A HIGH-PROFILE campaigner for the Disappeared, who met US President Bill Clinton in her fight for justice, has died at the age of 85.
Margaret McKinney's son Brian was among 16 people abducted, murdered and secretly buried by republican paramilitaries during the Troubles.
For decades she fought to get answers for the families of the Disappeared and highlighted the issue to senior politicians including Mr Clinton and British Prime Minister John Major.
In May 1978, Brian McKinney (22) and his friend John McClory (17) were killed by the IRA in apparent retaliation for a £70 robbery at an IRA-run social club.
Their bodies were not found until June 1999, when they were discovered in a bog in Colgagh, Inniskeen, Co Monaghan.
Mrs McKinney, a founder of the group Families of the Disappeared, died at Fruithill Nursing Home in west Belfast on Tuesday.
Sandra Peake, chief executive of WAVE Trauma Centre, said she was a "truly remarkable woman who was instrumental in bringing the issue of the Disappeared from the silent fringes into the peace process itself".
"Speaking out against the IRA was dangerous but Mags showed no concern for her personal safety and vowed never to give up until he was returned to her," she said.
Ms Peake said she met Mrs McKinney for the first time in 1995.
She took her case to the then Prime Minister John Major, later meeting Mr Clinton as part of a WAVE delegation in 1998.
"Mags was never overawed by any occasion and as she told President Clinton about Brian he was moved to tears," Ms Peake said.
"He told her that he would do all that he could to get Brian back."
In a telephone conversation between Mr Clinton and then Prime Minister Tony Blair the next day, a transcript of which was released last year, the US president said: "The women have given me an idea".
He outlined a process later set up by the British and Irish governments in 1999 to create the Independent Commission for the Location of Victims’ Remains (ICLVR).
Mrs McKinney met Mr Clinton again when he visited Belfast in 2014.
Ms Peake said: "She thanked him for his support and showed him a photograph that was very dear to her. It was of Brian's grave.
"There were more tears that day."
She added: "Like other Families of the Disappeared who had loved ones returned, Mags continued to support those still waiting.
"She was an astonishing woman whose warmth, humour and spirit was inspirational."
Sir Ken Bloomfield and Frank Murray from the ICLVR also said Mrs McKinney was a "tower of strength".
"Anyone who met Margaret McKinney could not fail to have been impressed by her humanity and her devotion to the cause of the Families of the Disappeared," they said.
Requiem Mass is to be celebrated at St Matthias' Church in west Belfast at 10am on Saturday, followed by burial in Milltown Cemetery.
Of the 16 Disappeared, the remains of 12 have been recovered. Four men - Joseph Lynskey, British solider Robert Nairac, Seamus Ruddy and Columba McVeigh - remain missing.
Anyone with information on the Disappeared can contact the ICLVR on 00800 555 85500; ICLVR, PO Box 10827, Dublin 2; or via the website www.iclvr.ie.
