One of Sinn Féin’s most influential strategists during the peace process, Ted Howell, has died at the age of 78.
The west Belfast man was among Gerry Adams’s most trusted advisers and a senior member of the party’s backroom team in the negotiations that led to the Belfast Agreement in 1998.
An activist who shunned the limelight – there are few photographs of him – the former republican internee “saw a path for Sinn Féin before most people did” and became a “voice for the peace process”, according to Irish-American publisher and friend Niall O’Dowd.
“I think he was a political genius. He as much as anyone saw the potential in the embryonic peace process and without him it may have been impossible to bring it to fruition,” added Mr O’Dowd, who first met Howell at an event in Dublin in 1993.
Ireland weather update: Almost 60,000 without power as Met Éireann warns cold spell will continue until Friday
‘My friend was sleeping with another friend’s boyfriend and refuses to take responsibility’
‘I actually felt unsafe as an English person in the Aviva’
I loved Alice Munro but recent revelations have tainted her legacy forever
“But he never wanted to be in front of a camera. If you think of the film The Quiet Man, that was him. I think when the history is written he’ll be a lot more prominent a figure than people would have imagined.”
One senior republican said Mr Howell was considered the “backroom backroom man”.
“We described Ted internally as our most senior minister without a portfolio,” he said.
Part of the core group which managed Sinn Féin’s strategy in the early 1980s, Mr Howell was at the heart of all engagements with the Irish, British and US governments in the lead-up to the landmark peace agreement being signed.
Mr Adams led tributes on Friday alongside Stormont First Minister Michelle O’Neill, with the former Sinn Féin president describing Mr Howell’s contribution to modern republicanism as “enormous”.
“Ted brought a perceptive and sharp mind to republican politics and to the countless projects he was involved with,” Mr Adams said.
“He was also a very decent and generous person, funny and modest. Very sociable and good company. A decent cook and a knowledgeable gardener. His death is a great personal loss to me and to all of us who had the honour and pleasure to know him.”
When Mr Adams jokingly tweeted on social media in 2013 about “”#Ted”, his “teddy bear”, media speculated that he was referencing his right-hand man.
In 2018, Mr Howell’s name featured during a public inquiry into a botched green energy scheme – dubbed the ‘cash for ash’ scandal – when it emerged former Stormont Sinn Féin finance minister MLA Máirtín Ó Muilleoir had sought his consent in 2017 before signing off on a document.
The development caused political upset amid accusations that “shadowy figures” were still running the party, a claim rejected by Mr Adams, who wrote in 2020 that senior unelected officials had been part of the party negotiating team for “a very long time” and had played key roles in the peace process and post-conflict deals.
Ms O’Neill said Mr Howell was a “towering intellect” and “radical thinker”.
“As long-time chair of the Sinn Féin negotiating team, Ted was intimately involved in every political negotiation from the Hume/Adams talks through the Good Friday Agreement to the New Decade/New Approach deal in 2020,” she said.
“He performed his central and critically important roles quietly, with humility and never sought public attention or recognition. He was, of course, a close and dear personal friend to me and, with all those who knew him, I will sorely miss his intellect, his presence and his friendship. I will be forever grateful for his guidance over the years.”
Mr Howell made a rare public appearance at the official opening of the restored St Comgall’s school off the Falls Road by US special envoy for the North Joe Kennedy in 2023.
The multimillion-pound restoration project in Divis was driven by his late wife, Eileen, a director of the Falls community council, for decades. The building, Ionad Eileen Howell, was named after her.
- Sign up for push alerts and have the best news, analysis and comment delivered directly to your phone
- Join The Irish Times on WhatsApp and stay up to date
- Listen to our Inside Politics podcast for the best political chat and analysis
