JO Berry was getting ready for a round-the-world trip when an IRA bomb ripped through the Grand Hotel, in Brighton, during the early hours of
October 12, 1984.

"I had a rucksack packed and I was on my way to Africa, I'd said goodbye to my dad and I was about to head off and then I heard the news," she says.

The blast had been intended to kill Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, in Brighton for the Conservative Party Conference, but instead claimed five other lives including that of Jo's father, Tory MP Sir Anthony Berry.

The atrocity shocked the nation, and threw Jo into a conflict she knew very little about. "It made me understand what it was like to be part of a war. But I also wanted to see what difference I could make."

Nine months after the attack Pat Magee, a long-time IRA activist, was arrested and subsequently convicted of the bombing. He was given eight life sentences, but in 1999 and amid a storm of protest, he was released after serving 14 years, under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement.

As part of the healing process, Jo had asked to meet the man responsible for her father's death, but he had always refused. Then in 2000 he had a change of heart, and a secret meeting was arranged in Dublin, although neither thought much would come out of it.

"I went there with very little expectation," explains Jo. "I'd met other members of the IRA and they'd prepared me by saying it would just be a one-off meeting. So I imagined that he'd talk about the political reasons behind what he did, and I'd listen and talk about the kind of man my dad was, and then he'd go and I'd go and that would be that.

"But something happened about halfway through, and there was a moment when we both opened up and since then I think we've been on a journey together."

Pat agrees. "As you may well imagine, it was a very profound and intense moment and thinking back, it was one I wasn't fully prepared for. I went to the meeting wearing a political hat and was there to explain, with some sensitivity, my motivations and some of the thinking behind IRA operations and the Brighton operation, and that would be it," he says. "But there was something about being in the room with someone you've hurt that changed things, and my political hat came off and I realised the enormity of what I was doing."

By the time the three-hour meeting was over, Pat had expressed his sorrow at killing Jo's father, marking the start of an intriguing journey that has seen them give more than 40 public talks in prisons, universities, schools and peace conferences both here and abroad, most recently at Bradford University.

"After the first meeting I remember walking away and being completely disorientated, because I'd broken this taboo of 'don't meet the enemy'," says Jo, who initially kept the meetings secret, not even telling her friends and family. "We didn't have any support, so we ended up supporting each other, because you go through a rollercoaster
of emotions."

They both felt compelled to continue meeting each other and went public because they fervently believed they could help others in similar situations.

"You unburden yourself," says Pat, "and we both wanted to continue the conversation so there were other meetings, because we want to understand the process. We're looking for answers, we refuse to believe that this is unique and there's an obligation we feel to talk through it."

They believe that conflicts can only be properly resolved by bringing both sides together. "We show how dialogue can work, which considering what has brought us together – the fact I killed Jo's father – you would have thought would have been a gap that could never be closed and yet we've been meeting for years to discuss this dialogue and the need for it," Pat explains. "I'm sure it can be replicated because I feel enriched by it. I feel I've gained from it and I believe Jo has gained from it."

She agrees but admits the path to reconciliation is not always an easy one. "There have been times when I've been angry and it's felt too difficult, but I know I'm being transformed through these meetings, and I can see the effect that sharing our story has on other people."

While they admit they're involved in a process they don't fully understand, not everyone agrees with what they are doing. Other families of IRA victims have criticised their meetings and last year Lord Tebbit, who was seriously injured in the Brighton bombing along with his wife, refused to take part in a BBC programme about the IRA attack.

"I could perhaps have asked Mr Magee for a goodwill message to my wife, whose life sentence to imprisonment in a wheelchair has not yet been commuted to some lesser inconvenience," Lord Tebbit wrote.

The bombing received widespread condemnation, although for Pat there was a sense of relief. "The operation was extremely important, it was one of the biggest that the IRA had carried out up to that point. There was a lot of responsibility on my shoulders and my immediate reaction was one of relief, I know it sounds awful but that's what I felt."

He believes, too, that the IRA was fighting a justifiable and unavoidable war. "Through the armed conflict we gained the space and we gained the time for the necessary political development and I don't think it could have happened any other way," he says.

It is, he admits, one of the big differences between himself and Jo and serves as a reminder that these are two people searching for some kind of catharsis. They aren't best friends.

Pat says that conflicts, such as the ongoing war of attrition between the Israelis and Palestinians, require complex solutions, although his assertion that the IRA didn't deliberately target civilians rings hollow when you consider such atrocities as the Harrods bombing in 1983 and the Remembrance Day attack at Enniskillen four years later.

However, he does concede that innocent people were killed. "I recognise that the IRA was responsible for many civilian casualties which is deeply, deeply, regrettable, both from a political point of view because it set us back and on a human level."

But both he and Jo are united in their belief that what they are doing can make a difference to others whose lives have been devastated by violence.

"There are no rules if you're a victim of terrorism or a murder and everyone has their own way of healing and for me meeting Pat was one of those steps," explains Jo.

"There's a very powerful, growing voice of people who are saying 'we're going to bring the cycle of violence to an end' and the fact we're here and people are learning about conflict resolution is inspirational, because 30 years ago that wasn't happening.

"At some point maybe not my children, but their children, will learn about the old days when they used bombs to resolve conflict and say, 'how crazy were they?'"

To find out more about peace and reconciliation work log on to www.buildingbridgesforpeace.org