Austin Currie

Joseph Austin Currie (born 11 October 1939) is a former Irish 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 for East Tyrone from 1964 to 1972.

Contents

• SYND 3 3 72 AUSTIN CURRIE AND POLITICIAL DETAINEE FRANCIS MCGIGGIN GIVE PRESS CONFERENCE AT THE IR
• SYND 17 11 72 INTERVIEW WITH MRS ANITA CURRIE WHO WAS ATTACKED BY TWO ARMED TERRORISTS
• Reading
• References

Currie was born in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland into a large 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 in Caledon, 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. All 14 houses in the new council development had been allocated to Protestants. 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. This was one of the catalysts of the civil rights movement in Northern Ireland.

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 TD for the Dublin West constituency.

In 1990, after much procrastination, Fine Gael nominated him as a candidate at the presidential election. He came third in the election after Mary Robinson and Brian Lenihan. 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, where he trains greyhounds. He occasionally lectures and gives talks on issues relating to The Troubles.