Denis Bradley on being witness to history as he set up MI5 meeting with Martin McGuinness

In this exclusive extract from his new memoir, Peace Comes Dropping Slow, the former priest reveals how he helped run the ‘backchannel’, a clandestine group that facilitated talks between the IRA and the British government for 30 years

Martin McGuinness outside the republican information centre in Derry in 1985

Denis Bradley

It was the pre-existing relationship between Brendan Duddy, Noel Gallagher and me that would result in us forming the hub of the contact between the British government and the IRA over the next 30 years.

This backchannel, as it came to be known, wasn’t established in any planned, formal manner.