The story of the man who helped organise the ill-fated 'Bloody Sunday' civil rights parade has been marked in a new book about his life.
Newry native Kevin Boyle was a founding member of the civil rights movement and a leading player in the protest group People's Democracy.
He was also a driving force in the rents and rates strike across the north after the introduction of internment in 1971 and it was Mr Boyle who proposed holding the Bloody Sunday civil rights parade in Derry in January 1971 which resulted in the British soldiers killing 14 Catholic civilians.
Although a central figure at the time his contribution to end to discrimination in the north is not widely known.
His remarkable story has now been told in a new book by award winning CNN correspondent Mike Chinoy.
'Are You With Me: Kevin Boyle and the rise of the human rights movement' reveals for the first time how the former lawyer played a previously unknown role as a mediator during the 1981 hunger strike, which resulted in the deaths of 10 republicans.
Mr Chinoy suggests that ideas proposed by Mr Boyle provided the intellectual underpinning of the 1985 Anglo Irish Agreement and that his contribution was influential in the 1998 Good Friday Agreement.
The Co Down man, who died in 2010 aged 67, had an international reputation in the field of human rights.
He was a lead lawyer in helping decriminalise homosexuality in the north and later carried out missions for Amnesty International in Africa in the 1980s, including two to South Africa.
When writer Salman Rushdie was placed under death threat in 1989 the Newry man devised and led the international support campaign.
During his distinguished career and brought and won numerous cases at the European Court of Human Rights on behalf of Kurds in south-eastern Turkey.
Between 2001-2002 he served as the chief advisor UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson, who was also a former president of Ireland.
A former teacher at Queen’s University in Belfast, the University of Galway, and at the University of Essex, Mr Boyle pioneered the idea of incorporating human rights into legal education - an innovation that is now widely accepted.
His remarkable career has been perfectly captured by Mr Chinoy, who worked for CNN for more than 24 years and reported on the Troubles in the north in the 1970s and 80s.
It was during this time he met Mr Boyle.
Mr Chinoy is currently a Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the University of Southern California’s US-China Institute and is based in Hong Kong.
'Are You With Me: Kevin Boyle and the rise of the human rights movement' is published by Lilliput Press and available to buy from its website.
