Austin Currie to be laid to rest in his native Edendork

FRIENDS and family of the late Tyrone Civil Rights leader, Austin Currie, will be joined by political dignitaries from across Ireland when his funeral takes place on Saturday in St Malachy’s Church in Edendork.

It is expected that several hundred people, including many from the wider Dungannon area who knew Mr Currie personally or politically, are expected to attend the Mass and burial in the adjoining cemetery.

His remains will return to his childhood home tomorrow (Friday) before the Requiem Mass on Saturday morning at 11am.

Born near Coalisland in 1939 and raised in Edendork, Mr Currie, who celebrated his 82nd birthday last month, died peacefully in his sleep at the family home on Tuesday morning.

He will be remembered in his native county as one of a small group of politicians and others whose actions at a critical time in Irish history helped bring about the end of half a century of what is viewed as Unionist misrule at Stormont.

Mr Currie’s family said that they were ‘heartbroken’ by the death of Austin. He had been married to his wife, Annita (nee Lynch from Omagh) for 53 years and the family said their love for each other had taken them through some of the worst times in the North’s recent history.

WE WILL MISS HIM DEEPLY

“Our Daddy was wise, brave and loving and we thank him for the values that he lived by and instilled in us. He was our guiding star who put the principles of peace, social justice and equality first,” they said.

“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, Daddy played a key role in the politics of that era. In 1989, he won a seat in Dublin West for Fine Gael and pursued a successful career as TD and Minister until retirement in 2002.

“From Edendork in county Tyrone to the bog of Allen, Daddy was most at home with his beloved Annita and his family, surrounded by newspapers and grandchildren. We will miss him deeply.”

Tributes to Mr Currie have this week been led by the President of Ireland, Michael D Higgins. He said the country had lost a ‘dedicated, sincere and very committed politician’.

Among those who also paid tribute to Mid-Ulster Sinn Fein MP, Francie Molloy, and SDLP leader, Colum Eastwood and Doug Beattie, the leader of the Ulster Unionist party.

The management and employees of the North West of Ireland Printing and Publishing Company (North-West News Group) also extended their deepest sympathy to the family of Austin Currie. He was the husband of Board Director Annita and father of Board Chairman Austin (Jnr).

During a career spanning four decades from his election as a Stormont Nationalist MP in 1964, Mr Currie was a key political figurehead. But it was as a civil rights leader and founder member of the SDLP that he made his most significant contribution.

In 1968 he was one of three men – Patsy Gildernew and Joseph Campbell being the others – whose sit-in protest at a house in Caledon is seen as a major turning point in highlighting discrimination against Catholics and Nationalists by the Unionist-dominated Stormont Government.

Mr Currie is survived by his wife, Annita, his children Estelle, Caitríona, Dualta, Austin Óg and Emer and their spouses Sean, Siobhan, Hiroko and Malcolm, grandchildren Anna, Ella, Maeve, Caoimhe, Josephine, Cara, Dylan, Keiko, Aidan, Sadhbh, Cillian, Cordelia and Rebecca, his beloved brothers and sisters, brothers and sisters in law, nephews, nieces, extended family, neighbours and friends.