Dennis Kennedy, a former chief leader writer at the Belfast Telegraph, died earlier this month in Belfast at the age of 89.

Kennedy graduated from Wallace High School in Lisburn. He attended Queen's University in Belfast, where he studied under historian JC Beckett.

He worked as a journalist at the Belfast Telegraph under editor John E Sayers during the early Troubles period. Kennedy later became chief leader writer.

Kennedy met Katherine Hickey, a fellow Belfast Telegraph colleague and Queen's graduate, and they married. The couple moved to Ethiopia for four years to run a Lutheran World Federation radio station in Addis Ababa.

They returned to Ireland and settled in Dublin, where Kennedy joined the Irish Times under editor Douglas Gageby and rose to deputy editor.

Kennedy held a PhD from Trinity College Dublin. He served as EU representative in Northern Ireland and worked as a research fellow and lecturer on European affairs at Queen's University.

He led the Irish Association for Cultural, Economic, and Social Relations and headed the Belfast and Literary Society.

Kennedy received a fellowship from the World Press Institute at Macalester College in Minneapolis and visited the United Nations in New York, Capitol Hill in Washington DC, and the White House.