Basil Glass: Shortly before his death the Alliance party founder and former deputy leader, Basil Glass, told the Rev Harold Good, one of the witnesses to the process, that he was glad to have lived to see republican arms put beyond use.
Good replied: "Basil, I was only at the finishing of what you started." The exchange was described by the Alliance party's first leader, Sir Oliver Napier, during the funeral service at which Good officiated, noting that Glass, like himself, had been a son of the manse.
The family moved north in his youth, but Glass was born in Drumshanbo, Co Leitrim, where his father was the Methodist minister. He graduated in law from Queen's University, establishing a solicitor's practice. His career was notable as much for commitment to the law as to politics. Having held most of the offices in the Alliance party, he went on to become a widely respected judge in the field of insolvency.
His achievements were the standards of excellence in law he set as Insolvency Master, said Napier, and the power-sharing principles he helped negotiate in 1973 at Sunningdale. Behind a quiet manner, he was a passionate advocate of a just society.
When a group of individuals from an assortment of political backgrounds formed the New Ulster Movement as the Troubles began in earnest in 1969 - aiming to "promote moderation and non-sectarianism in politics" - the 43-year-old Glass joined people 10 years younger, like Napier.
He also went on to help found Alliance, Napier said, "because he did not believe that Catholics were getting justice from the unionist government. He found that personally offensive - to be a citizen of a country where justice was not available to all."
Becoming first Alliance chairman meant working "by day in his law office and by night setting up [ party] branches east and west of the Bann". With Napier and the late Sir Robert (Bob) Cooper, Glass made up the Alliance team which at Sunningdale helped negotiate terms for the doomed power-
sharing administration. He remained deeply proud of having helped to establish the basis for any Northern devolution.
"The 1974 power-sharing executive may have fallen because of street violence and a supine government, but the fundamental principles live on. There will never be a devolved administration without power-sharing as of right. There will never be a local administration without a meaningful Irish dimension. Some people were very slow to learn that lesson - but everyone now recognises it."
Glass was elected for South Belfast in 1973 to the Assembly, two years later to the Constitutional Convention, and in 1977 to Belfast City Council. In the 70s he became the Alliance chief whip. When Bob Cooper left politics to become first head of the Fair Employment Agency, Glass succeeded him as deputy leader.
In 1982 he failed by a few votes to be re-elected to the Assembly, stood unsuccessfully in two Westminster general elections, became party chairman, then a Master of the Supreme Court.
He was later appointed Bankruptcy and Companies Master of the High Court. He had a reputation of being dignified, polite and a good listener, said fellow-lawyer Napier, with no respect for lawyers who were ill-prepared. "He told me often in private that he found it difficult to understand the morality of someone who took the client's money and wasn't prepared to look up the law."
He is survived by his wife, Mary Clark Glass, four sons, Nigel, Julian, Mervyn and Ambrose, and two stepsons.
Basil Glass: born 1926 ; died September 30th, 2005