Veteran BBC journalist Stephen Grimason who broke news of Good Friday Agreement dies aged 67

Former BBC News Northern Ireland political editor Stephen Grimason, who broke the news of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, has died aged 67.

With a career spanning three decades, Grimason was often behind the camera covering some of the strife that consumed the country, The Troubles.

Following the news of his death after a long illness, heartfelt tributes have honoured Grimason’s ‘humour and intellect’, which ‘remained to the end’.

BBC News correspondent Mark Simpson wrote on X: ‘Sad to say that former BBC NI political editor Stephen Grimason died last night. He was 67. He was also a former Director of Communications at Stormont with the NI Executive.

‘Stephen will be deeply missed, but always loved, by family, friends and colleagues.’

Former UTV Political Editor Ken Reid added: ‘My thoughts are with Stephen Grimason’s family and friends. It has not been easy but his sense of humour and intellect remained to the end.

‘The tributes are well deserved. The family have been tremendous in their support and have my and many others deepest sympathy.’

‘I have it in my hand,’ Grimason would say on live television, holding a leaked copy of the Belfast Agreement, or simply the agreement, in 1998.

The accord, struck by the British, Irish and Northern Irish governments, all but ended the Troubles and paved the way for years of peace.

Grimason left the BBC three years later to become the director of communications for Stormont, the country’s new governing assembly that the Good Friday agreement established.

Mark Simpson, who worked closely with Grimaon at the BBC, wrote a tribute to his former colleague and friend.

He said when the two recently met, Grimason revealed his illness was terminal.

‘The trick is not minding,’ Grimason told Simpson.

Simpson added: ‘When I visited him in hospital in his final days, he gave me his forecast for each of the 18 local seats in the Westminster election. He had been studying the boundary changes, in between medical treatment.

‘His body was weak, but his mind remained strong.’

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