Austin Currie was hailed as a ‘hero’ and ‘true giant of civil rights’ at his funeral on Friday. 

The former Stormont MP, TD and presidential candidate passed away peacefully in his sleep aged 82 and will be buried today in Edendork, Co Tyrone. 

The funeral mass was attended by a veritable ‘Who’s Who’ of the Irish state - with President Michael D Higgins, Tánaiste Leo Varadkar, SDLP leader Colm Eastwood and numerous cabinet ministers all making the journey to the Church of the Immaculate Conception in Allenwood, Co Kildare. 

Statement by President Michael D. Higgins on the passing of Austin Currie.https://t.co/uZLtMfrymt pic.twitter.com/Oi2c5DSI7M

— President of Ireland (@PresidentIRL) November 10, 2021

Paying tribute to her father, Mr Currie’s daughter, Estelle, told mourners: 

"There have been so many tributes paid since Tuesday - the finest, fearless, immense courage, a true giant of civil rights and constitutional politics, one of its founding fathers. 

“Daddy was always a hero to us, now we know he was a hero to so many others too."

Austin Currie's daughter, Estelle, addresses mourners at his funeral. 

Civil rights movement

Mr Currie was born into a Catholic family in Tyrone in 1939 - an era when discrimination against the nationalist community in Northern Ireland was rife. His decision in 1968 to break into and squat in a council house to protest the prioritisation of Protestants for social housing is considered the starting point of the civil rights movement. 

In full view of the press, an RUC policeman arrived with a sledgehammer, knocked down the front door and removed Mr Currie and his fellow protesters. 

“For the first time, discrimination in housing was getting reported, which was the important thing,” Mr Currie recalled with satisfaction. 

Two years later, Mr Currie joined with other nationalist MPs at Stormont to found the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP). It was in favour of Irish unity but also implacably opposed to the violence of the IRA. 

Mr Currie was a negotiator for the party during the talks that led to the Sunningdale Agreement and he was then appointed as Minister for Housing, Planning and Local Government in the short-lived power sharing executive that followed it. 

In the 1980s he relocated to the Republic, joined Fine Gael and was elected a TD for Dublin West. He made an unsuccessful run for President in 1990, losing out to Mary Robinson, before serving as a junior minister in the Rainbow coalition. 

He lost his seat in the Fianna Fáil landslide of 2002 and began a quiet retirement in Kildare. He is survived by his wife Annita and their five children.

Main image: Austin Currie. Picture by: PA Images / Alamy Stock Photo