Austin Currie Dies Aged 82

Austin Currie, founding member of the SDLP and civil rights activist, has died aged 82.

According to reports, Mr Currie "died peacefully in his sleep" at his home in Derrymullen, Co Kildare.

Mr Currie bagen his political career in 1964, when he won a by-election in East Tyrone as a Nationalist Party candidate, aged just 24.

In 1970, Mr Currie helped establish the Social Democratic and Labour Party alongside John Hume and Gerry Fitt.

Later, Mr Currie won a seat for Fine Gael in the Irish parliament in 1989, acting as a government minister until his retirement in 2002.

Paying tribute to Mr Currie, SDLP Leader Colum Eastwood, said: "Austin Currie was a titan of the civil rights movement and one of the forefathers of our party. His housing protest in Caledon in 1968 was one of the key sparks for the civil rights campaign that followed and he spoke for a generation of young nationalists when he refused to allow his constituents to be treated as second class citizens anymore.

"His radical activism led him to join together with other young leaders and together they formed our party on the principles of a shared society where everyone got a fair shot at life, something so many of their contemporaries had been denied.

"Each time we lose a political giant like Austin we lose a piece of our history. While moments like this bring us great sadness, it also gives us the opportunity to celebrate the man and the huge contribution he made to politics in both the North and South of our island. It’s because of brave men and women like Austin who saw the way their community was being treated and refused to be silenced, that we all enjoy the freedoms and privileges we have today.

"My thoughts and the thoughts of all the SDLP family are with Austin’s wife Annita, their children Estelle, Caitriona, Dualta, Austin Og and Emer, and their wide circle of family and friends at this difficult time."