Austin Currie | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Currie in 2014 | |
| Minister of State | |
| 1994–1997 | Education |
| 1994–1997 | Health |
| 1994–1997 | Justice |
| Teachta Dála | |
| In office June 1989 – May 2002 | |
| Constituency | Dublin West |
| Member of theParliament of Northern Ireland forEast Tyrone | |
| In office 30 May 1964 – 30 March 1972 | |
| Preceded by | Joe Stewart |
| Succeeded by | Parliament suspended |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Joseph Austin Currie (1939-10-11)11 October 1939 Dungannon,County Tyrone, Northern Ireland |
| Died | 9 November 2021(2021-11-09) (aged 82) Derrymullen,County Kildare, Ireland |
| Nationality | Irish |
| Political party |
|
| Spouse | |
| Children | 5, includingEmer[1] |
| Residence(s) | Allenwood, County Kildare, Ireland |
| Alma mater | Queen's University Belfast |
Joseph Austin Currie (11 October 1939 – 9 November 2021) was an Irish politician who served as aMinister of State with responsibility for Children's Rights from 1994 to 1997. He served as aTeachta Dála (TD) for theDublin West constituency from 1989 to 2002, representingFine Gael, and as a Member of theParliament of Northern Ireland (MP) forEast Tyrone from 1964 to 1972, representing theNationalist Party and later theSocial Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP).
Born inCoalisland,County Tyrone on 11 October 1939, Austin was the eldest of 11 children[2] born to Mary (née O’Donnell) and John Currie. He was educated at the renownedSt Patrick's Academy, Dungannon, and graduated in politics and history fromQueen's University Belfast.[3] On 20 June 1968, hesquatted at a Kinnard Park house given to a Unionist secretary during a housing protest inCaledon.[4] All 14 houses in the new council development had been allocated to Protestants.[5] Then a sitting MP in the home rule Parliament of Northern Ireland, Currie's protest was unanimously approved by the Nationalist Party the next day.[6] This was one of the catalysts of thecivil rights movement in Northern Ireland.[5]
Currie became an active member in theNorthern Ireland Civil Rights Association. He would later speak about the effect ofpartition on Catholics in Northern Ireland: "Partition was used to try to cut us off from the rest of the Irish nation.Unionists did their best to stamp out ournationalism and, the educational system, to the extent it could organise it, was oriented to Britain and we were not even allowed to use names such as Séamus or Seán. When my brothers' godparents went to register their birth, they were told no such names as Séamus or Seán existed in Northern Ireland and were asked for the English equivalent."[7]
In 1964 he was elected in a by-election as a Nationalist MP forEast Tyrone in the 10thHouse of Commons of theParliament of Northern Ireland, following the death of the sitting Nationalist MP,Joe Stewart. He retained he seat in both thegeneral election to the 11th House of Commons inNovember 1965 and the12th House of Commons inFebruary 1969. This was the last election to the home rule Parliament at Stormort, before it was suspended by the UK Government in March 1972, and formallyabolished in July 1973.
In 1970, he was a founder of the group that established theSocial Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP). From 1973 to 1974, Currie was elected as an SDLP member of the short-lived devolvedNorthern Ireland Assembly. In 1974 he became chief whip of the SDLP, and in the same year became Minister for Housing, Local Government and Planning in the power-sharingNorthern Ireland Executive. The Assembly and Executive collapsed on 28 May 1974, after opposition from within theUUP and theUlster Workers' Council strike. This led to the imposition of direct rule of Northern Ireland from London.
He contested the1979 United Kingdom general election and1986 by-election in theFermanagh and South Tyrone seat, but was unsuccessful on both attempts. Currie also was elected to theNorthern Ireland Assembly in 1982 for the same seat. That Assembly, which was an attempt by the UK Government to reintroduce devolved power-sharing, collapsed in 1986 without executive ministerial functions ever being transferred to it from the UKSecretary of State for Northern Ireland as no political agreement could be reached on power-sharing between the parties owing to nationalists abstentionism over the constituency boundaries used to elect members, and unionist opposition to the1985 Anglo Irish Agreement.
Following his decision to quit Northern Ireland politics, and relocate his family toCounty Kildare, Currie became actively involved in politics in the Republic. Partly due to his long-standing doubts about the commitment of politicians in the Republic to the plight of northern nationalists, he joined theFine Gael party in 1989.[8] He was elected as a Fine Gael TD forDublin West at the1989 Irish general election.
In 1990 Fine Gael selected Currie as their candidate for the1990 Irish presidential election, running againstTánaiste andFianna Fáil TD,Brian Lenihan Sr, and SenatorMary Robinson for theLabour Party. The 1990 election was the first contested election for the Irish Presidency in17 years. Currie received 267,902 first preference votes (approximately 17%) and was eliminated on the first count. The distribution of his votes saw Mary Robinson elected as Ireland's first female president on the second count, beating Lenihan by more than 86,000 votes.
In his 2004 autobiographyAll Hell will Break Loose, he wrote about his experience of running in the presidential election, and the prejudice he faced as a nationalist from Ulster in southern politics: "What annoyed, indeed angered me most was the suggestion that because I came from the North, I was not a real Irishman ... what I called the partitionist mentality ... [during the election campaign] the [then Fianna Fáil] Minister for Justice [Ray Burke] said Fine Gael leaderAlan Dukes 'had to go to Tyrone to find a candidate for the presidency' ... it was hard to take, particularly from so-called republicans".[8]
Following his defeat in the presidential election, Austin Currie held his Dáil seat in Dublin West at the1992 and1997 general elections.[9][10] Following the formation of the so-calledRainbow Coalition between Fine Gael, Labour andDemocratic Left, on 20 December 1994 newly appointedTaoiseachJohn Bruton appointed Currie as aMinister of State with responsibility for Children's Rights[11] at the Departments ofHealth,Education andJustice,[12][13][14] becoming the first ever minister in an Irish Government with dedicated responsibility for children. He held this post until the appointment of a new Irish Government on 26 June 1997 following the1997 Irish general election.
At the2002 general election Currie contested the new constituency ofDublin Mid-West, and failed to be elected. He immediately announced his retirement from electoral politics. He continued to speak and campaign for civil rights across the island of Ireland and for causes he believed in, such as justice for the families of theDisappeared during the Troubles. Currie and his wife and family were personal friends of the family of one of the Disappeared,Columba McVeigh, fromDonaghmore, County Tyrone. His daughterEmer Currie was elected in his former constituency ofDublin West at the2024 general election.
Austin Currie met his wife Annita (née Lynch) in 1961 while he was studying Modern History and Politics atQueens University Belfast, where she was also a student.[15] They were married in January 1968 and had five children,[16] includingEmer Currie, who is a Member of the 34thDáil[17]
In the 1960s and 1970s, he and his family were the repeated targets of loyalist paramilitary attacks on their home in Co Tyrone. When the Troubles broke out in August 1969, Currie was informed by a trusted source that members of theB-Specials intended to carry out a gun attack on his home. In total there were more than thirty attacks on the Currie family home during the Troubles.[18] In November 1972, his wife Anita suffered a brutal attack when two armed and masked men burst into her home looking to attack her husband, who happened to be away at a political speaking engagement in Co Cork that evening.[19] Speaking about it in a TV interview two days later, Anita Currie spoke of how she was punched, cut with a blade, and kicked unconscious while lying on the floor, while her two young daughters looked on helplessly.[20] As a result of these risks, and his growing disillusionment with the political direction the SDLP was taking, Currie quit Northern Ireland politics and relocated his family to the Republic of Ireland.
Speaking inDáil Éireann on the impact ofpartition of Ireland upon the Nationalist community in Northern Ireland, Currie said in 1999:
Partition was used to try to cut us off from the rest of the Irish nation. Unionists did their best to stamp out our nationalism and, the educational system, to the extent it could organise it, was oriented to Britain and we were not even allowed to use names such as Séamus or Seán. When my brothers' godparents went to register their birth, they were told no such names as Séamus or Seán existed in Northern Ireland and were asked for the English equivalent. Many people do not realise the extent to which an alien loyalty was imposed on people. As a Member of Parliament in Stormont in the late 1960s, I tabled parliamentary questions on the number of employees of central Government, local government and its committees who were forced to take the oath of allegiance to the Queen as a precondition to getting a job. This applied even to what could be described as menial jobs such as brushing the streets, cleaning the drains or as we call them in the North cleaning out the seoch. The Unionists went to this extent to stamp out our nationalist identity.[21]
Austin Currie resided inCounty Kildare. He occasionally lectured and gave talks on issues relating toThe Troubles,[22] and for causes he believed in, such as justice for the families of theDisappeared during the Troubles.
Following the deaths ofSeamus Mallon andJohn Hume in January and August 2020 respectively, Austin Currie became the last surviving founder of the SDLP.
Austin Currie died on 9 November 2021 at the age of 82 at his residence inDerrymullen, County Kildare.[23][24][25] Following an initial funeral mass in Allentown, County Kildare, his remains were transferred to his original family home in Edendork, near Dungannon, County Tyrone, where a second funeral mass was celebrated at St. Malachy's Church, Edendork. He is buried alongside his parents in the cemetery adjoining the church.[16]
His brother, Vincent, served as a SDLP member ofDungannon and South Tyrone Borough Council from 1985 to 2011.[26]
| Parliament of Northern Ireland | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | Member of Parliament forEast Tyrone 1964–1973 | Parliament abolished |
| Northern Ireland Assembly (1973) | ||
| New assembly | Assembly Member forFermanagh & South Tyrone 1973–1974 | Assembly abolished |
| Northern Ireland Constitutional Convention | ||
| New convention | Member forFermanagh & South Tyrone 1975–1976 | Convention dissolved |
| Northern Ireland Assembly (1982) | ||
| New assembly | MPA forFermanagh and South Tyrone 1982–1986 | Assembly abolished |
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Other | |
