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Joseph Austin Currie (11 October 1939 – 9 November 2021) was an Irish politician who served as a Minister of State with responsibility for Children's Rights from 1994 to 1997. He served as a Teachta Dála (TD) for the Dublin West constituency from 1989 to 2002, representing Fine Gael, and as a Member of the Parliament of Northern Ireland (MP) for East Tyrone from 1964 to 1972, representing the Nationalist Party and later the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP).
In 1964 he was elected in a by-election as a Nationalist MP for East Tyrone in the 10th House of Commons of the Parliament of Northern Ireland, following the death of the sitting Nationalist MP, Joe Stewart. He retained he seat in both the general election to the 11th House of Commons in November 1965 and the 12th House of Commons in February 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 formally abolished in July 1973.
He contested the 1979 United Kingdom general election and 1986 by-election in the Fermanagh and South Tyrone seat, but was unsuccessful on both attempts. Currie also was elected to the Northern 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 UK Secretary 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 the 1985 Anglo Irish Agreement.
In his 2004 autobiography All 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 then Minister for Justice
At the 2002 general election Currie contested the new constituency of Dublin 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 the Disappeared during the Troubles. Currie and his wife and family were personal friends of the family of one of the Disappeared, Columba McVeigh, from Donaghmore, County Tyrone. His daughter Emer Currie was elected in his former constituency of Dublin West at the 2024 general election.
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 the B-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. 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. 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. 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 in Dáil Éireann on the impact of partition of Ireland upon the Nationalist community in Northern Ireland, Currie said in 1999:
Austin Currie resided in County Kildare. He occasionally lectured and gave talks on issues relating to The Troubles, and for causes he believed in, such as justice for the families of the Disappeared during the Troubles.
Following the deaths of Seamus Mallon and John 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 in Derrymullen, County Kildare. 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.
His brother, Vincent, served as a SDLP member of Dungannon and South Tyrone Borough Council from 1985 to 2011.
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