Christian O'Reilly

As we stood there, reflecting on a day already rich in thoughts about what is euphemistically called our complex shared history, and with Yeats's words about a terrible beauty ringing in my head, a couple approached us, enthusiastically greeting Tommy, somewhat wearily eyeing me.

After a few brief, hesitant exchanges, the couple moved away.

Tommy leaned over to me and explained that the man had been active in what we, just as euphemistically call, the Troubles.

Tommy was well known to people on both sides of the divide in Northern Ireland.

More unusually, perhaps almost uniquely, he was also trusted on all sides.

Nothing expressed that better than the people around me in the church in Strand Hill as I represented the King at Tommy's funeral two years ago this month.

Arlene Foster, Peter Robinson, Michelle O'Neill and Gerry Adams all sat together to pay their respects.

I had last seen Tommy in Dublin a couple of weeks before his death.

It was, appropriately, at a European Movement event.

Tommy had reported from Brussels for over a decade before he moved to Belfast.

Thus his career was bound up in what I see as two of Europe's most successful peace projects – the Good Friday Agreement and the EU itself.

Because he had cared so much about Northern Ireland, about Britain and about Europe, Tommy had deplored Brexit.

He passed away eight years almost to the day after the referendum vote.

Two years on from his death, I like to think that while no doubt anxious about the wider state of the world, Tommy will be looking down from that great newsroom in the sky, relieved that British-Irish and indeed UK-EU relations are in a much better place.

All of us who knew Tommy still miss him greatly.

He not only reported our complex shared history, he helped make it because of what he did, how he did it, and who he was.

Rest in peace, Tommy.