Editing Austin Currie (section)

====Co-founding the SDLP====
In 1970, he was a founder of the group that established the [[Social Democratic and Labour Party]] (SDLP). From 1973 to 1974, Currie was elected as an SDLP member of the short-lived devolved [[Northern Ireland Assembly (1973)|Northern Ireland Assembly]]. In 1974 he became chief whip of the SDLP, and in the same year became Minister for Housing, Local Government and Planning in the power-sharing [[Executive of the 1974 Northern Ireland Assembly|Northern Ireland Executive]]. The Assembly and Executive collapsed on 28 May 1974, after opposition from within the [[Ulster Unionist Party|UUP]] and the [[Ulster Workers' Council strike]]. This led to the imposition of direct rule of Northern Ireland from London.

He contested the [[1979 United Kingdom general election in Northern Ireland|1979 United Kingdom general election]] and [[1986 Fermanagh and South Tyrone by-election|1986 by-election]] in the [[Fermanagh and South Tyrone (UK Parliament constituency)|Fermanagh and South Tyrone]] seat, but was unsuccessful on both attempts. Currie also was elected to the [[Northern Ireland Assembly, 1982|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 [[Anglo-Irish Agreement|1985 Anglo Irish Agreement]].