Austin Currie, a founding member of the SDLP and a key figure in launching Northern Ireland’s civil rights movement, has died aged 82.
Currie was the last surviving founder of the Social Democratic and Labour party, launched in 1970, after the deaths of John Hume in 2020 and Ivan Cooper in 2019.
The SDLP, the most popular Irish nationalist party until 2001, advocates Irish reunification, but amid the Troubles differentiated itself from Sinn Féin by rejecting political violence, such as from the Provisional IRA.
The party was a key player in the 1990s talks that eventually led to the 1998 Good Friday agreement, which charted a path out of the conflict that had plagued Northern Ireland for decades.
“The Currie family is heartbroken to announce the death of Austin Currie,” his family said in a statement reported by Ireland’s TheJournal.ie. Currie died at home in Derrymullen, County Kildare, Ireland.
“After a long and eventful life, he died peacefully in his sleep,” the statement went on. “Austin was married to Annita for 53 years. They were a formidable team whose love for each other and their family saw them through some of the worst times in Northern Ireland’s recent history.”
In 1974 Currie served as SDLP chief whip and minister for housing, local government and planning in the Northern Ireland executive.
But in 1989 he moved to the Republic of Ireland, where he became the TD (MP) for Dublin West and ran in 1990 as the Fine Gael candidate for president.
He finished a distant third, but later, during the 1994 to 1997 “rainbow coalition”, served as a minister for state in the departments of education, justice and health
Currie is survived by his children Estelle, Caitriona, Dualta, Austin and Emer, their partners and 13 grandchildren.
The family statement said: “Austin, who was born in County Tyrone, was the eldest of 11 children. His decision to squat a council house in Caledon in June 1968 is widely seen as the beginning of the civil rights movement.
“One of the founding members of the SDLP along with John Hume and Gerry Fitt, Austin played a key role in the politics of that era.”
Ireland’s taoiseach, Micheál Martin, described Currie as a “peacemaker”. He tweeted: “Saddened to hear of the death of Austin Currie, one of the founding fathers of the civil rights movement in Northern Ireland.
“He did so much for people, as a peacemaker and in politics, serving in the Dáil and as minister of state with distinction. My sympathies to his family.”
