Tributes pour in for ‘true democrat’ Fitt

GLOWING tributes have been paid to Gerry Fitt, the first leader of the SDLP, who died yesterday at the age of 79 following a long period of illness.

He was hailed across the political divide as a courageous politician who denounced all terrorism.

President Mary McAleese said Lord Fitt had made an enormous contribution to Northern Ireland politics and would be sadly missed.

“He was a committed lifelong socialist and a Belfast man through and through,” she said.

Taoiseach Bertie Ahern said the peer provided leadership to constitutional nationalists “through turbulent times” at the height of the Troubles.

“He had a deep-seated commitment to equality and basic fair play that stemmed from his strong socialist beliefs,” Mr Ahern said. “Above all he abhorred sectarianism and violence.”

The Northern Secretary, Peter Hain, said Lord Fitt was “a true democrat, grounded in his working class roots” who had “always championed the rights of the most vulnerable in society and often at great personal cost to himself and family”.

The current SDLP leader, Mark Durkan, said Lord Fitt would be remembered for forcing the British government to acknowledge discrimination against Catholics in the North.

“He was instrumental in founding the SDLP on the principles of non-violence, partnership and equality and in bringing about the Sunningdale Agreement, with its core features of power-sharing, a strong all-Ireland dimension and human rights,” Mr Durkan said. “The tragedy for him and everyone else was that Sunningdale was opposed and brought down by intransigent unionism and violent republicanism - the same people who now claim they are for the principles that were at its core.”

Both Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams and DUP leader Ian Paisley extended their sympathies to the Fitt family, as did Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny.

Labour leader Pat Rabbitte said Lord Fitt had been one of the most important figures in Irish politics during the last 50 years.

A fierce critic of the IRA, Gerry Fitt was a former Merchant Navy seaman who came to prominence in the 1960s as a leading light in the civil rights movement.

He was a founder member of the SDLP in 1970 with civil rights and nationalist leaders like John Hume, Ivan Cooper, Austin Currie and Paddy Devlin, and became its first leader.

In 1974, he served as deputy chief executive in Northern Ireland’s first ever power-sharing government along with the Ulster Unionists led by Brian Faulkner and members of the cross-community Alliance Party.

The administration, formed out of Sunningdale, collapsed after just five months, however.

In 1979, he quit the SDLP after the party turned down the British government’s offer of talks on the future of the North because the agenda did not contain an Irish dimension.

In 1983, he lost the West Belfast seat in the House of Commons after 17 years to Gerry Adams.

Later that year, he was made a lifelong peer. His Belfast home was later burnt down by republicans.