Austin Currie

Joseph Austin Currie (born 11 October 1939) is an Irish former SDLP and Fine Gael politician who served as Minister of State for Justice from 1994 to 1997. He served as a Teachta Dála (TD) for the Dublin West constituency from 1989 to 2002 and Member of the Parliament of Northern Ireland (MP) for East Tyrone from 1964 to 1972.

Austin Currie
Minister of State for Justice
In office 20 December 1994 – 26 June 1997
Taoiseach	John Bruton
Preceded by	Willie O'Dea
Succeeded by	Mary Wallace
Teachta Dála
In office June 1989 – May 2002
Constituency	Dublin West
Member of the Parliament of Northern Ireland for East Tyrone
In office 30 May 1964 – 30 March 1972
Preceded by	Joseph Francis Stewart
Succeeded by	Parliament suspended
Personal details
Born	Joseph Austin Currie (1939-10-11) 11 October 1939 Dungannon, County Tyrone, Northern Ireland
Nationality	Irish
Political party	Fine Gael SDLP
Spouse(s)	Annita Currie (m. 1968)
Children	5 (including Emer Currie[1])
Residence	Allenwood, Kildare, Ireland
Alma mater	Queen's University Belfast

Currie was born in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland, to a Catholic family. He was educated in Dungannon and at Queen's University Belfast. Between 1964 and 1972, he was the Nationalist Party Stormont MP for East Tyrone. On 20 June 1968, with others including mediator Father Tom Savage, he began a protest about discrimination in housing allocation by squatting (illegally occupying) in a house in a new council development called Kinnard Park in the village of Caledon in County Tyrone. The house had been allocated by Dungannon Rural District Council to a 19-year-old unmarried Protestant woman, Emily Beattie, who was the secretary of a local Unionist politician.[2] All 14 houses in the new council development had been allocated to Protestants.[3] The protesters were evicted by officers of the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC), one of whom was Emily Beattie's brother. The next day the annual conference of the Nationalist Party unanimously approved of the protest action by Austin Currie in Caledon.[4] This was one of the catalysts of the civil rights movement in Northern Ireland.[3]

In 1999, Currie spoke in the Irish Parliament on the effect of partition 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 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."[5]

He became an active member in the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association. In 1970, he was a founder of the group that established the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP). From 1973 to 1974, Currie was a member of the Northern Ireland Assembly. In 1974, he became chief whip of the SDLP. That same year he became Minister for Housing, Local Government and Planning in the Northern Ireland Executive.

He contested the 1979 United Kingdom general election and 1986 by-election in the Fermanagh and South Tyrone seat. He also was elected to the Northern Ireland Assembly in 1982 for the same seat.

By 1989, Currie had decided to move south, and at the general election of that year he was elected as a Fine Gael Teachta Dála for the Dublin West constituency.[6][7]

In 1990, after much procrastination, Fine Gael nominated him as a candidate at the presidential election. He finished a distant third in the election after Mary Robinson and Brian Lenihan. However, his transfers flowed overwhelmingly to Robinson, helping Robinson overtake Lenihan and make her Ireland's first female President.

In the Rainbow Coalition between 1994 and 1997, he became Minister of State at the Departments of Education, Justice and Health. At the 2002 general election he lost his seat in Dáil Éireann when he failed to be elected in Dublin Mid-West. He immediately announced his retirement from politics.

He currently resides in County Kildare. He occasionally lectures and gives talks on issues relating to The Troubles.[8] Following the deaths of Seamus Mallon and John Hume in January and August 2020 respectively, he became the last-surviving senior founder of the SDLP.