Another old stalwart of the conflict to leave us this year was the veteran Sinn Fein activist Marie Moore who died in hospital after a long illness. I don’t really think she, like a lot of her colleagues, was ever comfortable in the company of a dissenting opinion but she was approachable. The last time I spoke with her was in Belfast City Hall back in 2003. An anti-war rally had been taking place and a couple of Sinn Fein members on it had been manhandled by the PSNI and arrested. I left the protest to enter City Hall and asked at the desk for somebody from Sinn Fein. Marie Moore emerged. I told her what had happened and she promised to get onto it immediately. That conversation with her were the last words ever spoken between us. Our paths were not to cross again.