Fr Alec Reids gives the last rites to one of the two corporals murdered by the IRA in 1988

THOUSANDS of mourners are expected to attend the funeral today of Fr Alec Reid.

Fr Reid is credited by politicians with helping to bring to an end the IRA’s terror and murder campaign.

The 82-year-old set up secret contacts between the Sinn Fein/IRA leadership and John Hume’s SDLP in the late 1980s.

However, not long before that started he was pictured giving the last rites to a soldieir who was abducted by an IRA mob, stripped and then executed at Casement Park in March 1988.

The funeral Mass for Fr Reid, who died in Dublin last week aged 82, will take place today at 12 noon at Clonard Monastery off the Falls Road in west Belfast.