's University made him an honorary doctor of divinity in 1971. He was also a member of the Opsahl Commission, which heard ideas about the future of Northern Ireland from over 3,000 people, and served a term as a member of the Press Council from 1978.
He was predeceased by his wife, Barbara, and is survived by his children, Ruth, Helen and David.
Rev Dr Eric Gallagher: born 1913; died December, 1999