Northern Ireland

`Founding father of civil rights' Austin Currie to be buried today beside parents in Co Tyrone

The hearse carrying the coffin of Austin Currie arrives at the Church of the Immaculate Conception in Allenwood, Co. Kildare, for Requiem Mass. Picture by Brian Lawless/PA Wire
The hearse carrying the coffin of Austin Currie arrives at the Church of the Immaculate Conception in Allenwood, Co. Kildare, for Requiem Mass. Picture by Brian Lawless/PA Wire The hearse carrying the coffin of Austin Currie arrives at the Church of the Immaculate Conception in Allenwood, Co. Kildare, for Requiem Mass. Picture by Brian Lawless/PA Wire

`FOUNDING father of civil rights' Austin Currie has returned to be buried today beside his parents in Co Tyrone where he made his famous "fearless" stand for equality.

A service yesterday at Co Kildare's Church of the Immaculate Conception in Allenwood, the parish church in his adopted home of Derrymullan, was attended by President Michael D Higgins, SDLP leader Colum Eastwood, Tanaiste Leo Varadkar, Foreign Affairs Minister Simon Coveney, Justice Minister Helen McEntee and a representative of the Taoiseach Micheal Martin.

Covid-19 restrictions limited the numbers inside the modern church building, but the route was lined with mourners and around 230 people were watching the service at any given time via a video on the church's Facebook page.

His daughter Estelle described him as "82-years-young, what a force for change you have been, what a force for good".

"When he squatted in Caledon in June 1968, he felt such a strong sense of injustice. He felt that they'd tried everything else.

"The civil rights movement was the most successful political action in Ireland, and for daddy it was the defining moment."

She told mourners the family has been moved by the outpouring of admiration for him after he died peacefully in his sleep on Tuesday.

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

Mr Currie was born in Co Tyrone, the eldest of 11 children and his daughter recounted how his father had appealed in vain for council housing to move the family from a two-room dwelling with "dampness, earthen floors and no basic amenities".

Austin Currie's later decision to squat at a council house in Caledon in June 1968 is widely seen as the beginning of the civil rights movement, which challenged inequality and discrimination against Catholics.

He went on to create the SDLP along with John Hume and Gerry Fitt in 1970.

Mourners heard he remained "so proud of his roots", bringing the Tyrone flag with him to their Co Kildare home and how the only achievements he `shouted about' were "maybe his potatoes and maybe the Sam Maguire".

Mr Currie grew his potatoes in a greenhouse "under bulletproof glass from the Dungannon (family) home" and his daughter told how "threats from all sides" meant he "slept with a gun by the side of his bed" and they checked "under the car on the way to school".

"Daddy reached the great old age of 82 and he died peacefully in his own bed - if you'd said that to him at the age of 30, he would never have believed you," she said.

"But he never stopped thinking about the people who didn't, Columba McVeigh killed by the IRA in 1975 and still lying somewhere far away from home.

"At every occasion he could, daddy would call on the people who took Columba away, to do the decent thing, the Christian thing, of allowing him home to be buried with his family.

"The disappeared, still one of the cruellest and shameful atrocities of the Troubles and still something that could be put right."

He went on to win a seat in Dublin West for Fine Gael in 1989, serving as TD and minister in the Republic until he retired in 2002.

A second service will take place on this morning at St Malachy's Church in Edendork, Co Tyrone, before burial in the adjoining cemetery.