Chris Ryder: Warm tributes to journalist and author ‘who IRA wanted dead’

It is believed he had been in his 70s, and his career stretched back to the early days of the Troubles.

Mr Ryder had been an outspoken voice on Twitter, and last used it on September 19.

Then on Saturday afternoon his account issued the following message, in the name of his wife Genny.

“I’m sad to tell you Chris died last night, peacefully and pain free after a short illness.

“He was looked after with exemplary care at the NI Hospice. Cremation will be private.”

He had previously written for the Sunday Times and The Telegraph, and had also penned pieces for the News Letter.

He was the author of the following books: ‘The RUC 1922-2000’: ‘A Force Under Fire’; ‘The Fateful Split: Catholics and The Royal Ulster Constabulary’; ‘Drumcree: The Orange Order’s Last Stand’; and ‘A Special Kind of Courage: 321 EOD Squadron – Battling the Bombers’.

In 2013, he had written an opinion piece in the News Letter in which he argued the Parades Commission was “so comprehensively discredited and undermined” that it had become “clearly redundant”.

He suggested a replacement: a parades tribunal, modelled along the lines of industrial tribunals.

And a year earlier, he had penned a piece insisting that “the PSNI must urgently recruit an additional 1,000 officers to provide an independent surge capacity so that it can cope effectively with major incidents or prolonged public disorder without mutual aid from mainland police services or redeploying the Army”.

A piece on The Broken Elbow, a website run by fellow veteran Troubles journalist Ed Moloney (the author of ‘A Secret History of the IRA’) said of Mr Ryder: “Senior figures in the Belfast Brigade made plans to kill him [during the 1970s].

“But at a late stage decided to take advice from a British journalist about the likely consequences.

“The reporter, who left Belfast in the late 1970s, told this writer about the episode but since he is still alive, he must remain nameless.

“The reporter met the Belfast leadership and told them that killing Chris Ryder would backfire badly on the IRA and turn the media strongly against them. Thanks to his advice, the IRA decided to spare Ryder and he went on to live a full life.”

Online, politicians and journalists of both unionist and nationalist traditions paid tribute to him.

Anthony McIntyre, former IRA prisoner-turned-critic of Sinn Fein said: “He was always sort of back-stabbed by the Shinners and Provos; any journalist was who didn’t write what they wanted.”

Former BBC presenter Gordon Burns wrote: “Oh no ... so sorry & saddened to hear this. Another of N Ireland’s great characters gone.

“An outstanding and courageous journalist and a really good, fun guy. Sincere condolences Genny.

“My thoughts along with so those of so many others are with you at this sad and difficult time.”

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