Troubles journalist and Secret History of the IRA author Ed Moloney dies

Ed Moloney's A Secret History of the IRA became a bestseller after it was published in 2002

The journalist and author Ed Moloney, who was known for his reporting on the Northern Ireland Troubles and research into the Provisional IRA, has died aged 77.

His family confirmed the news on Mr Moloney's blog The Broken Elbow, saying he died on Friday in New York after a brief illness.

Mr Moloney was a former northern editor for both The Irish Times and Sunday Tribune. He has also written for The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Guardian among others.

In 2002, his book A Secret History of the IRA was published. It went on to become a bestseller.

Mr Moloney also co-wrote an unauthorised biography of unionist leader Ian Paisley, which was published in 1986, before he authored a new edition in 2008 under the title Paisley: From Demagogue to Democrat?

In later years, he was the director of Boston College's Belfast Project, known as the Boston tapes, which collected interviews with former republican and loyalist paramilitaries with the aim of creating an oral history of the Troubles.

Seamus Dooley, the assistant general secretary of the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) in Ireland, said he was saddened to hear of Mr. Moloney's death.

"He will be remembered for his courage, dogged determination and unyielding commitment to shining a light into the darkest corners of Northern Ireland's troubled history," he said.

"During a crowded career he risked prison in defence of his sources and faced death threats for his investigative journalism.

"He was fearless, courageous and outspoken and was never afraid of upsetting those who yielded power, influence and authority, either through elected office or membership of a proscribed organisation."