FORMER BBC JOURNALIST Stephen Walker has died aged 61.<\/p>\n
Walker authored biographies on both John Hume and David Trimble, the former SDLP and Ulster Unionist Party leaders respectively, who played crucial roles in the Northern Ireland peace process.<\/p>\n
Walker joined the BBC in 1991, having previously worked for Radio Leeds, and worked there for three decades.<\/p>\n
During that time, he served as its Northern Ireland political correspondent and London correspondent during the\u00a0later stages of the conflict in the North, and the peace process leading up to the 1998 Belfast Agreement and Brexit.<\/p>\n
He also worked as an investigative reporter on the Spotlight investigative programme.<\/p>\n
Walker\u2019s death was announced by friend and colleague Mark Carruthers, who posted a message online.<\/p>\n
Carruthers said he was \u201csorry to be the bearer of such sad news\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Walker family \u2013 Katrin, Grace, Jack and Gabriel \u2013 have asked me to let people know that Stephen passed away at home this morning surrounded by the people he loved and who loved him,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was a wonderful husband, father, brother and son, a fine journalist and author, and the very best of friends.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are all heartbroken, but grateful for his life so well and fully lived.\u201d<\/p>\n
Paying tribute, leader of the SDLP Claire Hanna said he was an \u201coutstanding journalist and writer who chronicled some of the most significant chapters in our recent history with intelligence, curiosity and great humanity.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u201cHe brought warmth and good humour to his work and to those around him, and his contribution to how we understand and tell the story of this place will endure for years to come.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy deepest sympathies are with his family and friends, and with his many colleagues at the BBC and across journalism.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Walker is survived by his wife Katrin, daughter Grace and sons Gabriel and Jack.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FORMER BBC JOURNALIST Stephen Walker has died aged 61. Walker authored biographies on both John Hume and David…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":675672,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[41],"tags":[285709,9,10,9413,13,14,6,62569,11,12,15,16,5,954,5615,285710,7,8,65,66,67],"class_list":["post-675671","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-world","tag-aaron-dobbs","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-death","tag-featured-news","tag-featurednews","tag-headlines","tag-journalist","tag-latest-news","tag-latestnews","tag-main-news","tag-mainnews","tag-news","tag-northern-ireland","tag-rip","tag-stephen-walker","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories","tag-world","tag-world-news","tag-worldnews"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/117225452193934260","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/675671","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=675671"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/675671\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/675672"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=675671"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=675671"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=675671"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}